The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Shofar FTP Archive File: imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-09//tgmwc-09-86.07


Archive/File: imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-09/tgmwc-09-86.07
Last-Modified: 1999/12/11

Q. By the cigarette factory?

A. Not by the cigarette factory; a number of business men
subscribed to the Adolf Hitler Fund, and Herr Reemtsma gave
me this sum from the fund in the course of the years, after
agreement with the Fuehrer. A part of it was allotted to the
State Theatres, another part for building up the art
collections and other cultural expenses.

                                                  [Page 271]

Q. Now, you were interrogated on 22nd December, 1945, by the
External Assets Branch of the United States Investigation of
Cartels and External Assets, were you not?

A. May I first say explicitly that I had been asked whether
I would be ready to make any statements about it and was
told that these statements would in no way be connected with
this trial. Therefore the presence of my defence counsel
would not be necessary. This was expressly told me and was
repeated to me by the prison warden, and before the
interrogation it was again confirmed to me that these
statements would in no way be brought up, in connection with
this trial.

However, that is all the same to me. You may produce them as
far as I am concerned. But for tactical reasons I desire to
have this known and established.

DR. STAHMER (counsel for defendant Goering): I protest
against the use of these statements for the reason that has
just been given by the witness. I myself some time ago - I
believe it was around Christmas - was asked by, I believe,
members of the U.S. Treasury whether they could interrogate
the defendant Goering on questions of property, adding
expressly that I did not have to be present at the
interrogation because this had nothing to do with the trial
and would not be used for it.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I am not able either to affirm or deny
that, and therefore I will not pursue this subject further
at this time. I do not believe that any stipulation was made
that these facts should not be gone into. I was not informed
of it, and if there has been, of course, it would be absurd.

Q. Now, you were asked about receiving some works of art
from Monte Cassino.

A. Yes.

Q. I ask you if it is not a fact that an altar statue taken
from the Cassino Abbey was brought and delivered to you, and
that you expressed great appreciation of it.

A. I am glad to be able to clarify this affair also. After
the monastery of Monte Cassino had been completely destroyed
by shelling and had been defended by a Paratroop division, a
delegation arrived one day bringing along a statue, entirely
worthless from an artistic viewpoint, of some saint - as a
souvenir of this destroyed monastery, I thanked the men and
showed the statue to the curator of my art collection, and
he also considered the statue completely worthless. It then
remained in its box and was deposited somewhere. The rest of
the art treasures from Monte Cassino, according to my
knowledge, were shipped in the following manner. A large
part, especially those things which belonged to the old
monastery itself, was sent to the Vatican. I must assume
this from the fact that the abbot of the monastery sent me
and my division a letter, written in Latin, in which he
expressed his extreme gratitude for this action.

Secondly, as far as I remember, the art treasures from the
museum in Naples which were at Monte Cassino were for the
greater part sent by us to Venice, and there turned over to
the Italian Government. Some pictures and statues were
brought to Berlin, and there they were turned over to me. On
the very same day I gave the list to the Fuehrer, and some
time later also those pieces that were in my air-raid
shelter, so that he could negotiate about that with
Mussolini. I did not keep a single one of these objects for
my own collection. If my troops had not intervened, these
priceless art treasures which were stored in Monte Cassino
and belonged to the monastery there would have been entirely
destroyed by enemy bombardment, that is to say, the British-
American bombardment. Thus they have been saved.

Q. Now, you say of no value - no substantial value?

A. That is even now my conviction, and I depended, above
all, on the judgement of my experts. I have never taken this
statue out of its packing. It did

                                                  [Page 272]

not interest me. On the other hand, I want to say a few
words of thanks to the men who brought it.

Q. The labour shortage in the Reich was becoming acute by
November of 1941, was it not?

A. That is correct.

Q. And you yourself gave the directives for the employment
of Russian prisoners of war, did you not?

A. Employment for what?

Q. For war industry - tanks, artillery pieces, aeroplane
parts.

A. That is correct.

Q. That was at the conference of 7th November, 1941, that
you gave that order, was it not?

A. At what conference that was I could not tell you, I only
issued these directives in a general way.

Q. And the directive was that Russian prisoners of war
should be selected in collecting camps beyond the Reich
border, and should be transported as rapidly as possible and
employed in the following order of priority: mining, railway
maintenance, war industry-tanks, artillery parts, aeroplane
parts, agriculture, building industry, etc. You gave that
order, did you not?

A. If I have undersigned it, the order is from me. I do not
remember details.

THE PRESIDENT: What was the number of that, Mr. Jackson?

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON:

Q. I ask to have you shown Document 1193-PS.

A. I have not seen it yet.

(A document was handed to the witness.)

This document, which you have just mentioned -

Q. I did not get the answer.

A. Excuse me. I have just received a document about the use
of Russian troops. Is that the document of which you speak?

Q. That is right. I call your attention to the fact that it
is referred to as an appendix in the letter signed by
Goering.

A. I want to point out that this document is not signed by
me, but by Koerner. That, however, does not diminish my
responsibility.

Q. Well, you do not question that on the 7th day of
November, 1941, you gave the order, as Koerner reports it,
do you, in the document referred to as Document 1193-PS?

A. I have only said that it was not signed by me but by
Koerner, and here even a still younger official, a
Regierungsrat, and that I only wanted to explain that this
was in my field and that therefore I assume responsibility.
But I have not yet read it through. This deals with
directives and outlines which I gave in general and which
were then filled in and revised by the department concerned,
whereby naturally not every word of every sentence written
here was said or dictated by myself. But that does not alter
the fact that I bear the responsibility for it, even if I
did not know it in detail or would have perhaps formulated
it differently. But the general directives were given by me,
implemented accordingly by the lesser authorities.

Q. You also gave the order, did you not, that 100,000 men
were to be taken from among the French prisoners of war not
yet employed in armament industry; that gaps in manpower
resulting therefrom were to be filled by Soviet prisoners of
war; and that the transfer of the above-named French
prisoners of war was to be accomplished by 1st October. You
gave that order, did you not?

A. That is correct. Here we deal primarily with the fact
that a large number of French skilled workers who were
prisoners of war were turned into free workers upon the
condition that they worked in the German armament industry.
The shortages which then occurred at their previous places
of work, where they

                                                  [Page 273]
                                                            

had worked as prisoners of war, were to be remedied by
Russian prisoners of war, because I considered it pointless
that qualified skilled industrial workers should be employed
in agriculture, for instance, or in any other field not
corresponding to their abilities. Thus there was an
incentive in the fact that these people could become free
workers instead of remaining prisoners of war if they would
agree to these conditions. The directives were given by me.

Q. And did you know that there was any forced labour
employed in Germany?

A. Duty labour, "Pflichtarbeit."

Q. Did you not testify under interrogation on 3rd October,
1945, that "I would like to add something to the last
question of the interrogation. The Colonel asked me if the
forced labour programme was effective, and I said 'Yes.
There are two remarks I would like to make to that.'

  Q. 'All right.'
  
  A. 'I must say that in the results as such it was
  effective. However, a great number of acts of sabotage
  did occur, and also treason and espionage.'
  
  Q. 'But on the whole you would say it was a successful
  programme from the German point of view?'
  
  A. 'Yes. Without this manpower many things could never
  have been achieved.'"

Did you say that?

A. That is evident, because without workers one cannot do
any work.

THE PRESIDENT: I do not think you answered the question. The
question was if you said the forced labour had been a
success. What do you have to say to that? Did you say that?

A. I have said what I did in answering the question whether
manpower was successful. Manpower used was successful; yes,
that is correct, these workers who were used got results.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON:

Q. Now, you were shown Document 3700-PS, written by Schacht
to you, and you have said that you received it.

A. Yes, I remember.

Q. Now, you and Schacht were to some extent rivals in the
economic field at one period, were you not?

A. I explained that only recently, and to what extent.

Q. You wanted his position abolished in the event of war and
he wanted your position abolished in event of war, did he
not - your economic position?

A. Not quite. They were like two functions of authority
having similar powers at the same time, two personalities,
and they in the long run were incompatible. It simply had to
be decided which one of the two should have the authority.
That would have been especially necessary in case of a
mobilisation.

Q. You, in testifying on the 17th day of October last, as to
your relations with Schacht, made this statement, did you
not, in reference to your disagreements with Schacht: "This
I must underline. Schacht always tried to manoeuvre for a
new post, whilst all the other Ministers co-operated
absolutely"? Did you say that?

A. Not exactly as it is there, but I wanted to emphasise
that, contrary to the other Ministers who obediently
followed my directives for the Four-Year Plan, I had certain
difficulties with Schacht, which I have already explained,
due to his originality and strong personality.

Q. The question was whether you made that statement in
substance or in those words?

A. Not exactly in these words, but as I have just explained,
in substance.

                                                  [Page 274]

Q. Now, do you recollect Schacht's letter to you, Document
3700-PS?

A. Yes, I read it a short time ago.

Q. And in that letter Schacht said this to you, did he not,
referring to Document 3700-PS? "It may be militarily
necessary - " Do you want to follow it?

(A document was handed to the witness.)

  "It may be militarily necessary to conscript the 15-year-
  olds, but it will heavily tax the fighting morale of the
  German people. The facts as the German people see them
  are as follows:
  
  First, the original prospect of a short war did not
  materialise.
  
  Second, the prospective quick victory over England by the
  Air Force did not materialise.
  
  Third, the public statement that Germany would remain
  free of enemy air raids has not been fulfilled.
  
  Fourth, the repeated announcements that the Russian
  resistance was definitely broken have been proved to be
  untrue.
  
  Fifth, Allied supplies of arms to Russia and the manpower
  reserves of Russia have, on the contrary, been sufficient
  to bring continuous heavy counter-attacks against our
  Eastern front.
  
  Sixth, the original victorious advance into Egypt has
  been halted after repeated attempts.
  
  Seventh, the landing of the Allies in North and West
  Africa, declared impossible, has, nevertheless, been
  accomplished.
  
  Eighth, the extremely large amount of shipping space
  which was required for this landing has shown that our U-
  boats, in spite of their successes, did not suffice to
  prevent this movement. In addition, the reductions in the
  civilian supply of traffic, in armaments, and in the
  availability of manpower are obvious to all the German
  people.
  
  The conscription of the 15-year-olds will increase the
  doubts concerning the termination of this war."

Can you fix any more definitely than you have done the date
when you received that letter?

A. I can only say again and again that it is dated 3rd
November, but the year is missing. If you could be given a
copy where the year is stated I could give an exact answer.
I have said recently that, according to my knowledge of
events, it is a question of either November, 1944, or
November, 1943. But unfortunately, that is not indicated
here. I can only read 3rd November. The year is missing.

Q. Do you know when Schacht was sent to the concentration
camp? Do you know the date of that?

A. Not exactly, but now that you remind me of it, I can say
that this letter certainly was not written in 1944 because
in November, 1944, I believe Schacht was already in the
concentration camp; consequently, it must date back to
November, 1943.

Q. He was sent to the concentration camp shortly after
dispatching that letter to you, was he not?

A. No, that is not correct.

Q. How much longer was he at large?

A. The letter is of 3rd November, 1943, as we have just
found. I heard about the arrest of Schacht only after the
attempt on the life of the Fuehrer and after my return a few
days later, after an illness of some time, that is to say,
in September, 1944. A connection between this letter and his
arrest does not exist in the least, because, when I asked
about his arrest, I was told definitely it resulted from the
events of 20th July.

                                                  [Page 275]

Q. Did you make an agreement, as Supreme Commander of the
Air Force, with the Reichsfuehrer S.S., the Youth Fuehrer of
the German Reich, and the Reich Minister for Occupied
Eastern Territories, about the recruiting of young Russians,
Ukrainians, White Russians, Lithuanians and Tartars between
the ages of 15 and 20? Did you come to some agreement with
Himmler and Rosenberg about that?

A. That I personally concluded such an agreement I do not
believe. It is possible and even probable that my office did
so, however.

Q. And you have testified yesterday or the day before - I
think Friday - as follows; let me refresh your memory about
the questions of confiscations:

  "Now, about the question of confiscation of State
  property - and it was only such property that was
  confiscated. As far as I know, private property is
  mentioned in the official report; so far as the winter of
  1941 and 1942 is concerned, such might have been the case
  in the matter of furs or perhaps fur boots, and some
  soldiers may have taken little odds and ends from the
  people, but, on the whole, there was no private property
  and so it could not be confiscated."

I think you also said that you never took anything, not even
so much as a screw or a bolt, when you were in occupation of
foreign territory. Do you recall that testimony?

A. Quite definitely.

Q. Do you still stand by it?

A. Of course.


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.