One-Hundred-and-Eleventh Day:
Thursday, 18th April, 1946
[Page 133]
A. No, I know nothing about that.
Q. Can you say anything about the basis for protective
custody? On the strength of what legal rulings was
protective custody decreed after 1933?
A. Protective custody was based on the Decree of the Reich
President for the Protection of the People and the State of
February, 1933, in which a number of the basic rights of the
Weimar Constitution were rescinded.
Q. Was there later a decree of the Minister of the Interior
which dealt with protective custody, at the end of 1936 or
the beginning of 1937?
A. Yes, at that time the Protective Custody Law was drawn
up. The legal basis as such remained in force. At that time
power to decree protective custody was confined to the
Secret State Police; before that a number of other offices,
rightly or wrongly, had the right to decree protective
custody. To prevent this, protective custody was then
confined to the Secret State Police.
Q. Is it correct that for some time you were in France. In
what capacity were you there?
A. In the later summer and autumn of 1943 I was Commander of
the Security
Police in France, in Toulouse.
Q. Do you know anything about an order from the R.S.H.A. or
from the Commander of the Sipo for all France or from
various district Commanders to the effect that mistreatment
or torture was to be applied when prisoners were
interrogated?
A. No, I do not know of such orders.
Q. Then how do you explain the mistreatments and atrocities
which actually took place in connection with interrogations,
proof of which has been given by the prosecution?
A. It is possible that ill-treatment did occur in a number
of cases although it was forbidden; possibly committed by
members of German offices in France which did not belong to
the Security Police.
Q. Did you, while you were active in France, hear of any
such ill-treatment either officially or by hearsay?
A. I never heard of any such ill-treatment at the hands of
members of the German police or the German Armed Forces. I
heard only of cases of ill-treatment carried out by groups
consisting of Frenchmen who were being employed by some
German office.
Q. Were there so-called Gestapo prisons in France?
A. No, the Security Police in France did not have prisons of
their own. They handed over their prisoners to the detention
camps of the German Armed Forces.
Q. One last question: The prosecution has given proof of a
large number of Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes which
were committed with the participation of the Security
Police. Can one say that these crimes were perfectly obvious
and were known to all members of the Secret State Police, or
were these crimes known only to a small circle of persons
who had been ordered directly to carry out the measures
concerned? Do you know anything about that?
[Page 134]
Q. I was referring to the Security Police in general.
A. No ill-treatment or torture of any kind was permitted
and, as far as I know, nothing of the kind did happen. Still
less was it known generally or to a large circle of persons,
I knew nothing of it.
DR. MERKEL: I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now for ten minutes.
(A recess was taken.)
THE PRESIDENT: Does the prosecution wish to cross-examine?
Is there nothing you wish to ask arising out of Dr. Merkel's
examination, Dr. Seidl?
DR. SEIDL: I have only one more question to ask the witness.
BY DR. SEIDL:
Q. Witness, in paragraph 4 of the decree of 3 June, 1942,
the following ruling is made:-
Now I ask you whether orders which had been issued by the
Commanders of the Security Police and the S.D. were
forwarded to the governors or were sent directly to the
district commanders of the Security Police and the S.D?
A. These orders were always sent directly from the commander
to the district commanders of the Security Police and the
S.D. The commander could give no instructions to the
governors.
Q. If I understand you correctly you mean that the Security
Police and the S.D. had their own official channels which
had absolutely nothing to do with the administrative
construction of the Government General.
A. Yes.
DR. SEIDL: I have no more questions for the witness.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness can retire.
DR. SEIDL: With the permission of the Tribunal I call as the
next witness the former Governor of Cracow, Dr. Kurt von
Burgsdorf.
DR. KURT VON BURGSDORF, a witness, took the stand and
testified as
follows:-
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. Will you state your full name?
A. Kurt von Burgsdorf.
Q. Will you repeat this oath after me:-
I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will
speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.
(The witness repeated the oath.)
DIRECT EXAMINATION
BY DR. SEIDL:
Q. Witness, the Government General was divided into five
districts at the head of each of which there was a governor;
is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. From 1 December, 1943, until the occupation of your
district by Soviet troops you were governor of the district
Cracow?
A. Yes. To use the correct term, I was -
GENERAL RUDENKO: Mr. President, the defence counsel has put
the question of the occupation of this region by Soviet
troops. I energetically protest against such terminology and
consider it a hostile move.
[Page 135]
THE PRESIDENT: I think the point was, it wasn't an
occupation, it was a liberation by the Russian Army.
DR. SEIDL: Of course; I did not want to say any more than
that the German troops were driven out of this area by the
Soviet troops.
Witness, will you please continue with your answer?
THE WITNESS: I was entrusted with exercising the duties of a
governor - that is the official expression. Until a few
months ago I was still an officer of the Armed Forces, and
during my entire activity in Cracow I remained an officer of
the Armed Forces.
BY DR. SEIDL:
Q. Witness, according to your observations what basically
was the attitude of the Governor General toward the Polish
and Ukrainian people?
A. I want to emphasise that I can answer only for the year
1944. At that time the attitude of the Governor General was
that he wished to live in peace with the people.
Q. Is it correct that already in 1942 the Governor General
had given the governors the opportunity of setting up
administrative committees of Poles and Ukrainians attached
to the district chiefs?
A. There was a governmental decree to this effect. Whether
that was in 1942 or not I do not know.
Q. Did you yourself make use of the authorisation contained
therein and did you establish such administrative
committees?
A. In the district of Cracow I had such a committee
established at once for every district chief office.
Q. Witness, according to your observations what was the food
situation like in the Government General and particularly in
your district?
A. It was not unsatisfactory, but I must add that the reason
for that was that in addition to the rations the Polish
population had an extensive black market.
Q. According to your observations what was the attitude of
the Governor General to the question of the recruiting of
labour?
A. He did not wish any workers to be sent outside the
Government General, because he was interested in retaining
the necessary manpower within the country.
Q. Was the Church persecuted by the Governor General in the
Government General, and what basically was the attitude of
the Governor General to this question according to your
observations?
A. Again I can answer only for my district and for the year
1944. There was no persecution of churches, on the contrary,
the relations with churches of all denominations were good
in my district. On my travels I always received the
clergymen and I never heard any complaint.
Q. Did you have any personal experience with the Governor
General with regard to this question?
A. Yes. In the middle of January, 1944, I was appointed
District Standartfuehrer by the Governor General, who at the
same time was the Party Leader in the Government General.
That is, I was appointed to a Party office for the district
of Cracow. I pointed out to him, as I had pointed out to the
Minister of the Interior, Himmler, before, that I was a true
Christian. The Governor General replied that he was in no
way perturbed by that and that he knew of no provision in
the Party programme which would exclude me on that ground.
Q. What, according to your observations, were the relations
like between the
[Page 136]
A. Doubtlessly underneath they were bad, because the police
always ended by doing only what they wanted and were not
concerned with the administration. Thus in the country
districts also there was real friction between the
administration offices and the police.
Q. Is it correct that when you took office or shortly after,
the Governor General issued several instructions referring
to the police? I quote from the diary of the defendant Dr.
Frank, the entry of 4 January, 1944:-
Q. In your capacity as Governor did you have any authority
to issue commands to the Security Police and the S.D. in
your district?
A. None whatsoever.
Q. Did you yourself ever see a police directive?
A. Never. With the police, orders were passed down
vertically, that is, directly from the Higher S.S. and
Police Leader to the S.S. and Police Leader. That is
probably the usual way, from the Commander of the Security
Po lice to the local Commander of the Security Police.
Q. In your activity as Governor did you have anything to do
with the administration of concentration camps?
A. Never.
Q. Do you know who administered the concentration camps?
A. No, not from my own experience, but I have heard that
there was some central office in Berlin under the
Reichsfuehrer S.S.
Q. When did you hear for the first time of the concentration
camp Maidanek?
A. From you, about a fortnight ago.
Q. You want to tell the Tribunal under oath -
A. Yes.
Q. - that you, although you were Governor of Cracow in the
occupied Polish Territory, did not learn about that until
during your captivity?
A. Yes, I am firmly convinced that I heard about this
concentration camp from you for the first time.
Q. When did you for the first time hear of the concentration
camp Treblinka?
A. Also from you on the same occasion.
Q. Witness, the Governor General is accused by the
prosecution of issuing a decree for Court Martial procedure
in the year 1943. What at that time was the security
situation in the Government General?
A. Again I can speak only for the year 1944. As German
troops came back from the East, it became worse and worse,
so that in my district it became more and more difficult to
carry out any kind of administration.
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(Part 9 of 10)
[DR. MERKEL continues his direct examination of Hans Frank] "The S.S. and Police Leaders in the districts are
directly subordinate to the governors of the districts,
just as the State Secretary for Security is subordinate
to the Governor General."
Thus it does not say that the entire police organisation is
subordinate, but only the police leaders.
"The Governor General then issued some instructions to
Dr. von Burgsdorf in reference to his new activity. His
task will be to inform himself, as a matter of policy,
about all conditions in the district. Especially the
Governor should strive to counteract any perpetrations by
the police."
A. Today I no longer remember that conversation of 4
January, 1944, but it may have taken place. However, I do
remember that after I took office at the end of November,
1943, I went to see the Governor General once more and told
him that I had heard that the relations with the police were
not good and scarcely tolerable for the administration. He
replied that he was doing what he could in order to bring
the police, as I might put it, to reason. It was on the
basis of this statement by the Governor General that I
definitely decided to remain in the Government General. I
had, as is known, told the Reich Minister of the Interior
that I was unwilling to go there.