The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

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Archive/File: imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-22/tgmwc-22-209.04
Last-Modified: 2001/01/10

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Do you want to say anything more,
Dr. Boehm, before the Tribunal decides?

DR. BOEHM: Yes, Mr. President. Naturally, I have no
intention whatever of misusing the Tribunal, as the
prosecution has just suggested. But the prosecution has on
more than one occasion asserted - and this is shown in the
records of 18th December (afternoon session) and 19th
December (morning session) - that the SA was a uniform
whole, and was also united in its aims, and it is my
contention that this affidavit is evidence to the contrary.
It is also wrong to say that the man's testimony is not
trustworthy. The representatives of the prosecution have
known the contents of this affidavit ever since it was
discussed before the Commission, they have all known the
name of this man and of his residence in Germany, and if
there had been any doubts about the credibility of this man,
then they could have been brought up today, but that was not
done. The simple statement that one cannot believe him is no
reason for requesting that his affidavit be rejected.

Since I am still of the opinion that such a large number of
people with different political views would disorganise and
nullify the common, uniform aims of the SA, I must insist
that this affidavit be admitted.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal thinks the decision of the
learned Commissioner was correct, and the document will be
rejected, for that reason, and on the grounds that it is
irrelevant and the deponent has not stated any grounds for
his knowledge. The document is rejected therefore.

DR. BOEHM: Mr. President, I should like to clear up one more
question. I was not able to deal with all the evidence
contained in my document books, in view of the short time at
my disposal. I should therefore like to know whether the
judgement will consider the factual and legal aspects of all
the documents in my document book; for otherwise only a part
of the material which I regard as important would be taken
into consideration. I would like to request, therefore, that
all the material which I have submitted be taken into
consideration. If I had dealt with all the documents, my
evidence would have taken about six hours, and since that
was impossible, I should like to be sure that all my
documents will be considered in the judgement of the
Tribunal.

THE PRESIDENT: Perhaps we had better hear you, Dr. Boehm,
about these affidavits which have been objected to by the
Soviet Prosecutor - 85, 86 - beginning with 82 - 82, 85, 86,
87 and 132. I take it that the Commissioner accepted these
affidavits. Have you got the numbers? ... Have you got the
numbers?

DR. BOEHM: Mr. President, all the documents and affidavits
which I discussed; during the session today were dealt with
before the Commission.

COLONEL POKROVSKY: I beg your pardon, Mr. President.
Evidently there has been a misunderstanding in the
translation. I mentioned Nos. 85, 286, 287 and 132. These
documents are not written statements and, accordingly, were
not submitted to the Commission. The last number I gave was
82. This document was mentioned today for the first time.

THE PRESIDENT: What are they, are they affidavits or what
are they?

COLONEL POKROVSKY: They are documents, my Lord; with the
exception of 82. Numbers 85, 286, 287, 132 are various
documents.

THE PRESIDENT: Wait a minute, Colonel Pokrovsky, the numbers
are not coming through accurately in the translation. What
are the numbers? Read them slowly, please.

                                                   [Page 15]

COLONEL POKROVSKY: 85 ...

THE PRESIDENT: 85 did you say? It just now came through as
285, you mean 85?

COLONEL POKROVSKY: 85. I keep repeating - 85.

Then 286, 287, and 132 - these are documents. The last
number is 82, which is an affidavit.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.

Now, Dr. Boehm, do you want to say anything about this?

COLONEL POKROVSKY: I beg your pardon, my Lord. On our copy I
gave the number of a document incorrectly. Would you correct
No. 85 to 285. So the numbers are 285, 286, and 287. We have
just submitted a list of these documents to the Secretary of
the Tribunal.

DR. BOEHM: Mr. President ...

THE PRESIDENT: One moment, Doctor Boehm.

The Tribunal will consider the objections on these
documents.

And, Dr. Boehm, I ought to give you the opportunity of
saying what you wish about these documents.

DR. BOEHM: First of all, I want to defend myself against the
charge that I did not discuss these documents with the
prosecution. There is not one document in my document book
which I have not discussed with Mr. Griffith-Jones, and no
other documents have been added to the book. The documents
objected to now were included in the document book in
agreement with Mr. Griffith-Jones. Documents 285, 286, and
287 are extracts from findings of the State Tribunal for the
Protection of the Republic, and of the Supreme Reich Court.
Their contents are known to the Tribunal, they are in
evidence. We are not dealing here with the attitude taken by
any particular side with regard to the activities of the
Communists during the period under discussion, but with
facts which have been established from a report made by the
police headquarters at Stuttgart and based on a literal
quotation from the verdicts delivered on the matters in
question.

My Document 132 is a photostatic copy of the Deutsche
Tageszeitung with a detailed Communist plan of operations
for a proposed Putsch in Berlin. These plans are reproduced
here, they are commented upon, and they show that in the
Germany of that time it was necessary to create an
organisation capable of giving protection against such
intentions. It is for this reason only that Document 132 was
included in my document book.

Affidavit 82 is, I believe, one of the last affidavits; it
was also discussed with Mr. Griffith Jones ... with Mr.
Marreco, and was admitted by the Commission.

I think that the objections raised today in this respect are
somewhat belated.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Boehm, the Tribunal will take into
consideration the matter of these documents and will let you
know their decision.

DR. BOEHM: Very well, Mr. President. I have nothing further
to say.

THE PRESIDENT: Very well.

LT.-COLONEL GRIFFITH-JONES: My Lord, I have these few
documents to put in in rebuttal. My Lord, first I have a
document to which Sir David referred in his cross-
examination of Guettner the other day, which was not
formally put in. It is D-972, which becomes Exhibit GB 618.

My Lord, secondly I have a document to put in in rebuttal of
a document contained in the SA Defence Book, SA No. 156,
which was a decree from the Munich University Department to
the SA, which, on the face of it, appears to say that
membership of the SA was compulsory for all students.

My Lord, I have another document which is very similar in
character, and based upon the same order of the Supreme SA
Command, which was issued by

                                                   [Page 16]

the SA University Department for Cologne. It is dated two
days before the Munich Decree which Dr. Boehm put in. I
think you have been given copies of both ... translation of
both, for your convenience. It will be dealt with later. I
would only at the moment draw your attention to Paragraph 3
of each document.

My Lord, taking, if I may, the Munich Decree - that is to
say, the SA document -Paragraph 3 reads:

  "According to the decree of 7th February, 1934, SA
  Service (SS Service) is compulsory for all German
  students. In accordance with the decree of the Supreme SA
  Leadership, F 6914, of 27th March, 1934, the ban on
  taking on newly matriculated students is raised in the
  period from 25th April to 5th May. All newly matriculated
  students are therefore bound to join the SA. They have to
  report at the latest on the 5th May, 1934, to the local
  offices."

Now, if I might just refer the Tribunal to the similar
paragraph in the order issued by the Cologne SA University
Department, one sees, at least, that that was not common to
all universities. The Tribunal will see that it starts in
the same way -

  "According to the decree of 7th February, 1934" - the
  same decree - "SA service is compulsory for all German
  students."

My submission is that that SA service referred to there and
in the Munich Decree is not membership in the SA, but a
course of training run by the SA. If one might draw a
parallel, it is practically the same as what we know in
England as the Officers' Training Corps in the public
schools.

And then you see, the remainder of the paragraph is
considerably different - "In accordance with the decree of
the Supreme SA leadership" -  and it quotes the same decree
- "the ban on taking on newly matriculated students is
raised." In the period - the same period - "of the 25th of
April to the 5th of May - every student is thereby offered
the possibility of joining the SA. The SA service is
compulsory, but the joining of the SA, becoming a member of
it, is left purely to the student himself. He simply is
offered the possibility of joining."

My Lord, the matter will be lodged by Sir David in his final
address to the Tribunal, and I can leave it for a moment by
drawing your attention to these two paragraphs. That
document will be Exhibit GB 619. The Munich Decree, is, of
course, SA 156, and I have a number of short affidavits to
put in in rebuttal of the many thousands which have been
submitted by the defence.

Perhaps first, I might draw the Tribunal's attention to
those two which Dr. Boehm has asked to be submitted. First
of all, to the affidavit of Dr. Stapff, which is D-946, and
I might mention that the only reason that these two
affidavits were not going to be submitted by the prosecution
is because they are not actually in the form of affidavits,
but a declaration. Some error was made in obtaining them,
and they do not show on the face of them that they are
affidavits.

THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Griffith-Jones, have we not already
admitted them? Sir David said that he did not object to
their admission.

LT.-COLONEL GRIFFITH-JONES: I was only going to draw the
Tribunal's attention to the one passage, if I might. I
think, taking D-946, the second paragraph is the paragraph
from which Dr. Boehm probably hopes to receive some
assistance. I would draw the Tribunal's attention to the
last paragraph which deals with the SS. The remainder of the
document describes the appalling atrocities which were
happening in Dachau in and around the year 1934. In fact,
the last paragraph particularly, "As far as the SS proper is
concerned - in contrast to the Waffen SS, the conditions of
which I am not in a position to judge - the pretext of
compulsory membership cannot be credited in my opinion."

And then he goes on to explain why he thinks so. My Lord, I
have -

THE PRESIDENT: This is SA 91 or 92, is it not?

LT.-COLONEL GRIFFITH-JONES: 91. I had forgotten that they
had been given. And the second one is the affidavit of Dr.
Schuhmacher, D-947, which

                                                   [Page 17]

will be handed up to the Tribunal, SA 92. I think the second
half of Paragraph No. 1 is probably the paragraph to which
Dr. Boehm referred. "That voluntary membership remained
customary extensively after 1934," - he is dealing now with
the SA and the SS. "In a great number of cases membership
resulted also from direct or indirect pressure or was the
result of personal wrong speculations." And then he says
that that is so particularly in the case of the Stahlhelm,
and that the Stahlhelm consisted of a number of persons who
were not National Socialists.

My Lord, I would draw the Tribunal's attention particularly
to the last paragraph, No. 4, of that affidavit which deals
with Blockleiter and Zellenleiter. They "were the foundation
for the whole system of terrorism, including the activity of
the Gestapo."

DR. SERVATIUS: Mr. President, this document which is being
introduced is directed against the Political Leaders, and I
object to its use, but for a reason different from the one
which has so far been mentioned. I have received a number of
copies of these affidavits, and they are the outcome of a
general inquiry which has been made. Only some of the
answers to this inquiry are contained in the document, and
it is my contention that if the result of such an inquiry is
utilised at all, then all answers available should be
submitted. I think that if, say, one hundred questionnaires
were issued, then there must be material for the defence of
the Political Leaders in those answers which the prosecution
has not submitted. I request, therefore, that if the
document is admitted, all the results of the inquiry be
submitted. We can then obtain a true picture, which might be
more useful to me than the testimony of the members of my
organisation, because the people who have deposed those
important affidavits are opponents of National Socialism,
and because I must assume that favourable arguments, which
might be very valuable as part of a general picture, are
contained in those affidavits which have not been submitted.

THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Griffith-Jones, the Tribunal does not
think it is right at this stage of the trial to allow this
document to be put in against the Political Leaders, and
therefore the document will have to be excluded altogether.

LT.-COLONEL GRIFFITH-JONES: My Lord, if that is so, then
that, of course, will apply to the other eight or nine
affidavits that the prosecution has got. These affidavits
were obtained to rebut the vast mass of material which has
been put in in the form of affidavits by all those
organisations. In actual fact, I can state that there were
no affidavits other than the ones that I am proposing to put
before the Tribunal, and these two which we were not
intending to put, because, as I say, they were not in the
form of an affidavit; but there are no other affidavits that
we have obtained and they - all of them, or most of them, -
deal with one or more or all the organisations. They are put
in simply in rebuttal of the mass of material which has been
presented to the Tribunal on behalf of the defence of those
organisations. And, if I might say so -

THE PRESIDENT: I think you had better offer those so that we
may see them. We have seen this one, and we know, of course,
from what you have told us that it is one which the
prosecution had before and did not propose to offer, but the
others may be different.

LT.-COLONEL GRIFFITH-JONES: My Lord, they are all in very
much the same form, and of course, defence counsel have had
copies of them now for nearly a fortnight.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, you had better offer them to us and we
can look at them.

LT-COLONEL GRIFFITH-JONES: And without referring the
Tribunal to any particular passage?

                                                   [Page 18]

THE PRESIDENT: No, I think you had better offer them and
refer to the passages, and we will see whether we will admit
them.

LT.-COLONEL GRIFFITH-JONES: If your Lordship pleases.

DR. SERVATIUS: Mr. President, may I add one remark? These
affidavits all originate from persons who are today holding
high government offices. They are probably the most
important of all the affidavits which have so far been
submitted, and I shall now have no opportunity to
investigate how they may be refuted in detail. I should like
to be in a position to do so, but that, of course, is no
longer possible at this stage. Moreover, I did not even know
whether these affidavits would be introduced or not, and I
have now completed my evidence and am ready with my final
speech.

LT.-COLONEL GRIFFITH-JONES: My Lord, might I say this? Sir
David, of course, asked the Tribunal's permission to put
these in some days ago, the Tribunal will remember.  Ever
since then defence counsel have had an opportunity of
investigating and seeing these documents and Dr. Servatius
says that he has no - he had no opportunity to investigate,
whatever he means by that, these documents. The prosecution
has had no kind of opportunity to investigate the three
hundred thousand affidavits that have been put in on behalf
of the defence.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal considers that they had better
look at them and see.

DR. SERVATIUS: Mr. President, may I draw your attention to a
point of formality? I have not got the documents at hand at
the moment, but as far as I was able to see, they were
deposed after the 7th of May, that was the key date and they
do not comply with the formalities. They should have been
certified before an officer, but some of them were only
certified before a notary; so that according to the rules of
the Tribunal which have been in force up to now, the would
have to be rejected. I myself have not been able to
introduce any statements which were not certified or sworn
before an officer.

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