Archive/File: imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-21/tgmwc-21-202.07
Last-Modified: 2000/11/29

BY DR. BOEHM:

Q. Did the units of the SA Reserve I continue to exist until
the collapse in 1945?

A. Not all of them. A large part of these units was in the
course of years, particularly at the beginning of the war,
transferred to the active SA. Here they were either assigned
to the Front SA or attached to the Front SA as reserve
groups, while the rest of the SA Reserve I units remained as
before.

Q. Why did this incorporation of the SA Reserve into the SA
take place?

A. The SA, particularly at the beginning of the war, began
to show gaps. These gaps were filled through the transfer of
the SA Reserve I. The primary purpose, however, was to have
the Stahlhelmer, who were always recognized as an
opposition, under better supervision by the SA.

Q. Why were you yourself not put into the SA?

A. I was already too old at that time, and besides, I was a
Freemason.

Q. Over and beyond the orders given, was pressure exerted in
connection with the incorporation of the Stahlhelm into the
SA?

A. Yes, to a large extent. First of all the transfer did not
take place on a voluntary basis. It was done on orders; for
example, as in the case of the Wehrstahlhelm. The manner in
which this was done was the same in most

                                                  [Page 144]

cases. The Wehrstahlhelmer were called together for a roll
call, they were told that they had been transferred and then
an SA Fuehrer who was present took over the Wehrstahlhelm.
No one was asked whether he wanted to be transferred.
Immediately upon the incorporation of the Stahlhelm, it
became apparent that the majority of the Stahlhelmer
resented and resisted this incorporation. Stahlhelmer who
did not want to join the SA were in many cases threatened
with arrest. There were cases where punishment in the form
of police arrest for ten days and longer was inflicted in
this connection. Furthermore, the Stahlhelmer were told that
by staying away from the SA they were disobeying an order of
Hitler and that this meant hostility to the State. This
hostility to the State always had serious consequences. He
who was charged with hostility to the State was reported to
the police as politically unreliable and was especially
watched by the police. It could at any time happen to him
that he might be arrested without any reason and put into
prison or a concentration camp. Being pronounced an enemy of
the State also had the very serious consequence that the
means of subsistence were nearly always either seriously
impaired or even destroyed. Civil servants who as
Stahlhelmer did not want to be in the SA, and were
pronounced enemies of the State, were removed from their
positions, frequently even with loss of pension. Generally
the same applied to employees in private industry. They
always lost their positions because the heads of a concern
did not want to employ men who were enemies of the State. We
in the Bund leadership tried at the time, in many hundreds
of cases, to help these Stahlhelmer who applied to us for
aid by taking their cases to the Labour Courts. But in most
of the cases we did not succeed in having these people
reinstated in their positions. The Court mostly confined
itself to granting them a compensation. The distress which a
Stahlhelmer who did not want to belong to the SA had to bear
was in some cases so great that I recall clearly several
cases of suicide of Stahlhelmer who no longer could stand
the strain.

Q. Do these observations of yours extend to all over
Germany?

A. Yes.

Q. Could it be true that deceptive actions also took place
when the Stahlhelm was incorporated?

A. Yes, in my opinion, deceptive actions did take place. For
example, I have already mentioned that the Wehrstahlhelm, as
well as the SA Reserve I, were permitted to be incorporated
as separate formations with their own leaders, and in the
field-grey uniform. After a short time, however, these
promises were simply broken and the Wehrstahlhelm as well as
the SA Reserve I had to don the brown uniform of the SA.
Thus they were no longer recognizable in the SA as former
Stahlhelmer. Then there was one point which especially
caused a lot of dissatisfaction. The Stahlhelmer had been
promised that after the transfer they could remain members
of the Stahlhelm - this was the so-called double membership.
They were to be allowed to participate in the activities of
the Stahlhelm if it did not interfere with their service in
the SA. But this promise also was withdrawn very soon and
this caused the greatest difficulties to the Stahlhelmer who
wanted to remain loyal to their Bund and entailed many
arrests and punishments of all kinds.

Q. At the time when Seldte turned over the Stahlhelm to
Hitler, did he represent the will of the Stahlhelm Bund?

A. No, he did not. The vast majority of the Stahlhelmer did
not approve the measures of Seldte. There were very heated
quarrels in the Stahlhelm on account of this and if the
Stahlhelm did not break up at the time it was only because
the Stahlhelmer said: "We have not taken an oath to the
person of Seldte. We swore allegiance to the Stahlhelm and
to the front soldiers."

Q. What ranks did the Stahlhelmer receive in the SA and what
significance did they have?

                                                  [Page 145]

A. Here, too, one could speak of deceptive action in so far
as the Stahlhelm leaders had been expressly promised that
they would serve in the SA with the same ranks. But this
promise too was not kept. The Stahlhelm leaders were set
down one or two ranks. Shortly thereafter, they were even
relieved of their commands and held in reserve. Only a few
of them still remained in positions of command. Most of them
had really no longer anything to do in the SA but they could
not get out of the SA. According to my observation, no
Stahlhelm leaders got beyond the rank of a Standartenfuehrer
in the SA unless they were special exceptions, that is, men
who distinguished themselves through exceptional activity on
behalf of National Socialism. With regard to ranks, the N.S.
Reiter Corps, which included many Stahlhelmer, occupied a
special position. But as regards the leaders, the Reiter
Corps was more or less left alone. Here most of the
Stahlhelm leaders up to a Standartenfuehrer retained their
command although there were among these Stahlhelmers many
who were in opposition.

Q. Was the attitude of the Stahlhelmer transferred to the SA
different from the attitude of the ordinary SA?

A. Yes, in its constitution, the Stahlhelm was something
entirely different from the SA. Anyone who joined the
Stahlhelm did so voluntarily and on his own volition. Not
everyone was accepted in the Stahlhelm. Everyone was first
carefully looked over. Then the Stahlhelm had a Bund
charter, a constitution, which provided the members with the
possibility to elect on a completely democratic basis those
leaders whom they wanted or to remove those leaders whom
they did not want. The two Bund leaders also had to submit
themselves from time to time to the assembly of members who
then decided about their re-election.

The main characteristic of the Stahlhelm, however, was the
carrying on of the tradition of the front comradeship,
formed in battle - that unique comradeship which in all
circumstances demands that "I must give everything for my
comrade and help him always." That was, as we called it,
front socialism. No difference was made between rich and
poor, social position was disregarded. We Stahlhelmer were
all equals.

It must be added that the people who joined the Stahlhelm
generally came from the middle-class, I might even say from
the conservative part of the population. These people were
not in favour of extremes and radicalism. They stood for a
moderate and peaceful development and, taken all in all, one
realizes that the Stahlhelm was made up of quite a special
class of people and this was bound  to result in much
friction with the SA.

Q. Did the Stahlhelmer bring military views with them into
the SA?

A. Yes, but only to the extent that within the Stahlhelm
there was often talk of the First World War, in which almost
all of us had participated. But we were not a military
organization, as was often asserted of the Stahlhelm,
because it had military command. However, it was quite
impossible to lead a mass movement of one and a half million
members without such commands, which to the Stahlhelmer, as
old soldiers, had become second nature.

But otherwise we really never thought that there would be
another war. We had had enough with the First World War and
considered it our task to spread the idea among the people
that problems could be solved without war and bloodshed.

Not only in Germany did we represent this point of view. We
established contacts abroad as well especially with the
foreign organizations of front soldiers, because we thought
that these old veterans would understand us best when we
said that there must never be another war.

Q. Was the idea of soldierly comradeship designed to serve
the preparation of a war of aggression?

A. No; from what I just said it becomes clear that the
Stahlhelmer never thought of a war of aggression; the idea
of soldierly comradeship served the sole purpose of
spreading the virtues of comradeship formed in the field
among wide

                                                  [Page 146]

circles in order that it might peacefully lead to a better
understanding among nations.

Q. What were the views of the Stahlhelm toward the political
parties of Germany?

A. The Stahlhelm was opposed to all radical political
tendencies. It did not follow the principle of extermination
and destruction. It tried again and again to unite these
extreme tendencies with a more moderate one through
enlightenment, persuasion and propaganda. Proof that the
political opponents of the Stahlhelm did after all
understand it was shown in the spring of 1933 when many
persecuted members of the SPD and the KPD sought protection
and aid in the Stahlhelm. They were accepted by us, but, as
a result, the Stahlhelm found itself involved in serious
conflicts With the Party. The Party could not tolerate that
people persecuted by it should be protected by the
Stahlhelm. Significant of this were the events in Brunswick
in the spring of 1933 where an Ortsgruppe of the Stahlhelm
held a meeting. The SA surrounded the place where the
meeting was being held and arrested all the members. Upon
investigation, it was shown that of approximately 1,500
participants, over a thousand were former members of the SPD
and the KPD. We had accepted them when they had proved to us
that they were decent people and that the majority of them
had been at the front with us.

Q. Were the Stahlhelmer opposed to trade unions?

A. No. On this question also the Stahlhelmer were only
opposed to the excesses. The Stahlhelm itself had its own
union, the Stahlhelm Self-Aid (Selbsthilfe). It included
almost all the workers who were members of the Stahlhelm,
and I wish to point out that twenty-five to thirty per cent
of the members of the Stahlhelm were workers. However, in
the summer of 1933 the Stahlhelm Self-Aid was forcibly
dissolved.

Q. Did the Stahlhelm carry on anti - Semitic propaganda?

A. There were many opinions and views represented in the
Stahlhelm. Everyone was allowed to think what he liked. I
never heard of an order by the leaders of the Bund against
Jews, and no such order was ever given. Besides, that was
quite impossible because the Second Bundfuehrer, for
example, was Duesterberg, whom we knew to be of Jewish
origin, and in spite of this, Duesterberg was the best liked
and most popular Stahlhelmfuehrer. In the central office of
the Bund .n Berlin, one of my closest associates was a
Stahlhelmer who was married to a Jewess. We did not concern
ourselves about that at all. We had many Jews in the
Stahlhelm because we had not adopted the radical racial
theory of the Party and were always opposed to it. In
addition to Duesterberg, we had other Jews as
Stahlhelmfuehrer. There were Jews, half-Jews, and Freemasons
in the Stahlhelm. There was no anti-Semitic feeling in the
Stahlhelm except among a few groups of members who, however,
did not control the organization.

Q. What was the effect of this Stahlhelm training when the
Stahlhelm was transferred to the SA?

A. It was doubtless this incisive Stahlhelm training which
caused the resistance of the majority of the Stahlhelmer
against the incorporation. There were three points in
particular which the Stahlhelmer could never understand, and
which always separated him from the SA. There was, first,
the autocratic Fuehrer principle. In the Stahlhelm there
were only elected Fuehrer, which did not exist in the SA.
Then, the Stahlhelmer could not agree with the radicalism
which was to be observed in the SA, and furthermore they
could not get used to the idea of totalitarianism.

Q. Well, now I should like to ask you: why did the
Stahlhelmer not leave the SA again?

A. Well, if that had been possible, large numbers of them,
believe me, would have left again, but leaving the SA was
almost impossible. There were really only two possibilities
of leaving the SA. One was honourable discharge and the

                                                  [Page 147]

other was expulsion. Honourable discharge was awarded when
one could prove without doubt, for example, that one was
very seriously ill; but only a very small fraction of the
Stahlhelm could take advantage of this opportunity to leave
the SA. For many Stahlhelmer only expulsion was possible,
because the SA had recognized very early from the opposition
of the Stahlhelm that these were elements hostile to it. As
a result, expulsion was ordered in many cases if they wanted
to harm the Stahlhelmer seriously.

To the examples which I have given earlier in connection
with the term "enemy of the State." I should like to add the
following: Expulsion from the SA was recorded on the papers
of the Stahlhelmer. If the Stahlhelmer wanted to accept a
new position, it was immediately to be seen that he had been
dismissed from the SA and that was such a serious offence
that no one wanted to employ him.

Stahlhelmer who wanted to join the Reichswehr were not
accepted if they had been dismissed from the SA.

The result was, if you take into consideration what I have
said before, that there were so many serious difficulties
that many Stahlhelmer who were otherwise brave and
courageous men hesitated to leave the SA because they could
not take on themselves the responsibility of endangering the
livelihood of their families.

Q. And over what period of time did these observations of
yours extend?

A. Up to the time of the war.

Q. And from whom did you learn the things which you have
told us here?

A. In my position as Treasurer of the Bund I spoke
constantly with many Stahlhelmer about these matters. In
addition, I had to read innumerable reports.

Q. Did you, as liquidator of the Stahlhelm, maintain any
contact with the transferred Stahlhelmer beyond the
settlement of business matters?

A. Yes, I did.

Q. Were you permitted to do so?

A. No; I was allowed to settle the business affairs of the
Stahlhelm, but I was warned by the Gestapo against any
attempt to continue the Stahlhelm in a camouflaged form. I
repeatedly had clashes with the Gestapo on that account. But
I constantly made the attempt because many of my old
comrades told me repeatedly that I had to do this because
otherwise there would have been no one left.

Q. And of what did your activity consist in holding the
Stahlhelm together?

A. I spoke to many individual Stahlhelmer myself. They came
from all parts of Germany to see me in Berlin. I was in
contact with many of them by correspondence. Furthermore, I
mailed circulars camouflaged as business letters to the old
Stahlhelmer from which they could -

THE PRESIDENT (Interposing): What have we got to do with
this, Dr. Boehm?

DR. BOEHM: The purpose of it is to show the Tribunal what
the nature of the ideas and the ideologies of the men in the
Stahlhelm was.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, you are defending the SA against a
charge of being a criminal organization. You are now trying
to show us what the ideology of the Stahlhelm was. You have
been nearly an hour over this witness already. Practically
everything he has said is written down in this summary of
his evidence, the summary which we have before us, his
evidence to the Commission.

DR. BOEHM: Yes, but I must give the Tribunal some idea about
the attitude of this witness and the one and a half million
men who came from the Stahlhelm to the SA. As to the few
remaining questions - there are four or five - I shall try
to be as brief as possible.

BY DR. BOEHM:

Q. You mean to say then, witness, that this continuation of
the Stahlhelm after July, 1934, was illegal?

A. Yes, because it was not permitted.

                                                  [Page 148]

Q. And about how large was the circle of persons with whom
you were in contact in this connection?

A. I myself was in contact with only a few hundred former
Stahlhelmer, but these were only the liaison men. Behind
them were the many thousand in the various cities.

Q. Were there other contacts among the Stahlhelmer?

A. Yes. Apart from the contact with me, everywhere in
Germany in the various towns independent groups of
Stahlhelmer had been formed which were sometimes of quite
considerable size. For instance, in Berlin I often
participated in meetings where there were 150 to 200
Stahlhelmer. In order that the Gestapo -

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