Archive/File: imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-21/tgmwc-21-204.02
Last-Modified: 2000/12/03

BY SIR DAVID MAXWELL FYFE:

Q. Witness, you have seen that document from Lutze to
Rosenberg of 30th January, 1939?

A. Yes, I have got it here.

Q. And is that correct, that the Fuehrer had decreed,
shortly before that, that the pre-military and post-military
training should be assigned to the SA?

A. On 19th January, 1939, this was decreed by the Fuehrer,
but in practice this decree was never applied.

Q. I suppose you carried out the training which is contained
in these directives from 1934 to 1939, did you not?

A. Regarding these matters of which the SA is being accused
here, I shall have to speak in more detail, particularly as
the right of vindication has been expressly sanctioned by
the American Chief Prosecutor, Mr. Jackson, for the
organizations. Therefore, I shall have to come, in detail,
to the accusations made here -

Q. I do not think you need worry about -

A. and state my opinion -

Q. Just one moment -

A. I have not finished yet.

THE PRESIDENT: Do not argue, please; answer the question.

                                                  [Page 193]

BY SIR DAVID MAXWELL FYFE:

Q. Do you dispute that these directives that I have
mentioned all contained training in musketry, training in
the handling of arms, training in the use of terrain, that
is, the use of ground, camouflage, reports, methods of
attack, reconnaissance, and every one except the first - no,
all of them - training in the use of hand grenades and,
generally training in attack, in battle, in dealing with
attack by armoured troops, attacks by aeroplanes, in fact
that they all contained the first stages of military
training which every soldier has to go through before he is
qualified to be a soldier? And, witness, before you answer,
you may assume that 90 per cent of the male population of
this Court have gone through military training and they know
it from a practical point of view.

Are you saying that these training directives do not contain
the ordinary, initial stages of military training?

A. In the first place I do not deny it, and in the second
place, that is training which is handled by the military and
not by the SA. For instance, throwing of hand grenades, air
training, training in the use of arms, were things we never
handled. These questions cannot be answered with yes or no.
I must go into them in detail if I am to give a truthful and
exhaustive answer.

Q. Witness, what I want to know is this, and the Tribunal
will no doubt let you give your explanation. Are you telling
the Tribunal that these training directives were issued one
after the other for five years from 1934 to 1939 and that
that training was not carried into effect? Tell me. You can
answer that yes or no. Was that training carried into
effect?

A. We carried out training by sport and army exercises in
order to improve physical condition. I would have to see
these directives to be able to state whether we worked in
accordance with them or not.

Q. I do not propose to put them in detail. If Dr: Boehm
wants to -

THE PRESIDENT: What the Tribunal wishes to know with
reference to the document that they asked you to put to the
witness, was how the witness explains his answer yesterday
which I took down in these words, "Lutze did not write about
military training." That was the answer you gave yesterday
with reference to Document 3215-PS. Well, now, we have had
put before us a document from Lutze to the defendant
Rosenberg, which thanks Rosenberg for his congratulations
incidental to the Fuehrer's decree which assigns all pre-
military and post-military training to the SA. Why did you
say yesterday that Lutze did not write with reference to
military training?

THE WITNESS: Your Lordship, yesterday the matter in question
was a newspaper article regarding military training. That
article dealt with work the SA was carrying out and that was
work of purely military education. In the Fuehrer's decree,
if I remember rightly, it also says "the pre- and post-
military education," it may even say "training"; that I
cannot say with certainty, but what is meant is military
education. Later, during negotiations regarding the carrying
out of this decree which lasted until war broke out, this
conception of pre- and post-military training or education
was altered to "training or education outside the military
sphere," that is to say, what the military forces were doing
should not be done by the SA. They should merely prepare
everything. They should prepare the body and mind, so that
men who had gone through the school of the SA should become
physically fit, capable men, mentally prepared for military
service. That was the meaning and the purpose of the decree
and the inmost meaning of the so-called "SA Defence Badge."
An armed service was not intended in connection with that
training.

BY SIR DAVID MAXWELL FYFE:

Q. Are you saying that between the Fuehrer's decree of
January and the beginning of the war that there was no pre-
military training done?

When did you start it again?

                                                  [Page 194]

A. It was supposed to start with the discharge of the men
serving with the Army in 1939, in October or November. That
is when the decree was to come into force. The beginning of
the war prevented its becoming operative. That was mentioned
especially in an order by General von Brauchitsch in the
early days of November, and also in a letter from
Reichsleiter Bormann to the Chief of Staff, where it was
stated -

Q. Witness, I just want to get this clear. When do you say
it was to come into operation? Did, you say in October? When
was it due to start? When was this pre-military training due
to start in 1939? When?

A. This training was to start after the beginning of war -
in November or October, I am not quite sure about that.
Until then preparatory military work had been carried out as
well as one could.

Q. Just let us get this clear. Are you telling the Tribunal
it did not start?

A. I am telling the High Tribunal that the carrying out of
that decree was scheduled to start in the autumn of 1939

Q. Then why did you put such an extraordinary untruth in
your report of June, 1941, which your Lordship will find on
Page 118:
  
  "The pre-military training practised by the SA since the
  outbreak of war on a voluntary basis in the SA defence
  groups has been already explained in detail in reports 1
  and 2."

These are your first reports of the war regarding the
activity of the SA in the war. Then you go on to explain the
report including target practice, instruction and practice
in handling and cleaning rifles, as well as shooting on a
range in a field, and further, the throwing of hand grenades
under assumed combat conditions. Why did you put such an
enormous untruth in your report, if what you are telling the
Tribunal today is true that you never started it at all?

A. I neither told an untruth in that report, nor have I told
one now. May I ask if that report refers to the period of
the war. Have I understood you correctly, does it refer to
war time? Yes, I mentioned to your Lordship yesterday that
with the beginning of the war the SA had done everything to
increase Germany's armed strength. That was our duty as
patriots. We then paid the greatest attention to military
physical training, that is to say, no longer to ordinary
athletics and other physical training but particularly to
military exercises. But even that was no armed service. If
the cleaning of rifles is mentioned, it means we
demonstrated it to our men with our small calibre weapons.

Q. My Lord, the report is in. It includes radio training.
The pre-military training includes all men over 18 years of
age. Your Lordship has the documents to consider.

My Lord, the next group of documents which I have asked your
Lordship to consider relate to the fact that it was stated
before the Commission that the SA Mann, which is a part of
the evidence of the prosecution, was an unofficial
publication with a circulation of 200,000. That was said
before the Commission at Pages 212 and 213. If your Lordship
will be good enough to look first at Page III of Document
Book 16-B, your Lordship will find Document No. 4010-PS
which will become GB 613. I am sorry, it is Page 117 of the
German book.

THE PRESIDENT: And of ours?

SIR DAVID MAXWELL FYFE: My lord, it is Page III of your
Lordship's. That is a letter from the editor of the SA Mann
to the defendant Rosenberg. Your Lordships will see "Organ
of Supreme Leadership, SA of the NSDAP" on the letter
heading. It is sent to Rosenberg, and it asks him for an
article to commemorate their five years of independent
publication and eight years of publication as a supplement
to the Volkischer Beobachter. In the middle of the second
paragraph your Lordship will find the sentence, "A
subscribers' list of half a million clearly shows the
importance of the SA. That was on 13th of August, 1936.

                                                  [Page 195]

THE PRESIDENT: You said "the importance of the SA." It is
"the importance of the SA Mann."

SIR DAVID MAXWELL FYFE: Certainly, my Lord, I beg your
Lordship's pardon; "the importance of the SA Mann."

THE PRESIDENT: Read the first two lines.

SIR DAVID MAXWELL FYFE:

  "In a few weeks Der SA Mann, combat publication and
  official organ of supreme SA leadership, will look back
  upon an existence of respectively eight and five years."

My Lord, I am obliged.

Then, my Lord, on Page 110, Page 116 of the German document
book, there is a letter from the defendant Rosenberg's
staff: "Reichsleiter Rosenberg confirms, with his best
thanks, receipt of your letter of 13th August, and sends you
enclosed the preface asked for."

If your Lordship will turn back another page to 109, which
is Page 115 of the German document book - this becomes GB
614 - this is a letter from the editor again to the
defendant Rosenberg. Your Lordship will see on the letter-
heading this time:

"The Pressereferent of the Supreme Command of the SA, main
office of the editor of Der SA Mann." This, my Lord, is 21st
April, 1938. They have now gone to ten years. There again
they are asking defendant Rosenberg for an article on the
subject of the "Ideology and Combat paper" (Weltanschauung
and Kampfblatt) or something similar to it.

In the next paragraph:

  "I do hope that you will be agreeable to our wish, and I
  am convinced that especially a contribution from your pen
  will be greeted with particular enthusiasm by our 750,000
  subscribers."

Your Lordship will remember the evidence that this witness
gave that a few months after that, in 1939, the total
membership of the SA was 1,500,000, so Der SA Mann went to
one in every two.

My Lord, I have already referred the Tribunal to the
recommendation of the Chief of Staff Lutze in the training
directive D 918, of Der SA Mann and my Lord, as I told your
Lordship, the articles appear in Document 3050-PS, which is
US Exhibit 414. There is a long list of articles that are
contained in that document of a military nature, anti-
Semitic nature, anti-Church nature, all of which my friend
Colonel Storey put to the Tribunal. I do not intend to go
over it again.

Now, my Lord, the next document which I had asked your
Lordship to look at is one of the cases of the perversion of
the course of justice in the interests of the SA. My Lord,
it is Document D-923, which your Lordship will find on Page
22 of the Document Book 16-B; that becomes GB 615.

My Lord, it is a long document, but I will take it very
quickly and if there are any points, your Lordship, I will
be very willing to deal in detail with them. My Lord, the
German page is 22 also.

My Lord, that is a report that appears on the top of Page
22. There are five sections which are recapitulated in the
sixth. The first is a report of the Public Prosecution,
Provincial Court, Nuremberg-Furth, dated 21st August, 1933
regarding the beating to death of one Pflaumer by the SA.
Then, my Lord, there is a post-mortem report. There is a
report from the Public Prosecution that the police were
refusing to give evidence in the above case. "This might
endanger the well-being of the Reich."

As for the report from the Court of Appeal Public
Prosecutor: "The Police Directorate, Nuremberg-Furth, refuse
permission to police officials to break official secrecy."

                                                  [Page 196]

Number 5 rather naively states in the last sentence:

  "Police Directorate refuse permission to police officials
  to break official secrecy for the trial. They also need
  both accused (that is, the people who are accused of
  beating them to death) to guarantee the safety of the
  Party rally day."

Then, my Lord, the next document, 6, is a report from the
defendant Frank to the Minister of State for the Interior
and, my Lord, it shows that the man Pflaumer, a twenty-nine
year old married mechanic, was beaten up at a guardhouse in
August, 1933, and was then brought to the main police
station by the SA and died there.

And, my Lord, on Page 23, at the top, your Lordship will
see:

  "The Provincial Court doctor also reported that,
  according to his findings, Pflaumer was beaten to death
  in a most cruel and torturing way with blunt objects."

And two lines on, after dealing with the result of the
beating:

  "The conclusion had to be drawn that the perpetrators did
  not cause the injuries to the ill-treated man in self-
  defence."

And then apparently they say there is some question of
doubt, while your Lordship will see, by the evidence there
was no doubt that these people were concerned.

Then, my Lord, the next two paragraphs deal with political
pressure against proceedings and, my Lord, there then comes
in a somewhat similar case in Section II. I do not want to
complicate the matter. It is a separate case of three Jews
beaten up by the SS.

Now, my Lord, on Page 24, the defendant Frank says in
Section III:

  "The events described under I and II give me cause for
  great apprehension."

He goes on to say that people are still indulging in
brutality; that members of the SA - in the middle of the
next paragraph - "still allow themselves to indulge in the
inadmissible ill-treatment of opponents."

And then, at the beginning of the paragraph after that:

  "The events show further that unfortunately attempts are
  still being made to interfere with the legal course of
  justice."

Then the defendant draws the line of date of the amnesty.
Then at the beginning of the next paragraph he says:

  "Especially in the case of Pflaumer, I consider it an
  urgent necessity, in the interest of safeguarding the
  authority of the State and the good name of justice and
  the police, to avoid even the slightest suggestion that
  the police are shielding this crime."

Then he suggests - the last words on that page:

  "The misgivings of the chief of the political department
  of the Nuremberg-Furth Police Directorate can, however,
  be taken into consideration by the exclusion of the
  public during the trial. The carrying out of a trial can
  further hardly be prevented by the refusal to allow
  testimony. For, in view of the confession of the accused
  Korn and Stark to date, together with the results of the
  judicial autopsy, the trial will have to be instituted
  against them and carried out under any circumstances."

Now, that goes on and you will see that he has requested and
the Public Prosecution are requesting the Prime Minister to
bring up the matter for discussion at the next meeting of
the Council of Ministers, and to invite Roehm and Himmler.
Then that is done and, my Lord, there is then a significant
inquiry on Page 26 from Bormann, asking how the matter is
going on and, my Lord, then on Page 27, Page 27 of the
German version too, Document 13 (it is one of the inserts on
Page 27):

  "The Public Prosecution, Provincial Court, Nuremberg-
  Furth report to Court of Appeal Public Prosecutor,
  Nuremberg, that the preliminary investigation ended on
  19th March, 1934. The Police Directorate, Nuremberg-
  Furth, intend to apply for the quashing of the criminal
  proceedings."

                                                  [Page 197]

Then, my Lord, in Document 14 that matter is discussed and,
my Lord, that is on Pages 27 and 28. Then at the bottom of
Page 28, 28 in the German version, you will find a section
"Certificate of Opinion." My Lord, that says:

  "On mature consideration, I assent to the suggestion of
  the Police Directorate.
  
  Firstly it should be considered whether the proceedings
  could not be brought to an end by the release of the
  accused. According to the result of the preliminary
  investigation alone, Korn ought to be accused in any case
  according to what is mentioned above, while only the
  accused Stark could be released from criminal
  proceedings. But, in consequence, an investigation or an
  extension of the investigation against the persons who
  took part in this matter (accomplices, possible
  instigators and helpers) and finally also those who
  favoured the culprits would, according to-such and such a
  paragraph-be occasioned.
  
  But if the proceedings were to be carried out in this
  manner, it would be unavoidable, even if the public is to
  be excluded from the actual trial, that the public would
  get to know about the events. But this would seriously
  harm and shake the reputation of the SA, the Party, the
  police and even the National Socialist State."

If your Lordship would look at the bottom of Page 29, last
paragraph

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