One Hundred and Thirty-Ninth Day:
Monday, 27th May, 1946
[Page 9]
Does that help your memory any with this programme that your
youth people were engaging in? Do you recall any more of it
now?
A. It does not help my memory at all, because I learn of
this for the first time from this document. I was not
informed of the activities of the Eastern Ministry in
Russia, and I do not know what assignment the Eastern
Ministry gave to Hitler Youth Leader Nickel. I assume
responsibility for what was done on my orders, but anything
done on the orders of others must be their responsibility.
Q. Let me show you something with respect to your answer
that you have just made. That personnel, that I read out,
you know, was only in one part of the programme. And on the
last page of the document you will see on how wide an area
Nickel was operating. He was operating in co-operation with
the Netherland Hitler Youth Operational Command, the Adria
Hitler Youth Operational Command, the Southern Hitler Youth
Operational Command in Slovakia and Hungary, the Lt. NAGEL
Special Command in refugee camps within the Reich, and then,
interestingly enough, the field-offices in Vienna.
[Page 10]
A. I received no written or verbal report from Nickel. His
report, as can be seen from the letter, went to the Reich
Ministry for Eastern Occupied Territories, and to what
extent the Reich Youth Leader was being informed is not
known to me. I myself do not know what took place. What I do
know of the entire affair, I very clearly stated in my
testimony with reference to the Junkers works and the
professional training which these youngsters were given in
Germany. Apart from that I have no further knowledge.
Q. Observe also, if you will, witness, that your Hitler
Youth Operational Command was in Poland and even in Northern
Italy. And now I ask you once again, as a long-standing
Hitler Youth Leader, as the leader for the war commitment of
youth, then Gauleiter in Vienna, with part of this programme
being carried on in Vienna and the whole programme being
carried on on this vast scale, do you want the Tribunal to
believe that you knew nothing about it?
A. I have no knowledge of it, but I assume responsibility
for it.
Q. You told the Tribunal in your direct examination that you
wrote the letter to Streicher's Der Sturmer.
MR. DODD: I would like to submit this in evidence, Mr.
President, so that the Tribunal will have an idea of what it
appeared like on the front page of Der Sturmer.
Q. Perhaps - if you would like to look at it, you may, of
course, witness. It is Exhibit USA 871. I just wanted you to
have a look at it before it was submitted. You know about it
anyway.
A. I already made a statement about that the other day.
Q. Yes, I did not wish to go into it farther. What I do want
to ask you, witness, is do I understand you clearly when I
say that from your testimony we gathered that it was Hitler
who ordered the evacuation of the Jews from Vienna and that
you really did not suggest it or wish to see it carried out?
Is that a fair understanding of your testimony of a day or
two ago?
A. I stated the other day, and I repeat, that the idea of
evacuating the Jews from Vienna was Hitler's idea which he
communicated to me in 1940 at his headquarters. Furthermore,
and I want to make this quite clear, I stated that after the
events of those November days in 1938 I was actually of the
opinion that it would be better for the Jewish population to
be accommodated in a closed settlement than to be regularly
singled out by Goebbels as a target for his propaganda and
his organized actions. I also said that I identified myself
with that action suggested by Hitler, but did not carry it
out.
Q. Now you had a meeting at the Fuehrer's headquarters in
October of 1940. Present was the defendant Frank and the now
notorious Koch whom we have heard so much about. Do you
remember that meeting?
A. I no longer recall it exactly.
Q. Now, you mean you do not recall that meeting at all?
A. In October 1940 I was in the Reich Chancellery because
that was the time when I was organising the evacuation of
the youth. It is possible that at lunch -
THE PRESIDENT: You were asked whether you recalled a
particular meeting in October 1940 with certain particular
people. Do you remember it or do you not?
A. I have no recollection of it. If I am shown a document,
then I can confirm it.
BY MR. DODD:
Q. Very well; that is what I wanted to know. I will now show
you the Document USSR 172. A part of this document was read
over the system for the
[Page 11]
Martin Bormann compiled these notes, so I assume he was
there, too. After a dinner at the Fuehrer's apartment there
developed a conversation on the nature of the Government
General:
A. Yes, I have refreshed my memory now.
Q. Yes. And you suggested that you wanted to get 50,000 Jews
moved into Frank's territory out of Vienna, did you not?
A. That is not correct. The Fuehrer asked me how many Jews
were still in Vienna, and at that time - I mentioned this
during my own testimony the other day and it is contained in
the files - there were still 50,000 Jews in Vienna. During
that conversation, in which the question of settling Jews in
the Government General was discussed, I also said that these
50,000 Jews from Vienna were still to be transferred to the
Government General. I told you earlier that as a result of
the events of November 1938 I was in favour of the Fuehrer's
plan to take the Jews to a closed settlement.
Q. Well, now, later on, as you know from Exhibit USA 681
concerning which your own counsel inquired, Lammers sent you
a message in Vienna and he said the Fuehrer had decided,
after receipt of one of the reports made by you, that the
50,000 Jews in Vienna would be deported most rapidly, and
that was just two months after this conference that you had
with Frank and Koch and Hitler, was it not?
A. Yes, since 1937 - and I think that becomes clear from the
Hoszbach minutes - the Fuehrer had the idea of expatriating
the Jewish population. This plan, however, did not become
known to me until August 1940, when I took over the Vienna
district. I reported to Hitler on that occasion, and he
asked me how many Jews there were in Vienna. I answered his
question, and he told me that he actually wanted all of them
to be settled in the Government General.
Q. How many Jews did you, in fact, deport out of your
district while you were the Gauleiter?
A. First of all, the practical measures of that action were
not in my hands. I don't know how many of these 50,000 Jews
were actually transported out of Vienna.
Q. Do you have any idea where they went to?
A. I was informed that the aged were being taken to
Theresienstadt and the others to Poland, to the Government
General. On one occasion - it was either when I took my oath
of office as Governor or when I made a speech about the
[Page 12]
Q. We will come to that. You remember, do you not, that they
were sent - at least some of them were sent to the cities of
Riga and Minsk, and you were so notified? Do you remember
receiving that information?
A. No.
Q. Now look at Document 3921-PS, which becomes Exhibit USA
872. Now this is a communication concerning the evacuation
of Jews and it shows that 50,000 Jews were to be sent to the
Minsk-Riga area, and you got a copy of this report as the
Commissioner for the defence of the Reich, and if you will
look on the last page you will see an initial there of your
chief assistant, the SS man Dellbruegge, and also the stamp
of your own office as having received it.
A. I can only see that Dr. Dellbruegge marked the matter for
filing. It shows the letters z.d.A., to the files.
Q. And he did not tell you about this report concerning the
Jews? Even though you had been talking to Hitler about it,
that they were being moved out of your area. I suppose your
chief assistant did not bother to tell you anything about
it. Is that what you want us to understand?
A. Yes.
Q. Now then, look at another document which will shed some
light on this one. It is Exhibit USA 808, already in
evidence. It tells you what happened to the Jews in Minsk
and Riga, and this was also received in your office, if you
recall. Maybe it is not necessary to show it to you again.
You remember the document - that is one of those monthly
reports from Heydrich wherein he said that there were 29,000
Jews in Riga and they had been reduced to 2,500 and that in
the areas 33,210 were shot by the special unit,
Einsatzgruppe. Do you remember that?
A. During the last two days I have looked at these monthly
reports most carefully. The bottom right-hand corner of the
cover of these monthly reports - and I want to make this
categorically clear - bears an initial something like Dr.
Fsch., that is Dr. Fischer's initial. At the top the reports
are not initialled by me, but by the Government President,
with the notation that they should be put into the files. If
I had read them -
Q. I am not suggesting that you had your initials on any
document like this, but 1 am claiming that these documents
came into your organization and into the hands of your
principal assistant.
A. But I must point out that if they had been submitted to
me, then there would have been on them the notation,
"submitted to the Reichsleiter," and the official submitting
them would have initialled this notation. If I myself had
seen them, then my own initials would be on them with the
letters " K.g." i.e. noted.
Q. Yes. I want to remind you that the date of that report is
February 19ð2, and I also want to remind you that in it as
well Heydrich tells you how many Jews they had killed in
Minsk. Now you made a speech once in Poland about the Polish
or the Eastern policy of Germany. Do you remember it,
witness?
A. In Poland?
Q. In Poland, yes.
A. In 1939 I spent a short time in Poland, but I do not
think I was there again later.
Q. Your memory seems particularly poor this morning. Do you
not remember speaking in Kattowitz on the 20th of January,
1942?
A. That is Upper Silesia.
Q. Upper Silesia, all right. Do you remember that speech?
A. Yes, I made a speech at Kattowitz.
Q. And did you talk about Hitler's policy for the Eastern
territories?
A. I cannot say from memory what I spoke about there. I have
made many speeches.
[Page 13]
A. Yes.
Q. Paragraph 7, you dealt with the tasks of German youth in
the East. The Hitler Youth had carried out political
schooling along the line of the Fuehrer's Eastern policy and
you went on to say how grateful you were to the Fuehrer for
having turned the German people toward the East, because the
East was the destiny of your people. What did you understand
to be the Fuehrer's Eastern policy, or did you have a good
understanding of it at that time?
A. I said this in Upper Silesia out of gratitude for the
return of that territory to us.
Q. Well, I did not ask you that, really. I asked you if you
then understood the Fuehrer's policy when you made that
speech?
A. On the basis of our victory over Poland and the recovery
of German soil, I naturally affirmed Germany's policy.
Q. You not only affirmed it, but I want to know if you
really understood it.
A. I do not quite know how I should answer that. question.
Probably Hitler's conception of the term Eastern policy was
quite different from mine.
Q. But my point is that he had told you about it, had he
not, some time before you made this speech?
You had better look again at that document you have in your
hands, Exhibit USSR 172, and you will find that after you
and Frank and Koch and Hitler finished talking about
deporting the Jews from Vienna, the Fuehrer then told you
what he intended to do with the Polish people, and it is not
a very. pretty story, if you will look at it.
A. Hitler says here:
[Page 14] [
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(Part 3 of 11)
[MR. DODD continues his cross examination of Baldur von Schirach] "The treatment of the Poles and the incorporation already
approved by the Fuehrer for certain districts of
Ziechenau."
Then it says:
"The conversation began when Reich Minister Dr. Frank
informed the Fuehrer that the activities in the
Government General could be termed very successful. The
Jews in Warsaw and other cities were now locked up in the
ghettoes and Cracow would very shortly be cleared of
them. Reichsleiter von Schirach, who had taken his seat
at the Fuehrer's other side, remarked that he still had
more than 50,000 Jews in Vienna whom Dr. Frank would have
to take over from it. Party member Dr. Frank said this
was impossible. Gauleiter Koch then pointed out that he,
too, had up to now not transferred either Poles or Jews
from the District of Ziechenau but these Jews and Poles
would now, of course, have to be accepted by the
Government General."
And it goes on to say that Dr. Frank protested against this
also. He said there were not housing facilities. I am not
quoting directly. I do not want to read all of it. And that
there were not sufficient other facilities. Do you remember
that conference now?
"The ideal picture would be that a Pole in the Government
General had only a small parcel of land sufficient to
feed himself and his family fairly well. Anything else he
might require in cash for clothing, additional food, and
so on he would have to earn by working in Germany. The
Government General would be the central office for hiring
out untrained workers, particularly agricultural workers.
The livelihood of these workers would be assured, for
they could always be used as cheap labour. There would be
no question of further agricultural labour for Poland."
Q. Let me read you a few excerpts that I think you have
missed:
"The Fuehrer further emphasized that the Poles, in direct
contrast to our German workmen, are born for hard
labour... " (And so on.) "The standard of living in
Poland has to be and remain low."
Moving over to the next page:
"We, the Germans, had on the one hand over-populated
industrial districts, while there was also a shortage of
manpower for agriculture. That is where we could make
use of Polish labourers. For this reason, it would be
right to have a large surplus of manpower in the
Government General so that every year the labourers
needed by the Reich could in fact be procured from
there. It is indispensable to keep in mind that there
must be no Polish landlords. However cruel this may
sound, wherever they are, they must be exterminated. As
I understand, there must be no mixing of blood with the
Poles."
Farther on, he had to stress once more that:
"There should be one master only for the Poles, the
Germans. Two masters side by side cannot exist. All
representatives of the Polish intelligentsia are to be
exterminated. This sounds cruel, but such is the law
of life."
Stopping there for a minute, by the way, witness - you are a
man of culture, so you have told the Tribunal - how did that
sentiment expressed by the Fuehrer impress you?