Archive/File: imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-12/tgmwc-12-112.08
Last-Modified: 2000/01/23

Q. The prosecution has also submitted to you another
exhibit, USSR 335, the Court-martial Decree, dated October,
1943. I now ask you what the security situation was like in
the Government General at that time, and would it have been
possible at all at that time to control the situation with
normal criminal procedure?

THE PRESIDENT: Doctor Seidl, hasn't that already been dealt
with very fully in his examination in chief?

DR. SEIDL: I forgo having this question answered again. Now
one last question, which refers to art treasures.

Q. Is it correct that a portion of the art treasures which
were found in the upper Silesian region were taken to the
last official residence of the Governor General at Neuhaus,
to be safeguarded, and that the Governor General gave you
instructions to prepare a list of these articles and send it
to Reich Minister Lammers?

A. The Governor General dictated a report to Reich Minister
Lammers about the transfer of twenty of the most outstanding
art treasures from the property of the Polish State. I was
present when it was dictated and I took that report
personally to State Secretary Kritzinger in Berlin. It was
stated therein that these art treasures, so as to save them
from the Russians, had been

                                                  [Page 173]

taken from Seichau, or whatever the place is called, to
Schliersee. These art treasures were left uncovered in the
official residence of the Governor General.

DR. SEIDL: In that case I have no further questions to the
witness.

THE PRESIDENT: The witness can retire.

DR. SEIDL: I have now completed the examination of
witnesses, but since the document books have not yet been
bound, I would like to suggest that at some later stage,
perhaps after the case of Frick, I could submit these books.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Seidl, how many books are you presenting?

DR. SEIDL: A total of five volumes, but I myself have not
received them yet.

THE PRESIDENT: Has the Tribunal approved the documents in
five volumes?

DR. SEIDL: They are almost entirely documents which have
already been submitted to the prosecution, and an agreement
has been reached with the prosecution regarding the
documents.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, then, we need not wait now for the
document books. The document books will be considered by the
Tribunal when they are put in and then, if you have anything
in particular you want to say upon them in explanation, you
may do so.

DR. SEIDL: Very well.

THE PRESIDENT: No doubt you will comment upon them in your
final speech. You say that they are mostly documents which
have already been put in, and, therefore, it would not be
necessary to make any preliminary comment upon them. You
will be able to deal with them in your final speech.

DR. SEIDL: But I should have liked to quote a few passages
during my submission of evidence, since this is necessary to
establish the connection and since it would be impossible to
do all that during my final defence speech; and I do not
think that too much time will be lost through that.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Seidl, it would not be very useful to the
Tribunal for you to make a commentary upon the documents at
a later stage, when your witnesses have been finished and
somebody else's ... some other defendant's witnesses have
been interpolated; therefore, the Tribunal thinks it would
be much better and much more convenient if you defer your
comments on the documents until your final speech.

Well, Dr. Seidl, as I understand, you have two books which
are before us now. Three is it?

DR. SEIDL: There is a total of five books. The other three
do not appear to have been bound.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, but you say that most of the documents
in them are documents which are already in evidence.

DR. SEIDL: The diary of the defendant Dr. Frank, which
contains forty-two volumes, has been submitted, but the
prosecution has only used those parts which appeared
favourable for them. In my opinion it is, therefore,
necessary that the connections should to some extent be re-
established during the submission of evidence. Also, there
are other documents in the document book which I believe
should be read at least in extract before this Tribunal, but
I shall, of course, limit myself to the absolutely necessary
passages when I read the documents. I should like to suggest
to the Tribunal that the matter be handled as it was in the
case of the defendant von Ribbentrop, so that I submit the
individual documents to the Tribunal as exhibits. There are
several speeches by the defendant Frank, there are decrees
and legal regulations, there are two affidavits, and I do
believe that somehow an opinion with regard to them should
be stated during the submission of evidence; and besides
individual documents will have to be given exhibit numbers.
Up to now only one document has been submitted as evidence
on behalf of the defendant Frank,

                                                  [Page 174]

and that is the affidavit of the witness Dr. Buehler, but I
have the intention of bringing a whole series of further
documents formally to the notice of the Tribunal, and I
merely would like to postpone that because the Tribunal has
not yet received the bound document books.

THE PRESIDENT: When will these other books be ready, Dr.
Seidl?

DR. SEIDL: I was told that they would be completed by this
evening.

THE PRESIDENT: How long do you think you will take in
dealing with these books?

DR. SEIDL: I think that two hours will be enough.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, the Tribunal will adjourn now.

(A recess was taken.)

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Seidl, the Tribunal would like you to
deal with your documents now, and in so far as they are
documents which have already been put in evidence, unless
you wish to refer to other passages in them, they think that
you need only tell us what the documents are and put them in
evidence, unless it is very important to you to refer to any
particular document. So far as they are new documents, you
will, no doubt, offer them in evidence and make such short
comments as you think necessary. But the Tribunal hopes that
you will be able to finish this afternoon. With reference to
the other books that you have, we understand that you have
all the documents in German yourself and therefore you can
refer us to those documents now.

DR. SEIDL: Mr. President, upon the wish of the prosecution
and also, I believe, of the Tribunal, I have reduced the
original bulk of my document books considerably. The first
five document books, as I had them prepared, contained more
than eight hundred pages. The new form is considerably
shorter, but I have not received the German text of the new
form, so that I am not in a position now to give the pages'
number to the Tribunal and to co-ordinate my page numbers
with the numbered pages of the translations. If I may
express one wish it is that we should first wait until the
five document books in their new form are available,
because, otherwise, it is very likely that the numbering of
the pages would not correspond to the numbering of the
individual documents as exactly as might be desirable.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal thinks it best that you should
begin now with the first three volumes. We have them here.

DR. SEIDL: If the Tribunal has the first three volumes, then
I will begin. I begin with Volume 1. The first document, on
Page 1 is the decree of the Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor,
dated 12 October, 1939, concerning the administration of the
occupied Polish Territories. This decree delineates in
detail the authority of the Governor General. In paragraphs
5 and 6 some of the limitations to the authority of the
Governor General are included, which the witnesses Dr.
Lammers and Dr. Buehler have already pointed out. This
document bears the number 2537-PS and it will be Exhibit
Frank-2.

I pass to Page 3 of the document book. This document is the
decree of the Fuehrer concerning the establishment of a
State Secretariat for Security in the Government General,
dated 17 May, 1942. I quote paragraph 2:-

  "The State Secretary for Security serves at the same time
  as Deputy of the Reichsfuehrer S.S. in his capacity as
  Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of German
  Nationality."

On Page 4 I quote paragraph IV:-

  "The Reichsfuehrer S.S. and Chief of the German Police is
  authorised to give the State Secretary for Security
  direct instructions in the fields of security and the
  strengthening of German nationality."

This document will be Exhibit Frank-3.

Following the decree of the Fuehrer of 27 May, 1942, comes
the Decree for the

                                                  [Page 175]

Transfer of Authority to the State Secretary for Security of
3 June, 1942. I do not know whether that decree is already
bound in that volume. Apparently it was added later, and has
not yet been translated.

THE PRESIDENT: What is the date?

DR. SEIDL: 23 June, 1942.

THE PRESIDENT: We have one of 27 May, 1942.

DR. SEIDL: That decree apparently has not yet been
translated because it was added later, and I will put it in
the document book when it is ready. It will be Exhibit Frank-
4. In paragraph 1 of that decree, we find "The jurisdictions
of Police administration and Police Regulations referred to
in appendices A and B are now transferred to the State
Secretary for Security." In Appendix I the spheres of
authority of the Uniformed Police are mentioned under 15
headings - No, I must correct that - 26 headings; and in
Appendix B the spheres of authority of the Uniformed Police
under 21 headings.

I pass now to Document Book 1, Page 5. That is the decree of
the Fuehrer concerning the appointment of officials and the
discontinuance of the status of officials in the sphere of
the Government General, of 20 May, 1942. I quote from number
3, paragraph 2:-

  "The Governor General's sphere of activity does not, in
  the sense of this decree, include officials belonging to
  the sphere of the Reichsfuehrer S.S. and Chief of the
  German Police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior and
  to the Customs Frontier Service."

I pass to Page 6 of the document book, the Decree of the
Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor for the Strengthening of German
Nationality of 7 October, 1939, which is already Exhibit USA-
305.

The next document is the letter from Reich Marshal Goering
to the Chief of the Security Police and the S.D. of July,
1941.

MR. DODD: Mr. President, I suggest that an exhibit number be
given as we go along so that we can follow better and later
on have some sequence. Dr. Seidl is going on to the next
one, but the last one has not yet been given any exhibit
number.

THE PRESIDENT: The last one was Exhibit Frank-5, wasn't it?

MR. DODD: No. 5 was 27 May, 1942. We didn't know that; we
didn't get the number. I am sorry.

THE PRESIDENT: It may not have been stated but I took it
down as that myself. Will you take care to state each time,
Dr. Seidl, what the exhibit number is that you are giving.
You are dealing now with the letter of 31 July, 1941.

DR. SEIDL: Yes. This letter has a USA number; namely Exhibit
USA-509.

THE PRESIDENT: Very well. Wait a minute, perhaps I made a
mistake. Yes, Mr. Dodd, I think I made a mistake. The reason
why Dr. Seidl didn't give a number was because it was
already in evidence as USA-305. I made a mistake. It wasn't
Frank-5. He only got to Frank-4. The next one is USA-509.

DR. SEIDL: 509. I pass to Page 10 of the document book. That
is an order, a directive rather, of the High Command of the
Armed Forces concerning "Case Barbarossa," Exhibit USA-135,
and I quote paragraph 2:-

  "It is not intended to declare East Prussia and the
  Government General an operational area of the Army.
  However, on the basis of the unpublished Fuehrer decree
  of 19 and 21 October, 1939, the Commander-in-Chief of the
  Army is authorised to enact measures that are necessary
  for the execution of his military task and for the
  security of his troops."

End of quotation.

I pass to Page 11 of the document book, a directive for the
execution of the

                                                  [Page 176]

Fuehrer Decree concerning the Plenipotentiary General for
the Employment of Labour, of 27 March, 1942. I quote No. 4:-

  "The General Plenipotentiary for the Employment of Labour
  will have at his disposal for the performance of his
  tasks the authority delegated to me by the Fuehrer for
  the issuance of instructions to the highest Reich
  authorities, their subordinate offices, as well as the
  offices of the Party and its formations and affiliated
  organisations, to the Reich Protector, the Governor
  General, the military commanders and the chiefs of the
  civil administrations."

This document becomes Exhibit Frank-5.

The next document is on Page 12. The Decree by the Fuehrer,
concerning a General Plenipotentiary for the Employment of
Labour, of 21 March, 1942, from which it can be seen that
his authority to issue instructions included the Government
General. It becomes Exhibit Frank-6.

The document on Page 13 of the document book deals also with
the authority of the General Plenipotentiary for the
Employment of Labour to issue instructions. It is already
Exhibit USA-206.

The document on Page 15 is a letter from Professor Dr.
Kubijowytsch, Chairman of the Ukrainian Main Committee, to
the defendant Dr. Frank. It already has the USA Exhibit No.
178 and I will read only the first sentence from that
document, in order to show what the relation was between the
defendant Dr. Frank and the author of that letter. I quote:-

  "Complying with your wish I send you this letter, in
  which I should like to state the abuses and the painful
  incidents which create an especially difficult position
  for the Ukrainian population within the Government
  General."

Then I pass on to Page 16 of the document book. That is an
excerpt from Exhibit USA-275, namely the report of S.S.
Brigadefuehrer Stroop about the destruction of the Warsaw
ghetto. I quote the second paragraph of number 11, from
which it can be seen that the order came directly from the
Reichsfuehrer S.S. Himmler:-

  "When the Reichsfuehrer S.S. visited Warsaw in January,
  1943, he ordered the S.S. and Police Leader in the
  District of Warsaw to transfer to Lublin the armament
  factories and other enterprises of military importance,
  which were installed within the ghetto, including the
  labour and the machines."

The affidavit which the prosecution submitted during the
cross-examination of the defendant Kaltenbrunner should then
really follow after Page 16 of the document book.

COLONEL POKROVSKY: As far as I can gather, there has been
some misunderstanding on this point. Under the number
mentioned by Dr. Seidl in his document book there is no
document referring to the Warsaw Ghetto, but there is a
document from the Chief of Police and the S.S. in Galicia
relating to the solution of the Jewish problem of Galicia. I
should like this matter elucidated.

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