Two Hundred and Seventh Day:
Tuesday, 20th August, 1946 [Page 295]
By this by wish to establish that we are here purely
concerned with a measure
of the Security Police and not of the SD.
It then goes on to say:
"If occasion arises the request by the Kommandantura to
examine certain Arbeitskommandos through the Security Police
is to be complied with," and I beg to draw the attention of
the Tribunal to the file references IV, that is: measures of
Amt IV. Amt IV was the Secret State Police, the Gestapo. Had
it been the SD, then the file reference would have had to be
III or VI. I now come to -
THE PRESIDENT: In the document you have just been dealing
with you have got 2A III E at the top, and you have III B a
little bit farther down.
DR. GAWLIK: Your Lordship, the one at the top is the general
collection of decrees of which there are several volumes and
which I got from the library here, and "A III" refers to
this general collection of decrees. The fact that it was Amt
IV can be seen from the file reference "IV A (1 c) 2468 A/B
42 G."
THE PRESIDENT: Just by 1st April, 1942, there is III B. What
does that mean - OKW File No. 2F 2417B, prisoner-of-war
organization 3 B?
DR. GAWLIK: I have not got that. Your Lordship, I have not
got that here; I do not know -
THE PRESIDENT: Immediately under the words: "re: labour
detachments for agricultural work."
DR. GAWLIK: May I ask your Lordship, did you refer to SD-21?
That is a military file reference, your Lordship. It says
OKW, High Command of the Armed Forces, file reference of the
armed forces, chief of prisoner-of-war organization III B,
and that III B has nothing to do with Department III.
THE PRESIDENT: All right, go on.
DR. GAWLIK: I now come to Document SD-22. Here we are
concerned with an extract from the directives for the
Kommandos of the Chief of the Security Police and of the SD
to be assigned to the prisoner-of-war camps. The date is
17th July, 1947.
I beg to draw the Tribunal's attention to the fact that the
leaders of the Einsatzkommandos are ordered to get in touch
with the chief of the nearest State Police office or the
Commander of the Security Police and the SD.
The commander can be compared on a small scale with the
office of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD; he
too had several sub-departments, III was SD, IV was State
Police, V was Criminal Police; so that even the title of
commander does not show which department issued it.
I should like to draw the attention of the Tribunal to the
following sentence:
[Page 296]
The following documents, SD-23 to SD-28 inclusive, refer to
the allegation on the part of the prosecution, according to
which the SD had carried out the "Kugel" (bullet) decree
(Trial Brief against the Gestapo and SD, statement of
evidence VI c).
I shall first of all deal with Document SD 23. The document
has already been presented by the prosecution under the
number PS-1650. It concerns the teleprint letter from the
Gestapo, the Aussendientstelle Aachen, to all main State
Police offices. I quote in order to prove that here, too, we
are merely concerned with measures of the Secret State
Police, the Gestapo.
1. The main offices of the State Police are to take over
the recaptured prisoner-of-war officers from the Stalag
commandants and transfer them to the Mauthausen
concentration camp according to the procedure customary
up to now, unless circumstances make special transport
necessary.
2. The OKW has been requested to instruct the prisoner-of-
war camps that, for the purposes of camouflage, the
recaptured persons should not be delivered directly to
Mauthausen but to the competent local office of the State
Police."
THE PRESIDENT: Why do you leave out the fact that those
documents were addressed to inspectors of the Sipo and the
SD?
DR. GAWLIK: Your Lordship, the case of the inspectors is the
same as that of the Chief of the Security Police and SD and
the commanders. The inspector was over the Criminal Police,
over the State Police, and over the SD, and, therefore, he
was exercising all three functions.
THE PRESIDENT: According to this he was an inspector of the
SD.
DR. GAWLIK: He was inspector of the SD; but it does not
follow that because the inspector of the Sipo was the same
person, that when carrying out that activity he was acting
in the capacity of the inspector of the Sipo. We are here
concerned with several offices under one person. But the
contents show that prisoners of war were only to be taken
over by the main offices of the State Police, and that the
SD offices had nothing to do with it. It says expressly
under No. 1:
THE PRESIDENT: Please continue, Dr. Gawlik.
DR. GAWLIK: I come to Document SD-24. It has already been
presented under PS-1165 and in this connection I beg to draw
the attention of the Tribunal, to the fact that this is
signed by Muller, who, as is known to the Tribunal, was the
chief of Department IV. This again shows that the Gestapo
alone were competent.
Document SD-25 is a circular decree from the Chief of the
Security Police and the SD, dated 20th October, 1942, which
deals with the treatment of escaped Soviet prisoners of war,
and again I beg to draw the attention of the Tribunal to the
file reference, which is IV.
I will now quote: "I request that the main offices of the
State Police instruct all the police offices of the area,
even if it has already been done, according to Article 3 of
the decree of the High Command of the Armed Forces of 5th
May, 1942.
[Page 297]
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Gawlik, I do not think it is doing any
good at all to argue upon each document. You must make your
final speech at some time; and unless there is anything
really very important in particular documents which you want
to draw our attention to, so that we can really consider it
before you make your final speech, you had much better leave
the argument upon the documents until you get to your final
speech. This is simply wasting our time without serving any
useful purpose at all.
DR. GAWLIK: Your Lordship, I only did -
THE PRESIDENT: Well, up to the present you have commented
upon each document as far as I can see, SD-22, SD-23, SD-24,
SD-25, each one of them; and you are going through the book
like that. Why do you not offer them all in evidence in
bulk; and then if you want to draw our attention to any
particular document for some particular purpose, as I said,
because you think it is important and we should consider it
before you come to make your final speech, do so. But do not
spend time in just explaining what each document is. We have
to hear all the other organizations before we come to hear
your speech.
DR. GAWLIK: I only did it because I gathered from the
question that there was some confusion with regard to the
positions of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD,
and that of the commanders and of the inspectors.
THE PRESIDENT: I only put a question to you because you were
going through each document in turn and I could not
understand what the documents were about.
DR. GAWLIK: Documents 27 and 28 also deal with the
allegation on the part of the prosecution regarding the
"Kugel" decree. May I perhaps quote from Document No. 28:
[Page 298]
DR. GAWLIK: I do so because in the Trial Brief the
accusation has been raised against the SD that it also
administered concentration camps.
THE PRESIDENT: But this document does not show that they did
not.
DR. GAWLIK: Document SD-37 is a decree from the Chief of the
SS Economic Administration Main Office. That was a
completely different office, which had nothing to do with
the RSHA.
THE PRESIDENT: It seems to me to be quite vague as to who
the camp commandants of concentration camps are. As I say,
it does not seem to me to be a document which it is
necessary to refer to at this stage.
DR. GAWLIK: I then refer to Document SD-39. There it says:
I beg to refer you to Document No. 40, in which it is
explicitly stated -
THE PRESIDENT (interposing): You are not taking the
slightest notice of what I said to you. You are going
through every document, or practically every document. You
began this by saying that 29 to 42 dealt with concentration
camps. Then you went to 37; then you went to 38; then you
went to 39. They really do not help the Tribunal at all: You
have told us that 29 to 42 referred to transfer to
concentration camps. Well, that is quite enough. Unless
there is a document which is really important, which we
should study before we hear you make your speech, the
summary that 29 to 42 deal with transfer to concentration
camps is quite enough.
DR. GAWLIK: I thought that I could assist the Tribunal by
drawing their attention to the fact that concentration camps
came under the SS Economic Administration Main Office and
not the RSHA. Only for that reason did I discuss these
further documents.
Documents SD-43 to 49 deal with the accusation that the SD
had participated in the deportation of citizens of the
occupied territories for the purpose of forced labour, and
that it had the task of supervising this forced labour.
SD-43 shows the jurisdiction of the State Police.
I quote from these documents only the following. From
Document SD-43, under figure "2".
"The recruitment commissions of the Reich Labour Ministry
will set up reception camps." [Page 299]
Document SD-54 is already in evidence under USA 504 and PS-
668. It deals with the carrying out of the "Nacht and Nebel"
(Night and Fog) decree.
Documents SD-55 to 57 deal with the assertion on the part of
the prosecution that the SD, in summary proceedings, had
arrested citizens of occupied territories and sentenced them
before the Courts.
I beg to draw the attention of the Tribunal to Document SD-
55, which is also L-316, and from that I shall quote one
sentence:
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(Part 6 of 9)
"In order to ensure a more rapid execution, the Security
Police will reinforce its Einsatzkommandos in the
Government General."
I then pass on to Document SD-21. In this connection I beg
to draw the Tribunal's attention to where it expressly says:
"As a matter of principle, such communications are to be
passed to the RSHA IV A 1 by way of information."
"In this connection, I order the following:
I come to Document SD-24.
"The main offices of the State Police are to take over
... "
The inspector of the Security Police and of the SD also had
jurisdiction over these police offices. He had control of
these measures of the State Police in his capacity as
inspector of the Security Police. The fact that he also
simultaneously was inspector of the SD does not mean that
these things were to be carried out also by the SD offices.
"In so far as escaped Soviet prisoners of war are brought
back to the camp according to this order, they are in
every case to be turned over to the nearest office of the
Gestapo."
The following documents, SD--29 to SD-42, deal with the
accusation raised against the SD by the prosecution,
according to which the SD is to be held responsible for the
setting up of concentration camps and determining their
purpose, and for the transfer of political and racial
undesirables to concentration and extermination camps for
the purpose of forced labour and mass extermination (Page 43
of the British Trial Brief). These documents show that the
SD did not in any way participate in these measures; and, if
I may, I should like to read one sentence of Document SD-29:
"In the future, restrictions of personal liberty" - I
leave out some lines- "may be ordered only by the Secret
State Police office, and this applies to the entire State
territory, by the administrative heads of provinces
(Regierungsprasidenten), by the police commissioner in
Berlin and by the State Police branch offices for the
local sphere of their authority."
From Document SD-3I I quote:
"Protective custody can be ordered for any person as a
coercive measure of the Secret State Police in order to
combat any activities hostile to the State and the
people. Only the Secret State Police is entitled to
decree protective custody."
Document 37 deals with the allegation by the prosecution
according to which the SD also administered concentration
camps. I shall, therefore, quote one sentence from the
document:
"The camp commandant is in charge of the administration
of a concentration camp and of all economic industries of
the SS within its sphere of organization."
The administration of camps is also shown in Document SD-38.
"The transfer of the Inspectorate of the Concentration
Camps to the Economic Administration Main Office has been
carried out with the full agreement of all the main
offices concerned."
From this it becomes apparent that, first of all,
concentration camps were under the jurisdiction of the
Inspectorate of the Concentration Camps, and that this was
then transferred to the SS Economic Administration Main
Office. However, the SD belonged to the RSHA. The fact that
concentration camps were under the jurisdiction of the
Inspectorate of Concentration Camps also becomes apparent
from the previous Document SD-38.
"The tasks arising from the employment of Soviet Russians
are to be comprised in a section attached to the State
Police Main Office. This section will be in charge of a
criminal police official, who in turn will be under the
constant personal supervision of the Chief of the State
Police Main Offices."
I now quote one sentence from Appendix I to Document SD-43:
"The recruitment of labour from the former Soviet Russian
territory will be carried out by recruitment commissions
from the Reich Ministry of Labour." And:
Document SD-50, deals with the Commando Order. I beg to draw
the Tribunal's attention to the words "are to be handed over
to the Security Police."
"These foreign nationals are in the future to be turned
over to the police."
I quote one regulation, one sentence, from Document SD-56:
"Penal actions of Jews will be punished by the police."