The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

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Q. Now, one other matter. Did you tell the Tribunal, or did I
understand you correctly when I heard you testify that Miklas
resigned without any request from you? That is, President Miklas,
who was then the Bund President of Austria. Is it your testimony
that he resigned without any request from you?

A. It was my request that he should sign the Anschluss Law, and
he said he would not do that. According to the Constitution his
powers would then pass

                                                       [Page 168]

to me. He did not want to stand in the way of developments. I do
not think I told him to resign; I merely demanded that he sign
the law.

Q. Well, he has testified before a court in Vienna, and in his
testimony he says that you demanded it. Now do you remember, or
have you forgotten, of do you say that is untrue?

A. No; I consider that is out of the question because I clearly
remember that he said: "I cannot sign the law, but I shall not
stand in the way of developments. If you confirm to me that it is
necessary that the Anschluss should be carried out, then I shall
resign and you will have my powers." If he understood that as a
demand to resign, then I do not want to contradict him. I do not
want to make his position any more difficult, because I confess
that I was in favour of the Anschluss.

Q. Well, I want to offer this in evidence, and you may look at it
if you like. In any event, it is his testimony before a court in
Vienna, on 30th January, 1946. It is Document 3697-PS, and it
becomes Exhibit USA 884. If you would like to see it, you may. He
says just about what I put to you, that you talked around it a
good deal, said it was very distasteful for you, but nevertheless
you were bound to comply with the order from Germany and
therefore he had to resign.

That is on Page 17 of the English text of the testimony of
President Miklas.

Did you once write a letter to Himmler, or did you twice write
letters to Himmler, about Burckel? One of them is in evidence,
and I want to ask you if you remember the other one. Do you
remember the letter that you wrote to Himmler in which you said
that it was not true that you were interfering with the
deportation of the Jews, that you had only insisted that they be
turned over to Kaltenbrunner's men, the SD?

A. I know it. It was submitted here. I know I have seen it in
this court.

Q. I think you may have seen it, but it has not been submitted in
evidence; however, I wish to do so.

A. Yes, the letter is certainly correct.

Q. It is Document 3398-PS, which is Exhibit USA 885.

In the letter you said that you gave instructions that the
deportation of the Jews should be carried out only in agreement
with the SD and through the SD, and that you could not permit
wild actions.

A. Right. Do you want me to state my views with regard to it, Mr.
Prosecutor?

Q. Well, I want to ask you this. Then you knew all about it,
anyway I understood you to say that you did in the course of your
direct examination. You knew about the deportation of the Jews,
and you were doing your part to see that the SD carried it out.
That is the only point I am trying to make with you, and I assume
that you agree.

A. Yes, of course, I knew that a few trains had been loaded with
Jews in Vienna. They were then taken to Poland and unloaded. No
preparations whatsoever had been made, and the Jews were in
serious difficulties. I fought against that, and when Burckel
complained, I told Himmler: "If such actions take place, then
they ought to be carried out by the SD," because I was under the
impression that then better preparations would be made. When I
say that today, it sounds very tragic and bitter, but I thought
that at least emergency quarters, etc. would be provided
somewhere. Apart from that, I knew, from the 9th November, 1938,
how these things were carried out. The Party forges ahead, and
then the State has to take over these matters and carry them out.

Q. Yes. At any event, you knew that Kaltenbrunner at that time
was deporting, or had charge of the deportation of Jews out of
Austria.

A. I do not recall Kaltenbrunner in this connection. I think that
was done by the Party alone. I think the Party alone did that. I
believe Kaltenbrunner had no part in it.

Q. Did you not say the SD, and was that not under Kaltenbrunner
in Austria, at that time?

                                                       [Page 169]

A. I said that it ought to do it, but these transports were not
run by Kaltenbrunner, Globocnik ran them.

Q. Well, they were under Kaltenbrunner, were they not? He was the
head of the whole police system in Austria at that time.

A. Well, he was rather the commander of the Security Police, and
how much influence he had there, I could not say, but I think it
was very little.

Q. You found out since you have been sitting here that he had
quite a lot, did you not? You know now that he had a lot to do
with it.

A. No.

Q. You mean to say you have not heard here that Kaltenbrunner had
something to do with the removal of the Jews?

A. Yes, I shall leave that to Kaltenbrunner. From my own
observations I do not know it.

Q. Well, I am not going to labour the point, but that is not what
I asked you. I asked you if you have not heard in this court
room, that Kaltenbrunner had much to do with the removal of the
Jews.

A. Yes.

Q. Certainly. And do you not know now that he had something to do
with the removal of Jews at the time you wrote the letter?

A. In my opinion, Kaltenbrunner had nothing at all to do with the
evacuation of Jews as mentioned here, because that was a wild
action carried out by the Party or Gauleiter Globocnik.

Q. Do you remember when you got the authority that you asked for
through Lammers, for the confiscation of property in Austria?

A. Yes.

Q. Have you seen these documents? They are new: your letter to
Lammers, his reply to you, and the order which was issued at your
request. Those are three documents.

A. Yes.

Q. Your letter to Lammers is dated 23rd October, 1938, and it is
Document 3448-PS, which becomes Exhibit USA 886.

And Lammer's reply to you is dated 24th October, 1938 and it is
Document 3447-PS, which becomes Exhibit USA 887.

The order itself is Document 3450-PS, which becomes Exhibit USA
888.

That was a confiscation of the property of the Jews in Austria,
was it not, which you requested?

A. Yes. I testified yesterday, or the day before, that I
co-operated in this matter by issuing decrees.

THE PRESIDENT: Shall we adjourn now?

MR. DODD: I can finish in five minutes, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Very well, go on, then.

MR. DODD: I would like to finish, and I think I can do it.

Q. Defendant, when did you first learn about the many Austrians
who were dying in the concentration camps after the Anschluss?

A. About the many Austrians who died in concentration camps? I
really learned about it in this court-room; but as to the
numerous Austrians who were in concentration camps, perhaps, in
the course of 1943-44; in 1938-39 I knew that some political
opponents were in concentration camps, and that they were
gradually being released again, or at least some of them.

Q. Did you not know that they were being killed n Buchenwald as
early as 1939? Did you not know some of the people, and know
about their deaths? Now think a minute before you answer this.
Did you not know about the deaths in Buchenwald of people who had
been your political opponents?

A. I do not remember, Mr. Prosecutor.

                                                       [Page 170]

Q. You never heard a word about it

A. I do not mean to say that at all. If you give me a name, then
I shall tell you at once whether I remember.

Q. I know if I tell you the name you will tell me you heard it, I
suppose. However, I am asking you first if you did not in fact
know that some of them were dying in these camps? That is all I
want to know. It was pretty common knowledge in Austria, was it
not?

A. I shall most certainly admit that it is possible that I was
told that one or another died in the camp even as early as 1938
or 1939.

Q. Well, you still continued with the Nazis, although you knew at
least that vast numbers of your fellow countrymen were being
thrown into concentration camps. Did that not make any difference
to you? Whatever you thought before, you certainly knew what they
were doing after the Anschluss.

A. That I knew that large numbers were dying, is out of the
question. That there were a few who died, that would not have
affected me particularly because, between 1934 and 1938, at least
as many National Socialists had died in the concentration camps
of Dr. Dollfuss and the Fatherland Front, that is to say, of the
Austrian State.

Q. Well now, would you not agree with me that conditions were
very bad in Austria after the Nazis took over, and they went from
bad to worse, and you knew it and everybody else in Austria knew
it? Or is it your view that they improved? I would just like to
know what your opinion is.

A. I will tell you quite frankly. Of course, if you listen today
to the leaders of the political opposition and believe them, you
must think they were terrible. However, if you had seen the
people up to 1939, then you would have seen that they had taken a
new lease of life, because unemployment disappeared, and there
was quite a different spirit. But then the war altered all that.

Q. One last question, if you can answer it for me briefly. Do I
understand you to accept responsibility for whatever went on in
Poland, whatever is established as having gone on in Poland?
That is, joint responsibility with Frank? Do you accept that as
his deputy?

A. First of all, that can only apply to the time when I was
there, and acted as deputy.

Q. Of course. I certainly do not mean after you left there. I am
only talking about the time that you were there.

A. Well, then, as deputy, only where I acted as deputy, or where
crimes came to my knowledge without my taking measures against
them.

MR. DODD: I just want to read into the record one sentence from
a document that has already been offered in evidence, Mr.
President. It is Document 2233-PS, and from that document, Page
1, paragraph 4, I would like to read this, because part of it
was read by the defence, but this part was left out. It is under
the small Arabic figure three

  "The necessary police and other measures arising therefrom
  will be under the immediate direction of the Chief of the
  Security Police; every arbitrary action is to be strictly
  avoided."
  
This had to do, by the way, with the AB Action, concerning which
this witness has testified.

BY MR. DODD:

Q. The records show that you, defendant, were present at the time
that the defendant Frank discussed this AB Action and made this
statement which I have just read into the record. Certainly you
do not deny responsibility for whatever was done under the AB
Action, do you? Because you did know about that.

A. Neither in connection with the AB case nor in any other case
did I deny anything. I spoke especially about the AB Action.

                                                       [Page 171]

MR. DODD: Mr. President, Document 2233-PS, which is Exhibit USSR
223, now available in the French. It is already in evidence and
has been accepted by the Tribunal, but a French copy was not
available at the time it was offered. It has now been completely
translated into the French, and I offer it to the Tribunal for
assistance.

I have concluded my examination.

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Dodd, you said that the document of 11th
November, 1937, 3369-PS, was a new document. Did you give it a
number?

MR. DODD: Just a moment, Mr. President. I will check that. I
meant to offer it, and I fear that I omitted to do so. That would
become Exhibit USA 889. It was a new document, and I did intend
to offer it. .

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn, and we will reconvene
at ten past two.

(A recess was taken until 14.10 hours.)

ARTHUR SEYSS-INQUART - Resumed

RE-DIRECT EXAMINATION

BY DR. STEINBAUER (Counsel for the defendant Seyss-Inquart):

Q. Witness, the French Prosecutor asked you whether you were the
deputy of the governor-general, Frank, and for that reason, knew
Auschwitz. Can you tell us where Auschwitz is located?

A. Auschwitz was not in the region of the Government General, but
rather in the area which belonged to the Gau Upper Silesia
(Oberschlesien).

Q. Thank you. Then the same prosecutor confronted you with the
testimony of a girl of twenty years of age, by the name of Kunze,
in Document 3594-PS. According to this testimony, you, it is
alleged, repeatedly sent reports to Himmler.

A. Yesterday evening, when I was confronted with this matter, I
was rather tired, and made a statement somewhat in contradiction
to the fact contained in the document, and said that under
paragraph 3 certain reports are mentioned which had no connection
with me. Now this witness asserts that reports from me went to
Himmler by way of the Security Police dealing with the condition
of the Jews. That is utter nonsense, which the results
contradict. The Reich Commissioners were in no way subordinate to
Himmler as far as the Jewish question was concerned. I sent
perhaps two or three letters concerning individual cases. They
went from my staff to the staff of Himmler; but never by way of
the Security Police.

Q. That is sufficient. You were, in addition, confronted with the
testimony of a Dr. Karl Georg Schongart in connection with the
question of the shooting of hostages.

A. Yes. Schongart was the successor, or more accurately, the
deputy of Rauter; and it is correct that he came to me after he
had inspected the scene of the assassination. He told me that
Himmler was demanding the shooting of 500 hostages, prominent
Dutchmen. I was aghast; and Schongart said immediately that that
was completely out of the question. Thereupon I most certainly
said to Schongart: "But we must do something, we must react in
some way to this." He then told me that a number of cases of
death sentences were on hand which were to be carried out by
shooting within the next few days and weeks. He suggested that
these people be shot and that an announcement be made to the
effect that this was in retaliation for the assassination.

Q. Did you and the Wehrmacht commanders in the Netherlands, in
connection with the question of hostages issue warnings to the
population, as is customary under International Law?

A. I believe there is a document available which contains a
warning by me against sabotage, etc., in which I threatened, in
the case of violation of the laws, to confiscate property, and to
draft the population for guard duty.

                                                       [Page 172]

DR. STEINBAUER: I should like to call the attention o f the
Tribunal to the fact that this warning is contained in Document
1163-PS.

BY DR. STEINBAUER:

Q. Further, I have to confront you with a document which is an
interrogatory of the defendant General Christiansen, in which he
says that you were the one who issued the order for the shooting
of hostages.

A. I believe that Christiansen does not say that. He admits that
he issued the order; but what he means is that I, so to speak,
was urging the matter behind the scenes. I have made my
statement, but perhaps the witness Wimmer can give us more exact
details on this, as he was present at this discussion, as
Christiansen himself states.

DR. STEINBAUER: Yesterday evening I once more studied this
question, since the Tribunal's ruling was, in my mind, to the
effect that this statement by the witness, which is really the
interrogation of an accused person, should be admitted. In my
opinion, Article 21 of the Charter means something else here. I
believe that a partial matter like that has no probative value,
for it is theoretically possible that Christiansen could now be
sentenced by the British on the grounds that his statement is not
correct. Now, I do not want to delay these proceedings, but I
wish to call attention to the equivalent statement of Criminal
Commissioner Munt, which I have already submitted in Document 77,
Page 199.


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