Archive/File: imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-11/tgmwc-11-108.01
Last-Modified: 2000/01/13

                                                  [Page 347]

ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTH DAY

MONDAY, 15TH APRIL, 1946

THE MARSHALL: May it please the Tribunal: The report is made
that the defendant Ribbentrop is absent from this session of
the Court.

THE PRESIDENT: I will deal first of all with the documents
of the defendant Rosenberg.

The Tribunal rules that all the documents in Book 1, Volume
I and Volume II, should be denied, up to and including the
book by Hellpach - that is to say, Exhibits 1 to 6, and also
Exhibits 7E and Exhibit 8.

Secondly, the Tribunal rules that it will take judicial
notice of Exhibits 7 and 7A to 7D. But it rules that those
Exhibits, 7 to 7D, are not to be read at the present stage
but may be quoted by counsel in his final speech.

Thirdly, the Tribunal allows Books II and III; and;

Fourthly, the Tribunal rules that the defendant Rosenberg
shall be called first and any documents which have been
allowed may be put to him in the course of his examination.

That is all.

THE PRESIDENT: Now, Dr. Kauffmann.

DR. KAUFFMANN (counsel for defendant Kaltenbrunner): With
the agreement of the Tribunal, I now call the witness Hoess.

RUDOLF HOESS, a witness, took the stand and testified as
follows:

BY THE PRESIDENT:

Stand up. Will you state your name?

WITNESS: Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Hoess.

THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat this oath 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.)

THE PRESIDENT: Will you sit down?

DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. KAUFFMANN:

Q. Witness, your statements will have far-reaching
significance. You are perhaps the only one who can throw
some light upon certain hidden aspects, and who can tell
what people gave the order for the destruction of European
Jewry, and can further state how this order was carried out
and to what degree the execution was kept a secret.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Kauffmann, will you kindly put questions
to the witness?

DR. KAUFFMANN: Yes.

BY DR. KAUFFMANN:

Q. From 1940 to 1943, you were the commandant of the camp at
Auschwitz. Is that true?

A. Yes.

Q. And during that time, hundreds of thousands of human
beings were sent to their death there, Is that correct?

A. Yes.

Q. Is it true that you, yourself, have made no exact notes
regarding the figures of the number of those victims because
you were forbidden to make them?

                                                  [Page 348]

A. Yes, that is correct.

Q. Is it furthermore correct that only one man, by the name
of Eichmann, recorded the figures, the man who had the task
of organising and assembling these people?

A. Yes.

Q. Is it furthermore true that Eichmann stated to you that
in Auschwitz a sum total of more than two million Jews had
been destroyed?

A. Yes.

Q. Men, women and children?

A. Yes.

Q. You were a participant in the World War?

A. Yes.

Q. And then in 1922, you entered the Party?

A. Yes.

Q. Were you a member of the S.S.?

A. Since 1934.

Q. Is it true that you, in the year 1924, were sentenced to
a lengthy detention because you participated in a so-called
political murder (Fememord)?

A. Yes.

Q. And then at the end of 1934, you went to the
concentration camp of Dachau?

A. Yes.

Q. What task did you receive?

A. At first, I was the leader of a block of prisoners
(Gefangenenblockfuehrer) and then I became report leader
(Rapportfuehrer) and at the end, the administrator of the
property of prisoners (Gefangeneneigentumsverwalter).

Q. And how long did you stay there?

A. Until 1938.

Q. What job did you have from 1938 on and where were you
then?

A. In 1938, I went to the concentration camp at
Sachsenhausen where, to begin with, I was adjutant of the
commandant and later on I became the head of the protective-
custody camp.

Q. When were you commandant at Auschwitz?

A. I was commandant at Auschwitz from May, 1940, until 1st
December, 1943.

Q. What was the highest number of internees ever held at one
time at Auschwitz?

A. The highest number of internees held at one time at
Auschwitz was about 140,000 men and women.

Q. Is it true that in 1941, you were ordered to Berlin to
see Himmler? Please, state briefly what was discussed.

A. Yes. In the summer of 1941, I was summoned to Berlin to
Reichsfuehrer S.S. Himmler to receive personal orders. He
told me something to the effect - I don't remember the exact
words - that the Fuehrer had given the order for a definite
solution of the Jewish question. We, the S.S., must carry
out that order. If it was not carried out now then the Jews
would later on destroy the German people. We had chosen
Auschwitz because of its easy access by rail and also
because the extensive site could readily be isolated.

Q. During that conference, did Himmler tell you that this
planned action had to be treated as a "Secret Reich Matter"?
(Geheime Reichssache).

A. Yes. He stressed that point. He told me not to say
anything about it to my immediate superior Gruppenffuehrer
Glucks. This conference only concerned the two of us and I
was to observe the strictest secrecy.

Q. What was the position held by Glucks?

A. Gruppenfuehrer Glucks was, so to speak, the Inspector of
Concentration Camps at that time and he was immediately
subordinate to the Reichsfuehrer.

Q. Does the expression "Secret Reich Matter" mean that no
one was permitted to make even the slightest allusion to
outsiders without endangering his own life?

                                                  [Page 349]

A. Yes, "Secret Reich Matter" means that no one was allowed
to speak about such matter with any person and that everyone
promised upon his life to observe the utmost secrecy.

Q. Did you happen to break that promise?

A. No, not until the end of 1942.

Q. Why do you mention that date? Did you talk to outsiders
after that date?

A. At the end of 1942 my wife's curiosity was aroused by
remarks made by the then Gauleiter of Upper Silesia
regarding happenings in my camp. She asked me whether this
was the truth and I admitted that it was. That was my only
breach of the promise I had given to the Reichsfuehrer.
Otherwise I have never talked about it to anyone else.

Q. When did you meet Eichmann?

A. I met Eichmann about four weeks after having received
that order from the Reichsfuehrer. Eichmann came to
Auschwitz to discuss the details with me as to the carrying
out of the given order. As the Reichsfuehrer had told me
during our discussion, he had instructed Eichmann to discuss
the carrying out of the order with me and I was to receive
all further instructions from him.

Q. Will you briefly tell whether it is correct that the camp
of Auschwitz was completely isolated, and describe the
measures taken to insure the secrecy of the carrying out of
the task given to you?

A. The camp Auschwitz, as such was about three kilometres
from the town. About 20,000 acres of the surrounding country
had been cleared of all inhabitants, and the entire area
could only be entered by S.S. men or civilian employees who
had special passes. The actual compound called "Birkenau,"
where later on the extermination camp was constructed, was
situated two kilometres from the Auschwitz camp. The camp
installations themselves, that is to say, the provisional
installations used at first, were deep in the woods and
could from nowhere be detected by the eye. In addition to
that, this area had been declared a prohibited area and not
even members of the S.S. who did not have a special pass
could enter it. Thus it was impossible, as far as one could
judge, for anyone, except authorised persons, to enter that
area.

Q. And then the railway transports arrived. During what
period did these transports arrive and about how many
people, roughly, were in a transport?

A. During the whole period up until 1944, certain operations
were carried out at irregular intervals in the different
countries, so that one cannot speak of a continuous flow of
incoming transports. Each series of shipments lasted four to
six weeks. During those four to six weeks, two to three
trains, containing about two thousand persons each, arrived
daily. These trains were first of all shunted to a siding in
the Birkenau. region and the locomotives then went back. The
guards who had accompanied the transport had to leave the
area at once and the persons who had been brought in were
taken over by guards belonging to the camp.

They were there examined by two S.S. medical officers as to
their ability to work. The detainees capable of work at once
marched to Auschwitz or to the camp at Birkenau and those
incapable of work were at first taken to the provisional
installations, then later to the newly constructed
crematoria.

Q. During an interrogation I had with you the other day you
told me that about sixty men were designated to receive
these transports, and that these sixty persons too had been
bound to the same secrecy described before. Do you still
maintain that today?

A. Yes, these sixty men were always on hand to take the
detainees not capable of work to these provisional and,
later on, to the other installations. This group, consisting
of about ten leaders and sub-leaders, as well as doctors and
medical personnel, had repeatedly been told both in writing
and verbally that they were bound to strictest secrecy as to
all that went on in the camps.

Q. Were there any signs that might indicate to an outsider,
who saw these transports arrive, that people were being
destroyed or was that possibility so small

                                                  [Page 350]

because there was in Auschwitz an unusually large number of
incoming transports consisting of shipments of material and
so forth?

A. Yes, an observer who did not make notes exclusively for
that purpose could obtain no idea about that because, to
begin with, not only transports arrived which were destined
to be destroyed but other transports also arrived
continuously, containing new detainees who were used in the
camp. Furthermore, transports containing large numbers of
workers frequently left the camp. The trains themselves were
closed, that is to say, the doors of the freight cars were
closed so that it was not possible, from the outside, to see
the people being transported. In addition to that, up to one
hundred cars of materials, rations, etc., were daily brought
into the camp or continuously left the workshops of the
camp, in which war material was being made.

Q. And after the arrival of the transports did the victims
have to dispose of everything they had? Did they have to
undress completely; did they have to surrender their
valuables? Is that true?

A. Yes.

Q. And then they immediately went to their death?

A. Yes.

Q. I ask you, according to your knowledge, did these people
know what was in store for them?

A. The majority of them did not, for steps were taken to
keep them in doubt about it so that the suspicion would not
arise that they were to go to their death. For instance, all
doors and all walls bore inscriptions to the effect that
they were going to undergo a delousing operation or take a
shower. This was proclaimed in several languages to the
detainees by other detainees who had come in with earlier
transports and who were being used as auxiliary crews during
the whole action.

Q. And then, you told me the other day, that death from
gassing occurred within a period of three to fifteen
minutes. Is that correct?

A. Yes.

Q. You also told me that even before death definitely set in
the victims fell into a state of unconsciousness?

A. Yes. From what I was able to find out myself or from what
was told me by medical officers, the time necessary for the
arrival of unconsciousness or death varied according to the
temperature and the number of people present in the
chambers. Loss of consciousness took place after a few
seconds or minutes.

Q. Did you yourself ever sympathise with the victims,
thinking of your own family and children?

A. Yes.

Q How was it possible then for you to carry out these
actions?

A In spite of all the doubts which I had, the only one and
decisive argument was the strict order and the reason given
for it by the Reichsfuehrer Himmler.

Q. I ask you whether Himmler inspected the camp and
convinced himself that the order for annihilation was being
carried out?

A. Yes. Himmler visited the camp in 1942 and he watched in
detail one processing from beginning to end.

Q. Does the same apply to Eichmann?

A. Eichmann came repeatedly to Auschwitz and knew precisely
what was being done there.

Q. Did the defendant Kaltenbrunner ever inspect the camp?

A. No.

Q. Did you ever talk with Kaltenbrunner with reference to
your task?

A. No, never. I was with Obergruppenfuehrer Kaltenbrunner on
only one single occasion.

Q. When was that?

A. That was one day after his birthday in the year 1944.

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