The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Fifty-Sixth Day: Monday,11th February, 1946
(Part 13 of 14)


[MAJOR-GENERAL ZORYA continues]

Your Honors, the testimonies of Stolze, Bentivegny, and Pieckenbrock, which I have presented in evidence, disclose the working methods of the German Intelligence Service in the preparation and execution of Case "Barbarossa."

I shall not detain the Tribunal any further with these questions. But before proceeding to a further presentation, I should like to point out that the department of the defendant Kaltenbrunner was likewise interested in Intelligence work. I shall limit myself to submitting one document which is typical of the manner in which the Hitlerites, by exploiting their connections, created difficulties in Iran, through which country, as was known, the supply routes passed for the delivery to the U.S.S.R. of motor vehicles and war material of the most varied description.

The document, which I intend to submit to the Tribunal as Exhibit USSR 178, was taken by us from the German Foreign Office archives, which fell into the hands of advance units of the Red Army. This document is the defendant Kaltenbrunner's letter to the defendant Ribbentrop. The letter is typed on a sheet of notepaper with the letterhead of the Chief of the Security Police and S.D. In the document book before you, you will find this document on Page 52. I read into the record the underlined extracts from this letter:

"28th July, 1943.

Secret.

"To the Foreign Minister Herr von Ribbentrop,

Berlin

Elections to the Iranian Parliament.

Most honorable Herr Minister,

We have made direct contact with Iran and have received information on the possibilities of exercising German influence on the course of the imminent Iranian Parliamentary elections."

And a few lines further on it is stated:
"In order to exercise a decisive influence on the results of the elections, bribery is necessary.

For Teheran, 400,000 tomans, and for the rest of Iran at least 600,000 tomans are necessary.

It should be noted that nationally oriented Iranian circles expect the intervention of Germany.

I beg you to inform me whether it is possible to obtain 1,000,000 tomans from the Foreign Office. This money can be sent with the people whom we are sending there by aeroplane.

Heil Hitler!
Yours devotedly, Kaltenbrunner,
S.S. Obergruppenfuehrer."
This document will help you to form an idea of the range of questions which interested the Reich Foreign Minister.

Such a peculiar activity of the Foreign Office was not in the nature of a chance episode.

In the course of time, the collaboration of the German Foreign Office and of the Reich Fuehrer S.S. waxed in strength and developed more and more. As a result, a very curious document appeared, which might be considered as an agreement between Himmler and Ribbentrop on the organisation of Intelligence work.

[Page 254]

I submit this document as Exhibit USSR 120, and request the Tribunal to accept it as documentary evidence. This document is on Page 53 and 55 of the document book before you. The text of this agreement will be read into the record with a few remarks. The text of the agreement reads:

"By the order dated 12th February, 1944, the Fuehrer has entrusted the Reich Fuehrer S.S. with the creation of a unified German Secret Intelligence Service. The Secret Intelligence Service has as its purpose, so far as foreign countries are concerned, the procuring of information in political, military, economic and technical spheres for the Reich. In addition, the Fuehrer has established that the direction of the Intelligence Service, insofar as foreign countries are concerned, must be conducted in agreement with the Foreign Minister. In this connection, the following agreement between the Reich Foreign Minister and the Reichsfuehrer S.S. was arrived at:

(1) The Secret Intelligence Service of the Reichsfuehrer S.S. represents an important instrument for obtaining information in the sphere of foreign politics, and this instrument is placed at the disposal of the Foreign Minister. The first condition for this is close, comradely, and loyal co-operation between the Foreign Office and the Headquarters of the Reich Security Service. The collection of information on foreign politics by the Diplomatic Service is not affected by this.

(2) The Foreign Office places at the disposal of the Headquarters of the Reich Security Service the information on the situation in the field of foreign politics necessary for the conduct of the Intelligence Service, and the directive regarding German foreign policy. It hands over to the Headquarters of the Reich Security Service its Intelligence and other tasks in the sphere of foreign policy, which are to be performed by the organs of the Secret Intelligence Service.

(3) Intelligence material in the field of foreign politics, obtained by the Secret Intelligence Service, is placed---"

THE PRESIDENT: Wouldn't it be a sufficient summary of this document with which you are dealing to say that it is a document signed by Himmler and Ribbentrop and that it shows that there was a unification of the German Secret Intelligence Service. The details of that unification are not really a matter which very much concerns this Tribunal, and therefore, as we are directed by the Charter to be as expeditious as possible, it is not necessary to read all the details of this unification.

MAJOR-GENERAL ZORYA: I summarise this document and would add that this agreement, signed by Himmler and Ribbentrop, created such a state of affairs that it became extremely difficult to dmake head or tail of prevailing conditions in Fascist Germany or to distinguish where Himmler's Gestapo service ended and the Foreign Office activities of the defendant Ribbentrop began.

I shall now, with the permission of the Tribunal, proceed to the presentation of the next document. The document which I have just read (I am referring to the Himmler-Ribbentrop agreement concerning the conduct of intelligence work abroad) also justifies the assumption that under the name of German diplomatic representation in such countries which maintained normal diplomatic relations with Germany, a whole intelligence network of the Gestapo was actively functioning.

If this summary, in the opinion of the Tribunal, corresponds to the contents of the document, I shall proceed to the following section of the report -- "The satellites of Germany."

When Case "Barbarossa" was read into the record in Court, there was one part of the entire case which, in my opinion, received comparatively little

[Page 255]

attention. I refer to Part 2 of Case "Barbarossa" (Document 446-PS). This part bears the name of "Presumed Allies and Their Tasks."


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