The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Shofar FTP Archive File: imt/tgmwc//tgmwc-15/tgmwc-15-140.04


Archive/File: imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-15/tgmwc-15-140.04
Last-Modified: 2000/03/25

Q. Since when?

A. Since June of 1940.

Q. Are you Austrian by birth?

A. Will you please repeat that; I did not understand you.

Q. Are you Austrian by birth?

A. I am Austrian.

Q. When did you join the Reich Youth Leader's Office?

A. I joined Herr von Schirach on the 3rd of October 1940.

Q. And what did you do before that?'

A. Before that I had a temporary post in the Foreign Office.

Q. For how long?

A. Only from May until October, 1940.

Q. And before that?

A. Before that I was employed in the Gauleiter's Office in
Carinthia.

Q. Did you have anything to do with the Hitler Jugend?

A. No.

Q. In October of 1940, then, you came to Vienna to join von
Schirach?

A. Yes, to Vienna.

Q. In what capacity did you go there?

A. I went there as von Schirach's adjutant.

Q. And what did your duties mostly consist of?

A. As adjutant I was responsible for the handling of the
mail, engagements for conferences, seeing to it that files
were presented on time at conferences, travel arrangements
and so on.

Q. Did you only work for Schirach in his capacity as Reich
Governor, as Gauleiter, or did you act for him only as
Mayor?

A. I was -

Q. Please pause a little after I have put a question to you,
so that the interpreters can catch up.

A. I was adjutant for Herr von Schirach in all his
capacities.

Q. Did you also have access to the secret files?

A. Yes.

Q. Witness, I shall only have a very few brief questions to
put to you. First of all, I am interested in this: Who was
responsible for the forced evacuation of Jews from Vienna?

A. The forced evacuation of Jews from Vienna, as far as I
know, was handled by the RSHA. The representative in Vienna
was a certain Dr. Brunner, an Obersturmfuehrer in the SS.

Q. Did you often visit Dr. Brunner officially in connection
with the forced evacuation of Jews, and for what reason?

A. In some cases, Jews who were affected by this forced
evacuation made written applications to von Schirach to be
left out of the transport. In such cases, von Schirach,
through the Chief of his Central Bureau, took the matter up
with Dr. Brunner's office and asked that the request of the
applicant be granted. I would say that generally this was
done by the Chief of the Central Bureau. I remember two
cases where I myself received instructions to intervene with
Dr. Brunner, not by writing or telephoning, but by going and
seeing him personally.

Q. And what did this SS Sturmfuehrer, Dr. Brunner, tell you
about what was actually going to happen to the Jews when
they were taken away from Vienna?

A. Dr. Brunner only told me, on the occasion of one of these
interventions, that the action of resettling the Jews would
be a resettlement from the district of Vienna into the zone
of the former Government General. He also told me in what
way this was being carried out. For instance he said that
women and small children would travel in second-class
carriages; that sufficient rations for the journey and milk
for small children would be provided. He also told me that
these resettled persons, upon arrival at their destination,
in so far as they were capable of

                                                   [Page 63]

working, would immediately be put to work. First of all,
they would be put into assembly camps, but that as soon as
accommodation was available, they would be given homes, etc.
He also told me that because of the numerous interventions
by Herr von Schirach, his work had been made very difficult.

Q. Did you or have you - I will put my next question this
way. Did you ever see an order in which Gauleiter were
forbidden to intervene in any way on behalf of Jews, and did
you discuss that order with von Schirach?

A. I recollect a written order, which we received either at
the end of 1940 or at the beginning of 1941. It stated that
"There are reasons which make it necessary once more to
point out, etc ...." It obviously was a repetition of an
order which had already been given. The purport of the order
was that for certain reasons, Gauleiter were prohibited from
intervening on behalf of Jews in the future.

Q. Did you talk about that with Schirach?

A. I talked to Herr von Schirach about it.

Q. What did he say?

A. As far as I can recollect, von Schirach wrote on the
order, "To be filed." He did not say anything more about it.

Q. I have another question, witness. The defendant von
Schirach was once in the concentration camp at Mauthausen.
Can you tell us when that was?

A. I cannot tell you that exactly. All I can say on that
subject is that when I came back from the front - and this
was either in the autumn of 1942 or in June of 1943 - the
adjutant who was on duty at the time told me that he had
accompanied Herr von Schirach to a concentration camp,
Mauthausen Camp. Some time afterwards - it must have been
when I came back from the front the second time, at the end
of 1943 - Herr von Schirach also told me that he had been to
Mauthausen. I only recollect that he said that he had heard
a symphony concert there.

Q. Well, we are not interested in that, we have heard that.
I am only interested in one thing: Did he visit Mauthausen
or another concentration camp again later on? Can you give
us reliable information on that or not?

A. I can give you reliable information on that. That is
quite out of the question, because from November 1943 until
the collapse, I was continuously on duty and I knew where
von Schirach was, day and night.

Q. Did he go to Mauthausen again in 1944?

A. No, certainly not, that is out of the question.

Q. Witness, you remember that towards the end of the war
there were orders coming from some source or other, stating
that enemy airmen who had been forced to land were no longer
to be protected. Do you know of that?

A. Yes.

Q. That somewhere such orders were issued?

A. Yes.

Q. What was the attitude of defendant von Schirach regarding
such orders, and how do you know about it?

A. I talked about these orders with Herr von Schirach. Von
Schirach was always against the idea contained in the order,
and he always said that these airmen, too, should be treated
as prisoners of war. Once he said, "If we do not do that,
then there is the danger that our enemies, too, will treat
their prisoners, that is Germans, in the same manner."

Q. Do you yourself know of cases where defendant von
Schirach actually intervened on behalf of enemy flyers in
that way?

A. Yes.

Q. Will you please tell us about it?

A. During one of the last air attacks on Vienna, in March
1945, an American plane was shot down and crashed near the
headquarters of the Gau Command Post. That Command Post was
on a wooded hill in Vienna to which part of the population
used to go during air attacks. Von Schirach was watching
from a 32 metre high iron structure on which he would always
stand during air attacks, and he observed that a member of
the American crew got out of the aircraft. He

                                                   [Page 64]

immediately ordered the Commander in charge of this Command
Post to drive to the place of the crash so as to protect the
American soldier against the crowd and bring him to safety.
The American soldier was brought to the Command Post and
after the air attack he was handed over to the Air Force
Command 17, as prisoner of war.

Q. When did you leave Vienna?

A. I left Vienna with Herr von Schirach on 13th April 1945.

Q. When did you say?

A. On 13th April.

Q. On 13th April together with the defendant von Schirach?

A. Together with Herr von Schirach.

Q. Now, this is the last question I have to put to you.
Witness, have you ever heard from Schirach's lips anything
to the effect that Vienna was to be held "to the last man"
at all costs, or that destruction should be carried out in
Vienna?

A. I have never heard him say either the one or the other.

DR. SAUTER: Mr. President, I have no further questions to
this witness.

DR. SERVATIUS (Counsel for the defendant Sauckel):

BY DR. SERVATIUS:

Q. Witness, do you know the Prater in Vienna?

A. Yes, of course, I am Viennese.

Q. What sort of a place is that?

A. The Prater is, or at least was, a pleasure park.

Q. Was it closed during the war?

A. The Prater was not closed during the war.

Q. What sort of people used to go there?

A. During the war you mean?

Q. Yes.

A. Workers, employees, civil servants, that is the Viennese,
the whole of Vienna.

Q. Did you also see foreign workers there?

A. Yes.

Q. A great many or just a few?

A. The situation in Vienna was that we used to say that if
you want to go to the Prater then you have to be able to
speak French and Russian, because with Viennese alone you
cannot get along. The Prater was overcrowded with foreign
workers.

Q. How were these foreigners dressed, badly or well?

A. These foreigners were well dressed, so that you could not
distinguish them from the population. Only when they talked
could you recognize that they were foreigners.

Q. How did they look otherwise? As regards food, did they
look starved?

A. As far as I myself could see, the workers looked
perfectly well fed.

Q. Did the people have money?

A. They had plenty of money. It was known that the black
market in Vienna was almost entirely dominated by foreign
workers.

Q. Could foreigners be seen only in the Prater or were they
to be seen everywhere in the town?

A. Not only in the Prater, but also in the rest of the town,
in cafes, of which there are so many in Vienna, in
restaurants and in hotels.

DR. SERVATIUS: I have no further questions.

CROSS-EXAMINATION

BY MR. DODD:

Q. Whom, besides the defendant von Schirach, do you know of
these defendants? And by "know" I mean know personally, or
have some acquaintanceship with the person, or had something
to do with the person?

                                                   [Page 65]

A. Personally, I only know Herr Funk.

Q. Do you know Sauckel?

A. Yes.

Q. Well, who else?

A. I know Herr Seyss-Inquart, but I did not have any
personal dealings with him. I was the adjutant of von
Schirach.

Q. How do you know Funk?

A. Officially, as adjutant of Herr von Schirach, I had some
dealings with him, and apart from that, he invited me to his
house several times privately.

Q. Were you in the SS at that time, when you were invited by
Funk?

A. At that time I was in the Waffen SS as an officer.

Q. By the way, when did you first join the SS?

A. I joined the Waffen SS on the 26 June 1940.

Q. Were you in any other branch of the SS besides the Waffen
SS?

A. I was also in the General SS.

Q. When did you join the General SS?

A. In June or July 1939.

Q. So you were actually in the SS from as far back as 1939?

A. In the General SS, yes.

Q. Now, you also became an SS Obersturmfuehrer at one time,
did you not?

A. Yes.

Q. When was that?

A. I became Obersturmfuehrer about the 21st June 1944.

Q. When did you join the SA?

A. I joined the SA on the 9th of May 1932.

Q. Did you know the Strasshof Camp, S-t-r-a-s-s-h-o-f?

A. This is the first time I have heard that name.

Q. Well, it may have been mispronounced. It was a camp
located outside Vienna.

A. I do not know which camp you mean. I understood
Strasshof. I do not know of any such camp.

Q. Yes, something like that. You never heard of that camp?

A. Never.

Q. And you were in Vienna from what year?  - 19 -

A. I was born in Vienna.

Q. Well, I know you were, but I am talking about your
service with the defendant Schirach. You were there with him
for how long?

A. From the beginning of October 1940.

Q. And you never heard of Strasshof?

A. No.

Q. Did you have much to do with the files of this defendant
von Schirach?

A. Yes.

Q. What would you say you had to do with them? What was your
responsibility?

A. I merely had to see to it that files were presented in
good time for the conferences, and that after they had been
used they were returned to the Central Bureau.


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.