The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)
Nuremberg, war crimes, crimes against humanity

The Trial of German Major War Criminals

Sitting at Nuremberg, Germany
9th August to 21st August 1946

Two Hundred and Fifth Day: Friday, 16th August, 1946
(Part 3 of 10)


[Page 220]

DR. BOEHM: No, not this document, Mr. President, the whole series of documents -

THE PRESIDENT: If you will ask the witness questions instead of arguing, we shall get on better; and if you will not ask questions, you will have to stop the examination.

DR. BOEHM: Very well, Mr. President.

BY DR. BOEHM:

Q. In another article in Document 3050 of 24th March, 1934, with the heading, "Off to the Land," it states:

"The, most effective means in the hands of the clever leader is to implant in the hearts of the youth now growing up a love of nature and to steel them physically and mentally."
Do you conclude from this article, which was not written on your instructions any more than the others, that it denotes a military attitude or military training?

[Max Juettner] A. No.

Q. In Document 3050-E it states in the third line:

"For the SA man there is no tiring, no slothful resting, whether in the political struggle or in the maintaining and saving of valuable goods for German political economy. The SA is always ready."
Do you take that to imply a military attitude? I do not know who wrote this article; it was not ordered by you in any case; but can one adopt the point of view expressed here to mean a military training or a militaristic attitude?

A. No one would take it to mean a militaristic attitude or an attempt at one.

[Page 221]

Q. Document 3050-F is called militaristic because it contains a service plan, according to which six hours of drill, three hours of shooting practice and three hours of field exercises per month are demanded of the SA members. I should like to ask you in the first place, what did the drill consist of?

A. As the name implies, it consisted of exercises for the public appearance of the SA at demonstrations, parades and so forth. That was a matter of course and a necessity. For example, if, as was my responsibility, one had to move 120,000 men in big parades at the Party Rally, they had to be prepared for this by drill if the spectacle was to be at all passable. It was for these things that the men were drilled, to teach the men a good bearing, as is the case in other countries too.

Q. And what was the shooting practice?

A. We had only small calibre rifles, the sport model. We could, therefore, shoot only with small calibre. That was sport shooting.

Q. What did the field exercise consist of?

A. An attempt was made to train the men mentally and to awaken in them a love of nature. By the various exercises the men should be induced to think, it was to train their courage and to give them initiative, the same as in the motoring exercises in the NSKK, where motor cyclists were trained in cross-country riding and had to overcome difficult terrain.

Q. Then another article is contained in this document, which reads:

"The difference between shooting and aiming is the difference between the training of the SA and that of the soldiers of the nation, the Wehrmacht."
And then it goes on to say:
"The military field observation was only a fraction of what is understood under SA field observation."
Now, I should like to ask you to what extent the SA field observation has anything to do with the military field observation, particularly whether it is important that the SA field observation does not go far beyond the military points? Is it correct that perhaps the SA man did not consider field observation at all merely from the point of view of shooting in the technical sense? Is it true that above all through this field observation he got to know his own country, and with this end in view he was trained in marching and in field observation?

A. All the questions you have put were not leading questions. It was so clear to every SA man that our field observation in the SA could in no way be compared with the military field observation which was along purely military lines. We in the SA combined field observation and field exercises with the ideological training of the man, namely, we wanted to awaken and deepen in him the love of his own country. Above all, this field service was intended to teach him to know the natural beauties of his country, the historical significance of the sector in which these exercises were carried out.

THE PRESIDENT: I am afraid you do not understand what I say. I thought I had told you that we quite understood your argument that the training which was given to the SA was not for military purposes but was for other peaceful purposes. Your argument is not proved by repetition; and the Tribunal does not desire to hear any more of this.

DR. BOEHM: Yes, Mr. President. Then I can omit the next articles. They are all more or less the same in content. I will not put any further questions.

Then Document 4009 was submitted yesterday. It was to prove that the article in the SA Mann was a semi-official article of the supreme SA leadership. This is also a subject which has been repeatedly discussed. But if these things are submitted ten times, Mr. President, then I ask permission to comment on them ten times. These things were dealt with before the Commission down to the smallest detail, and every point, even the smallest, was elucidated before the Commission. Yesterday this document was submitted again; and therefore I am forced to comment on it once more, much as I dislike doing so.

[Page 222]

THE PRESIDENT: Ask the witness questions about the document. I suppose there is a difference in your language between making a comment and asking a question. Will you ask the witness a question?

DR. BOEHM: Yes, Mr. President.

Q. Witness, a document was submitted here written by the Press consultant of the paper Der SA Mann to a Herr Koerbel, who was at that time Reichsleiter. He was induced to write an article. Did that have anything to do with the supreme SA leadership?

A. I did not quite understand. Koerbel was not a Reichsleiter. The letter was sent to whom?

Q. The letter was sent to the Reichsleiter Rosenberg.

A. A letter from Koerbel to Rosenberg?

Q. Yes.

A. He wrote it in his capacity as editor of the SA Mann. If he wanted to have an article for the SA Mann, that was entirely his affair. If he also gives himself the title of Press consultant of the supreme SA leadership, then in this capacity his task consisted merely in transmitting the rest of the German news, which we wanted to have published, and in taking care of its publication.

Q. 750,000 subscribers are mentioned in this letter. It could be suspected, although it was not expressed here, that these 750,000 readers were members of the SA. Can you comment on that?

A. I do not know exactly how these 750,000 subscribers were made up. I only know that the paper, about which we had very mixed feelings, did not meet with a very good reception and consequently was little read in SA circles, comparatively speaking.

Q. But you know that this paper was then banned?

A. It was banned in 1939.

Q. Another document was submitted yesterday, 366-1. That is a report of Herr Roechling as a special delegate of the OKW with the youth leader of the German Reich in connection with the Sudeten German Free Corps.

I should like to ask you to explain the connection between the SA and the Sudeten German Free Corps.

A. Your Lordship, as far as I remember, I have already commented on this before the Commission. I was assigned by the SA as liaison Fuehrer to Conrad Henlein.

Q. Herr Guettner, perhaps I may shorten this by asking: Is it true that the SA associated or co-operated with this Sudeten German Free Corps only to the extent that these people, during the time they were in Germany as refugees, when they were not organized into a Free Corps, were given economic support by the SA; for instance, perhaps one or other was given a blanket, or cooking utensil, so that they should have what was necessary merely to exist.

A. Individual groups of the Free Corps were helped by individual SA men without orders from us to do so, in the way which defence counsel has just stated. They helped to take the refugees back and supplied the Free Corps members with the necessary blankets, cooking utensils, and so forth. And then these SA men helped the men of the Free Corps in forming their groups. The Free Corps itself had no military value. If I may speak quite plainly, it was a loosely organized band, a gang of people who had taken upon themselves the task of receiving the refugees who were streaming back, some of them in great misery, bringing them to refugee camps, and preventing incidents and attacks at the border which actually did occur. In other words, protecting their fellow citizens. This Free Corps did not have any military value.

Q. Then Document 3993-PS was submitted yesterday. It is a letter from the Chief of Staff Lutze to Reichsleiter Alfred Rosenberg, in which he thanks him for congratulations which he received because the pre-military and post-military

[Page 223]

training of the SA was entrusted to him. This has already been replied to several times. Is it true that this pre- military and post-military training had reached the stage it was intended to reach?

A. I said yesterday, through the decree of Hitler of January, 1939 -

Q. May I ask you to be very brief, Herr Guettner?

A. - this task was given to the SA -

THE PRESIDENT (interposing): The Tribunal has asked about it in cross-examination. What is the point of putting it to him again? He, has given his account of it in cross-examination.

DR. BOEHM: Mr. President, I asked him to be brief. I only did it to complete the evidence.

THE PRESIDENT: What is the good of doing it if he has done it already? It does not matter whether you do it briefly or not; he is going to say the same thing.

DR. BOEHM: Document 923 was also submitted yesterday. Are the cases -

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal wants you to understand that the function of re-examination is not to repeat what has been said in cross-examination, but simply to explain and to alter, or to explain and clarify - if you like the word - what has been said in cross-examination.

DR. BOEHM: Yes, Mr. President.

BY DR. BOEHM:

Q. Document 923 was submitted to you yesterday. It concerned the legal handling, of the Pflaumer and Schoegel cases. Did you have any part in the measures which were taken as a result of this case? Did you use any influence on any of the judges who acted in this case, or did you take the view that, basically, in all cases of amnesty, that amnesty or the amnesty decree was an affair of the State, and you naturally wanted to apply it to your SA members in cases in which this was possible?

A. As I said yesterday, I had no part in these two cases. I did not know about them. The SA, leadership tried and punished offenders, that was its principle and it acted accordingly. In cases of amnesty, it applied to the SA as well.

Q. It might be important to mention here that the punishment of the concentration camp guards at Hohenstein, the juridical punishment, was set on foot and carried out not at the suggestion of Reichsstatthalter Mutschmann, but at the suggestion of SA Obergruppenfuehrer von Killinger. The SA leadership asked for the punishment of the Hohenstein men, and the Court carried it out.

DR. BOEHM: Then Document 784 was submitted yesterday, which was said to be a typical case of forcefully suppressing political opponents, and I have discovered in my study of the files that particularly old fighters of the NSDAP were ill-treated. For example, there was a certain Stahl who joined the SS in 1933 and a certain Seifert, an old fighter from the year 1924. There was the case of Kreisobmann Krueger of the German Labour Front and a member of the NSDAP since 1931 by the name of Ginsk.

In this connection, Mr. President, I should like to ask the members of the prosecution to give me the letters which are missing here, especially the letter of the Chief of Staff Lutze and the letter of Hess which my colleague Seidl asked for yesterday.

BY DR. BOEHM:

Q. Now, I should like to ask you, witness

SIR DAVID MAXWELL FYFE (interposing): My Lord, I had a search made, and we have not got the documents, the answers from defendant Hess or from Chief of Staff Lutze.

[Page 224]

DR. BOEHM: That letter would have been very essential, Mr. President, to show the attitude of Chief of Staff Lutze in this case.

Now I must go back to Document 1721, Mr. President. It is a report of completed action of Brigade 50 to the Group Kurpfalz-Mannheim, and the order of the supreme SA leadership in connection with the which objects were possibly stolen or otherwise lost in the year 1938.

BY DR. BOEHM:

Q. Witness, the situation was dealt with here yesterday in cross-examination as if there were a number of indications which fitted in and vouched for the authenticity of the report of Brigade 50.

Please note the report and at the top, at the right, look at the three letters which are contained in this document, "Z.d.A." The same letters appear on your order signed "Guettner" at the left at the bottom, next to the reception stamp. You are not a handwriting expert, but even a layman can see whether these letters were written by the same hand.

Please comment on this.

A. As far as I can recall, I was asked yesterday whether I saw these letters. I said yes. When I compare them, I must say that on one document they are written in a different handwriting from that on the other document. That is shown by the flourish and the peculiar "A" and "D." The "Z" also is different.

Q. It is not difficult for a layman to see that. Now, please look at the reception stamp on the left at the bottom on your order, in the first square

A. Yes, I see.

Q. These are two letters. Is it probable that these two letters which may mean the same thing were written by the same hand?

A. On closer observation of the writing on the stamp, one must come to the conclusion that the stamp which follows the report of Brigade 50 is forged. The differences are so obvious. The F, for instance, the H, and the crooked G or whatever it is supposed to be indicate that it is copied.

Q. Did you see anything else on the document

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn now.

(A recess was taken.)


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