Twenty-Fifth Day:
Wednesday, 2nd January, 1946
[Page 236]
Dr. Kaltenbrunner, who signed the above-
mentioned orders, had the rank of S.S.
General (S.S. Obergruppenfuehrer) and was
the Chief of the Reich Security Main
Office.
Dr. Kaltenbrunner is about 40 years old,
height about 1.76 to 1.80 metres, and has
deep fencing scars on his face.
When Dr. Kaltenbrunner was only a Higher
S.S. and Police Officer, he visited the
camp several times, later on as the Chief
of Reich Security Main Office (R.S.H.A.) he
visited the camp too, though much less
frequently. During these visits, the
commander usually received him outside the
building of the camp headquarters and
reported.
[Page 237]
I am sure the Tribunal will recall, without
referring to it, Document 3012-PS. which has
heretofore been received as Exhibit USA 190.
That was the letter from the head of the
Sonderkommando of the Sipo and S.D., which
stated that the Ukraine would have to provide a
million workers for the armament industry and
that force should be used where necessary. That
letter was dated 19th March, 1943.
Kaltenbrunner's responsibility for the
disciplining of foreign labour is shown by
Document 1063B-PS, which has heretofore been
received as Exhibit USA 492. No part of this
letter has been read into the record. This
letter dated 26th July, 1943, was addressed to
Higher S.S. and Police Leaders, Commanders and
Inspectors of the Sipo and S.D., and to the
Chiefs of Einsatz Groups B and D.
The Tribunal will recall that Einsatz Groups A,
B, C, and D, operating in the East, carried out
the extermination of Jews and communist leaders.
This document proves Kaltenbrunner's control
over Einsatz Groups B and D. It is signed
"Kaltenbrunner." The first paragraph provides as
follows:
The Tribunal will recall that Kaltenbrunner's
responsibility covered the Criminal Police as
well as the Gestapo. It provides in part, and I
quote, reading at the beginning of the letter:
[Page 238]
Police imprisonment. Signed: Dr. Kaltenbrunner."
This is a series of four teletype orders
committing individuals to concentration camps. I
invite the attention of the Tribunal to the
second order dated the 18th of June, 1943, under
which the Gestapo at Saarbrucken was ordered to
deliver a Pole to the concentration camp
Natzweiler as a skilled workman, and to the
third teletype dated the 12th of December, 1944,
in which the Gestapo at Darmstadt was ordered to
commit a Greek to the concentration camp
Buchenwald because he was drifting around
without occupation, and to the fourth teletype
dated the 9th of February, 1945, in which the
Gestapo at Darmstadt in Benslein was ordered to
commit a French citizen to Buchenwald for
shirking work and insubordination. All of those
orders are signed, Kaltenbrunner.
I offer document 2580-PS as Exhibit next in
order, USA 524. This document contains three
more of these red-form orders for protective
custody, all signed Kaltenbrunner. The first one
shows that a citizen of the Netherlands was
taken into protective custody for work sabotage,
and the second one shows that a French citizen
was taken into protective custody for work
sabotage and insubordination, both under date 2
December, 1944.
The sixth crime for which Kaltenbrunner is
responsible as Chief of the Security Police and
S.D. is the executing of captured commandos and
paratroopers and the protecting of civilians who
lynched Allied fliers.
The Tribunal will recall, I am sure, without
referring to it, the Hitler Order of 18 October,
1942, which was introduced this morning,
Document 498-PS, Exhibit USA 501, to the effect
that commandos, even in uniform, were to be
exterminated to the last man, and that
individual members captured by the police in
occupied territory were to be handed over to the
S.D.
[Page 239]
The policy of the police to protect civilians
who lynched Allied fliers was effective during
the period that Kaltenbrunner served as Chief of
the Security Police and S.D. I now offer
Document 2990-PS as Exhibit next in order, USA
526. This is an affidavit of Walter
Schellenberg, the former Chief of Amt VI of the
R.S.H.A., and provides in paragraph 7 - this is
all I am going to read from the affidavit:
[Page 240]
The ninth crime for which Kaltenbrunner is
responsible as Chief of the Security Police and
S.D. is the clearance of Sipo and S.D. prisons
and concentration camps. I refer the Tribunal to
Document L-53, which was received in evidence as
Exhibit USA 291. This was the letter from the
Kommandeur of the Sipo and S.D. Radom, dated
21St July, 1944, in which it is stated that the
Kommandeur of the Sipo and S.D. of the
Government General had ordered all Sipo and S.D.
prisons to be cleared and, if necessary, the
inmates to be liquidated. I now offer Document
3462-PS as Exhibit next in order, USA 528. This
is the sworn interrogation of Bertus Gerdes, the
former Gaustabsanitsleiter under the Gauleiter
of Munich. This interrogation was taken in the
course of an official military investigation of
the U.S. Army. In this interrogation Gerdes was
ordered to state all he knew about
Kaltenbrunner. I am only going to read a very
small portion of his reply, beginning on the
third paragraph of page 2:
[Page 241]
Kaltenbrunner also ordered an operation -
'Wolkenbrand' - for the concentration
camp at Dachau, which provided that the
inmates of the concentration camp at Dachau
were to be liquidated by poison with the
exception of Aryan nationals of the Western
Powers.
Gauleiter Giesler received this order
direct from Kaltenbrunner an discussed, in
my presence, the procurement of the
required amounts poison with Dr. Hartfeld,
the Gau Health Chief. Dr. Hartfeld promise
to procure these quantities when ordered
and was advised to await my further
directions. As I was determined to prevent
the execution this plan in any event, I
gave no further instructions to Dr.
Hartfeld.
The inmates of Landsberg had hardly been
delivered at Dachau when Kaltenbrunner sent
a courier declaring the action Wolkenbran
was operational.
I prevented the execution of the Wolke A-I
and Wolkenbrand by giving Giesler the
reason that the Front was too close and
asked him transmit this on to
Kaltenbrunner.
Kaltenbrunner therefore issued directives
in writing to Dachau transport all Western
European prisoners by truck to Switzerland
an to march the remaining inmates into the
Tyrol, where the final liquidation of these
prisoners was to take place without fail."
(The Tribunal adjourned until 1000 hours on 3rd
January, 1946)
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(Part 9 of 9)
[LT. WHITNEY R. HARRIS continues]
"Orders for execution also came without the
name of the court of justice. Until the
assassination of Heydrich, these orders
were signed by him or by his competent
deputy. Later on the orders were signed by
Kaltenbrunner, but mostly they were signed
by his deputy, Gruppenfuehrer Mueller.
The fifth crime for which Kaltenbrunner is
responsible as Chief of the Security Police and
S.D. was the deportation of citizens of occupied
territories for forced labour and the
disciplining of forced labour.
"The Reichsfuehrer S.S. has given his
consent that besides concentration camps,
which come under the jurisdiction of the
S.S. Economic Administration Main Office,
further labour reformatory camps may be
created, for which the Security Police
alone is competent. These labour
reformatory camps are dependent on the
authorisation of the Reich Security Main
Office, which can only be granted in case
of emergency (great number of foreign
workers, and so forth)."
I now offer Document D-473 as exhibit next in
order, Exhibit USA 522. It should be right at
the beginning of the Document Book. This letter
signed " Kaltenbrunner " was sent by him under
date of 4th December, 1944, to Regional Offices
of the Criminal Police.
"According to the Decree of 30th June,
1943, crimes committed by Polish and Soviet-
Russian civilian labourers are being
prosecuted by the State Police (Head)
Offices, and even in those cases, where for
the time being the Criminal Police had,
within the sphere of its competence,
carried on the inquiries. For the purpose
of speeding up
I begin with the second paragraph:
"The following are available to the
Criminal Police as a means of prosecution:
And next to the last paragraph:
Admission into a concentration camp for
preventive custody as being anti-social or
dangerous to the community." "Their stay in the concentration camp is
normally to be for the duration of the war.
Besides this, the Criminal Police (Head)
Offices are authorised to hand over Polish
and Soviet-Russian civilian labourers in
suitable cases and with the agreement of
the competent State Police (Head) Offices
to the Gestapo's penal camps for the
'education for labour.' Where the
possibilities of prosecuting an individual
case are insufficient because of the
peculiarity of the case, the case is to be
handed over to the competent State Police
(Head) Office.
In addition to sending foreign workers to
Gestapo labour camps, Kaltenbrunner punished
foreign workers by committing them to
concentration camps. I offer Document 2582-PS as
the exhibit next in order, USA 523.
"I have instructed the 'Befehlshaber' of
the Security Police and the S.D. in Paris
to treat such parachutists in English
uniform as members of the commando
operations in accordance with the Fuehrer's
order of 18 October, 1942, and to inform
the military authorities in France that
there must be corresponding treatment at
the hands of the armed forces."
This letter was dated 17th June, 1944. That
executions were carried out by the S.D. pursuant
to the said Hitler order of 18th October, 1942,
while Kaltenbrunner was Chief of the Security
Police and S.D., is indicated by Document 526-PS
heretofore received as Exhibit USA 502 ; that
was the order introduced this morning; I am sure
the Tribunal recalls it.
"In 1944, on another occasion but also in the
course of an Amtschef conference, I heard
fragments of a conversation between
Kaltenbrunner and MulIer. I remember distinctly
the following remarks of Kaltenbrunner:
The seventh crime for which Kaltenbrunner is
responsible as Chief of the Security Police and
S.D. is the taking of civilians of occupied
countries to Germany for secret trial and
punishment and the punishment of civilians of
occupied territories by "summary methods." The
fact that this crime continued after the 30th of
January, 1943, is shown by Document 835-PS,
which is offered as Exhibit next in order, USA
527. This is a letter from the High Command of
the Armed Forces to the German Armistice
commission under date 2nd September, 1944. The
document begins, and I quote:
'All officers of the S.D. and the Security
Police are to be informed that pogroms of
the populace against English and American
terror fliers are not to be interfered
with. On the contrary, this hostile mood is
to be fostered.'"
"Conforming to the decrees, all non-German
civilians in occupied territories who have
endangered the security and readiness for
action of the occupying power by acts of
terror and sabotage or in other ways, are
to be surrendered to the Security Police
and S.D. Only those prisoners are to be
accepted who were legally sentenced to
death or were serving a sentence of
confinement prior to the announcement of
these decrees. Included in the punishable
acts which endanger the security or
readiness of action of the garrison power,
are those of a political nature."
The eighth crime for which Kaltenbrunner is
responsible as Chief of the Security Police and
S.D. is the crime of executing and confining
persons in concentration camps for crimes
allegedly committed by their relatives.
"Giesler told me that Kaltenbrunner was in
constant touch with him because he was
greatly worried about the attitude of the
foreign workers and especially inmates of
concentration camps Dachau, Muehldorf and
Landsberg, which were in the path of the
approaching Allied armies. On a Tuesday in
the middle of April 1945, I received a
telephone call from Gauleiter Giesler
asking me to be available for a
conversation that night. In the course of
our personal conversation that night, I was
told by Giesler that he had received a
directive from Kaltenbrunner by order of
the Fuehrer, to work out a plan without
delay for the liquidation of the
concentration camp at Dachau and the two
Jewish labour camps in Landsberg and
Muehldorf. The directive proposed to
liquidate the two Jewish labour camps at
Landsberg and Muehldorf, by use of the
German Luftwaffe, since the construction
area of these camps had previously been the
targets of repeated enemy air attacks. This
action received the code name of ' Wolke A-
I.' "
I now pass to the second paragraph on page 3,
continuing quoting from this interrogation:
"I was certain that I would never let this
directive be carried out. As the action
'Wolke A-I ' should already have become
operational for some time, I was literally
swamped by couriers from Kaltenbrunner and
moreover I was supposed to have discussed
the details of the Muehldorf and Landsberg
actions in detail with the two Kreisleiter
concerned. The couriers who were in most
cases S.S. officers, usually S.S.
lieutenants, gave me terse and strict
orders to read and initial. The orders
threatened me with the most terrible
punishment, including execution, if I did
not comply with them. However, I could
always
THE PRESIDENT: The Court will adjourn now.