Twenty-Fifth Day:
Wednesday, 2nd January, 1946
[Page 203]
If you will recall, Lahousen said this conference was in the summer of
1941.
It is addressed to commanders of the Sipo and S.D. stationed in camps
and provides in part as follows, and I read from the first page of the
English translation.
Now, if the Tribunal please, our colleagues, the Soviet prosecutors,
will present most of that document, and I am only going to read enough
to show that the Gestapo were the ones that took part in it. From the
beginning :
The commandos will work independently according to special
authorisation and according to the general directive given to
them in the limits of the camp regulations. Naturally the
commandos will keep close contact with the camp commander and the
intelligence officer assigned to him.
This mission of the commandos is the political investigation of
all camp inmates, the elimination and further treatment:
(b) of those persons who could be used for the reconstruction of
the occupied countries."
By using such informers, and by use of all other existing
possibilities, the discovery of all elements to be eliminated
among the prisoners must follow step by step. The commandos must
learn for themselves in every case by means of short questioning
of the informer and possible questioning of other prisoners. The
information of one informer is not sufficient to designate a camp
inmate to be a suspect without further proof. It must be
confirmed in some way, if possible."
[Page 204]
The first page of that document, is a letter from the Camp Commandant
of the concentration camp Gross-Rosen to Mueller, who was the Chief of
the Gestapo, dated the 23rd of October, 1941, referring to a previous
oral conference with Mueller and setting forth the names of 20 Soviet
prisoners of war executed the previous day.
The second page - I am still referring to Document 1165 but not
reading from it, because it has already been quoted from - is a
directive issued by Mueller on the 9th of November, 1941, to all
Gestapo offices, in which he ordered that all diseased prisoners of
war should be excluded from transports to concentration camps for
execution, because 5 to 10 per cent. of those destined for execution
were arriving in the camps dead or half dead.
I now offer Document 3542-PS, Exhibit USA 489, which is in the second
volume. This is an affidavit of Kurt Lindow, a former Gestapo
official, which was taken on the 30th of September, 1945, at
Oberursel, Germany, in the course of an official military
investigation by the United States Army, and I quote from that
document from the begininng:
From 1941 until the middle of 1943, there was attached to
Subsection IV A i (which is not shown on this chart, but was
described in the beginning) a special department that was headed
by the Regierungsoberinspektor, later Regierungsamtmann, and
S.S.-Hauptsturmbannfuehrer Franz Koenigshaus. In this department
were handled matters concerning prisoners of war. I learned from
this department that instructions and orders by Reichsfuehrer
Himmler, dating from 1941 to 1942, existed, according to which
captured Soviet political Commissars and Jewish soldiers were to
be executed. As far as I know, proposals for execution of such
P.W's. were received from the various P.W. camps. Koenigshaus had
to prepare the orders for
[Page 205]
The Department Chief, Koenigshaus, was under me in disciplinary
questions from the middle of 1942 until about the beginning of
1943, and worked, in matters of his department, directly with the
chief of Group IV A, Regierungsrat Panzinger. Early in 1943 the
department was dissolved, and absorbed into the departments in
Sub-section IV B. The work concerning Russian P.W's. must then
have been done by IV B 2a. Head of Department IV B 2a was
Regierungsrat and Sturmbannfuehrer Hans Helmut Wolf.
There existed in the PM. camps on the Eastern Front small
screening teams (Einsatzkommandos), headed by a lower ranking
member of the Secret Police or Gestapo. These teams were assigned
to the camp commandos and had the job of segregating the P.W's.
who were candidates for execution, according to the orders that
had been given, and to report them to the Office of the Secret
Police."
Passing from that phase of the case : The Gestapo and S.S. sent re-
captured prisoners of war to concentration camps, where they were
executed, that is, prisoners of war who had escaped and were
recaptured. The Tribunal will recall that in a document heretofore
introduced, 1650-PS, was an order in which the Chief of the Security
Police and S.S. instructed regional Gestapo offices to take certain
classes of recaptured officers from camps, and to transport them to
Mauthausen. Concentration Camp, under the operation known as "Kugel."
That, if your Honour recalls, means "Bullet." That is the famous
"Bullet " Decree that has been previously introduced. On the journey
the prisoners of war were to be placed in irons. The Gestapo officers
were to make semi-annual reports, giving numbers only, of the sending
of these prisoners of war to Mauthausen. On the 27th of July, 1944, an
order was issued from the VI Corps Area Command on the treatment of
prisoners of war. That is Document 1514-PS in the second volume, which
I offer as Exhibit USA 491. This document provided that prisoners of
war were to be discharged from prisoner of war status and transferred
to the Gestapo under certain circumstances, and I quote from the first
page:
1. (a) According to the decrees (2) and (3), the commander of the
camp has to deliver Soviet prisoners of war in case of punishable
offences to the Secret State Police and to dismiss them from
imprisonment of war, if he does not believe that disciplinary
functions are sufficient to prescribe punishment for violations
committed. Report of the facts is not necessary.
[Page 206]
(c) Recaptured Soviet officers who are prisoners of war have to
be delivered to the Gestapo and to be dismissed from imprisonment
of war. (Section C1 of Decree No. 4 and Decree No. 5.)
(d) Soviet officer prisoners of war who refuse to work and those
who distinguish themselves as agitators and have an unfavourable
influence upon the willingness to work of the other prisoners of
war, have to be delivered by the responsible Stalag to the
nearest State Police office and to be dismissed from imprisonment
of war. (Section C1 of Decree No. 4 and Decree No. 5.)
(e) Soviet enlisted prisoners of war refusing to work who are
ring-leaders and those who distinguish themselves as agitators
and therefore have an unfavourable influence upon the willingness
to work of the other prisoners of war, have to be delivered to
the nearest State Police Office and to be dismissed from
imprisonment of war. (Section C2 of Decree No. 4.)
Soviet prisoners of war (enlisted men and officers), who with
respect to their political attitude have been sifted out by
Einsatzkonimando of the Security Police and the Security Service,
have to be delivered upon request by the camp commander to the
Einsatzkonimando and to be dismissed from imprisonment of war.
(Decree No. 6.)
(g) Polish prisoners of war have to be delivered, if acts of
sabotage are proven, to the nearest State Police Office and to be
dismissed from imprisonment of war. The decision rests with the
camp commander. Report on this is not necessary. (Decree No. 7.)
2. A report on the delivery and dismissal from imprisonment of
war in the cases mentioned under paragraph 1of this decree to the
Mil. District Command VI, Dept. of Prisoners of War, is not
necessary.
3. Prisoners of war from all nations have to be delivered to the
Secret State Police and to be dismissed from imprisonment of war,
if a special order of the O.K.W. or of the Mil. District Command
VI, Dept. for Prisoners of War, is issued.
4. Prisoners of war under suspicion of participating in illegal
organisations and resistance movements have to be left to the
Gestapo, upon request, for the purpose of interrogation. They
remain prisoners of war and have to be treated as such. The
delivery to the Gestapo and their dismissal from imprisonment of
war has to take place only by order of the O.K.W. or of the Mil.
District Command VI, Dept. of Prisoners of War.
[Page 207]
The prisoners were taken directly to the prison, where they were
unclothed and taken to the 'Bathroom.' This bathroom in the
cellars of the prison building near the crematory was specially
designed for execution (shooting and gassing). The shooting took
place by means of a measuring apparatus. The prisoners being
backed towards a metrical measure with an automatic contraption
releasing a bullet in his neck as soon as the moving plank
determining his height touched the top of his head.
If a transport consisted of too many 'K' prisoners, instead of
losing time for the measurement they were exterminated by gas,
laid on to the bathrooms instead of water." [
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(Part 2 of 9)
[COLONEL STOREY continues]
"The action of commandos will take place in accordance with the
agreement of the Chief of the Security Police and Security
Service and the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces as of 16th
July, 1941. Enclosure I.
Now I pass to the beginning of the fourth paragraph:
(a) of all political, criminal, or in some other way undesirable
elements among them;
"The commandos must use for their work as far as possible now,
and even later, the experiences of. the camp commanders, which
the latter have gathered from observation of the prisoners and
examination of the camp inmates. Further, the commandos must make
efforts from the beginning to seek out among the prisoners
elements which would appear reliable, regardless whether there
are communists concerned or not, in order to use them for
intelligence purposes inside the camp, and, if advisable, later
in the occupied territories also.
"Executions are not to be held in the camp or in the immediate
vicinity of the camp. If the camps in the Government General are
in the immediate vicinity of the border, then the prisoners are
to be taken for special treatment, if possible, into the former
Soviet territory."
And then the 5th paragraph:
"In regard to executions to be carried out and to the possible
removal of reliable civilians and the removal of informers for
the Einsatzgruppe in the occupied territories, the leader of the
Einsatzkommandos must make an agreement with the nearest State
Police Office, as well as with the commandant of the Security
Police unit and Security Service, and beyond these, with the
Chief of the Einsatzgruppe concerned in the occupied
territories."
Proof that persons so screened out of the prisoner of war camps by the
Gestapo were executed is to be found in Document 1165-PS, from which I
do not intend to quote, and which has been previously introduced as
Exhibit USA 244. Document 1165-PS shows that those that had been
screened out were executed.
"I was Kriminaldirektor in Section IV of the R.S.H.A." -
I call your Honour's attention to the chart on the board that he was
Director of Section IV and head of the Sub-section IV A I -
"from the middle of 1942 until the middle of 1944. I had the rank
of S. S.-Sturmbannfuehrer.
I will not read the remainder of that affidavit.
"Subject : Delivery of prisoners of war to the Secret State
Police."
Enclosed is the decree (I) referred to :
"The following summarising ruling is issued with respect to the
delivery to the Secret State Police :
This decree was known as the "Bullet Decree." Prisoners of war, sent
to Mauthausen Concentration Camp under the decree, were executed.
I now offer in support of that statement Document 2285-PS, Exhibit USA
490. It is in the second volume. Document 2285-PS is an affidavit of
Lt.-Col. Guivante de Saint Gast, and Lt. Jean Veith, both of the
French Army, which was taken on the 13th May, 1945, in the course of
an official military investigation by the United States Army. The
affidavit discloses that Lt.-Col. Gast was confined at Mauthausen from
15th March, 1944, to 22nd April, 1945, and that Lt. Veith was confined
from 22nd April, 1943 until 22nd April, 1945. I quote from the
affidavit, beginning with the third paragraph of Page 1, quoting :
"In Mauthausen existed several treatments of prisoners, amongst
them the 'action K or Kugel' (Bullet action). Upon the arrival of
transports, prisoners with the mention 'K' were not registered,
and received no numbers, and their names remained unknown except
to the officials of the 'Politische Abteilung.' (Lt. Veith had
the opportunity of hearing upon the arrival of a transport the
following conversation between the Untersturmfuehrer Streitwieser
and chief of the convoy: 'How many prisoners?' '15 but two K.'
'Well, that makes 13 ').