The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Shofar FTP Archive File: imt//tgmwc/tgmwc-06/tgmwc-06-56.13


Archive/File: imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-06/tgmwc-06-56.13
Last-Modified: 1997/11/20
     
Your Honors, the testimonies of Stolze, Bentivegny, and Pieckenbrock,
which I have presented in evidence, disclose the working methods of
the German Intelligence Service in the preparation and execution of
Case "Barbarossa."

I shall not detain the Tribunal any further with these questions. But
before proceeding to a further presentation, I should like to point
out that the department of the defendant Kaltenbrunner was likewise
interested in Intelligence work. I shall limit myself to submitting
one document which is typical of the manner in which the Hitlerites,
by exploiting their connections, created difficulties in Iran, through
which country, as was known, the supply routes passed for the delivery
to the U.S.S.R. of motor vehicles and war material of the most varied
description.

The document, which I intend to submit to the Tribunal as Exhibit USSR
178, was taken by us from the German Foreign Office archives, which
fell into the hands of advance units of the Red Army. This document is
the defendant Kaltenbrunner's letter to the defendant Ribbentrop. The
letter is typed on a sheet of notepaper with the letterhead of the
Chief of the Security Police and S.D. In the document book before you,
you will find this document on Page 52. I read into the record the
underlined extracts from this letter:

                                                     "28th July, 1943.
                                                                      
     Secret.
     
     "To the Foreign Minister Herr von Ribbentrop,
     
          Berlin
          
          Elections to the Iranian Parliament.
          
     Most honorable Herr Minister,
     
     We have made direct contact with Iran and have received
     information on the possibilities of exercising German influence
     on the course of the imminent Iranian Parliamentary elections."
     
And a few lines further on it is stated:

     "In order to exercise a decisive influence on the results of the
     elections, bribery is necessary.
     
     For Teheran, 400,000 tomans, and for the rest of Iran at least
     600,000 tomans are necessary.
     
     It should be noted that nationally oriented Iranian circles
     expect the intervention of Germany.
     
     I beg you to inform me whether it is possible to obtain 1,000,000
     tomans from the Foreign Office. This money can be sent with the
     people whom we are sending there by aeroplane.
     
                              Heil Hitler!
                                   Yours devotedly, Kaltenbrunner,
                                        S.S. Obergruppenfuehrer."
                                        
This document will help you to form an idea of the range of questions
which interested the Reich Foreign Minister.

Such a peculiar activity of the Foreign Office was not in the nature
of a chance episode.

In the course of time, the collaboration of the German Foreign Office
and of the Reich Fuehrer S.S. waxed in strength and developed more and
more. As a result, a very curious document appeared, which might be
considered as an agreement between Himmler and Ribbentrop on the
organisation of Intelligence work.

                                                            [Page 254]
                                                                      
I submit this document as Exhibit USSR 120, and request the Tribunal
to accept it as documentary evidence. This document is on Page 53 and
55 of the document book before you. The text of this agreement will be
read into the record with a few remarks. The text of the agreement
reads:

     "By the order dated 12th February, 1944, the Fuehrer has
     entrusted the Reich Fuehrer S.S. with the creation of a unified
     German Secret Intelligence Service. The Secret Intelligence
     Service has as its purpose, so far as foreign countries are
     concerned, the procuring of information in political, military,
     economic and technical spheres for the Reich. In addition, the
     Fuehrer has established that the direction of the Intelligence
     Service, insofar as foreign countries are concerned, must be
     conducted in agreement with the Foreign Minister. In this
     connection, the following agreement between the Reich Foreign
     Minister and the Reichsfuehrer S.S. was arrived at:
     
     (1) The Secret Intelligence Service of the Reichsfuehrer S.S.
     represents an important instrument for obtaining information in
     the sphere of foreign politics, and this instrument is placed at
     the disposal of the Foreign Minister. The first condition for
     this is close, comradely, and loyal co-operation between the
     Foreign Office and the Headquarters of the Reich Security
     Service. The collection of information on foreign politics by the
     Diplomatic Service is not affected by this.

     (2) The Foreign Office places at the disposal of the Headquarters
     of the Reich Security Service the information on the situation in
     the field of foreign politics necessary for the conduct of the
     Intelligence Service, and the directive regarding German foreign
     policy. It hands over to the Headquarters of the Reich Security
     Service its Intelligence and other tasks in the sphere of foreign
     policy, which are to be performed by the organs of the Secret
     Intelligence Service.
     
     (3) Intelligence material in the field of foreign politics,
     obtained by the Secret Intelligence Service, is placed---"

THE PRESIDENT: Wouldn't it be a sufficient summary of this document
with which you are dealing to say that it is a document signed by
Himmler and Ribbentrop and that it shows that there was a unification
of the German Secret Intelligence Service. The details of that
unification are not really a matter which very much concerns this
Tribunal, and therefore, as we are directed by the Charter to be as
expeditious as possible, it is not necessary to read all the details
of this unification.

MAJOR-GENERAL ZORYA: I summarise this document and would add that this
agreement, signed by Himmler and Ribbentrop, created such a state of
affairs that it became extremely difficult to dmake head or tail of
prevailing conditions in Fascist Germany or to distinguish where
Himmler's Gestapo service ended and the Foreign Office activities of
the defendant Ribbentrop began.

I shall now, with the permission of the Tribunal, proceed to the
presentation of the next document. The document which I have just read
(I am referring to the Himmler-Ribbentrop agreement concerning the
conduct of intelligence work abroad) also justifies the assumption
that under the name of German diplomatic representation in such
countries which maintained normal diplomatic relations with Germany, a
whole intelligence network of the Gestapo was actively functioning.

If this summary, in the opinion of the Tribunal, corresponds to the
contents of the document, I shall proceed to the following section of
the report -- "The satellites of Germany."

When  Case "Barbarossa" was read into the record in Court, there was
one part of the entire case which, in my opinion, received
comparatively little

                                                            [Page 255]
                                                                      
attention. I refer to Part 2 of  Case "Barbarossa" (Document  446-PS).
This part bears the name of "Presumed Allies and Their Tasks."


Home ·  Site Map ·  What's New? ·  Search Nizkor

© The Nizkor Project, 1991-2012

This site is intended for educational purposes to teach about the Holocaust and to combat hatred. Any statements or excerpts found on this site are for educational purposes only.

As part of these educational purposes, Nizkor may include on this website materials, such as excerpts from the writings of racists and antisemites. Far from approving these writings, Nizkor condemns them and provides them so that its readers can learn the nature and extent of hate and antisemitic discourse. Nizkor urges the readers of these pages to condemn racist and hate speech in all of its forms and manifestations.