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

The Trial of German Major War Criminals

Two Hundred and Fourteenth Day: Thursday, 29th August, 1946
Affidavits and Footnotes


[Page 251]

1. "The action got completely out of hand of the Party member responsible for it. The demonstrators stormed the palace, beat in the gates and doors. About 150 to 200 people forced their way into the palace, searched the rooms threw files out of the window. One bed was ignited. The Bishop was with Archbishop Groeber of Freiburg and the ladies and gentlemen of his menage in the chapel at prayer. About 25 to 30 people pressed into this chapel and molested those present. Archbishop Groeber was taken for Bishop Sproll. He was grabbed by the robe and dragged back and forth."

Page 254

2. "It is conceivable that not all fellow citizens (Volgenossen) might be able to understand sufficiently the necessity for such measures, particularly not those parts of the population who have no opportunity to draw a picture of the Bolshevist horror from their own observation. In order to be able to oppose the formation of any kind of rumours in this connection, which often have a distinctly marked tendency, the following statements on the present state of affairs are made:

For about 2,000 years a so far unsuccessful fight has been carried on against Jewry. It was only in 1933 that we began to seek ways and means which will make possible a complete separation of Jewry from the body of the German people. The measures hitherto carried out for a solution can essentially be subdivided as follows:

1. The elimination of the Jews from the various walks of life of the German people. Here the laws proclaimed by the legislator are to constitute the foundation guaranteeing to protect also the future generations against a possible new overflowing by the enemy.

2. The effort to expel the enemy completely from the Reich territory. In view of the only very limited living-space (Lebensraum) available for the German people it was hoped to solve this problem essentially by accelerating the emigration of the Jews.

Since the beginning of the war in 1939 these opportunities for emigration decreased steadily and, on the other hand, apart from the German people's living-space, its economic sphere increased steadily so that today in view of the great number of Jews residing in these territories, their complete elimination is no longer possible by emigration. Since even our next generation will no longer regard this question as so vital, and by virtue of the past experiences, will no longer see it clearly enough, and because the matter, which after all has been started, presses for a settlement, the entire problem must yet be solved by this generation.

Therefore, the complete segregation and elimination of the millions of Jews residing in the European economic sphere remains a compelling necessity in the German people's struggle for existence. Starting with the Reich territory and then going over to the other European countries included in the final solution, the Jews will in a steady flow be shipped to the East into large camps, which partly exist and which partly will have yet to be set up, from where they will be either used for labour or sent still farther to the East. Old Jews as well as Jews with high war decorations (Iron Cross First Class, Golden Badge for Bravery, etc.) will in a steady stream be resettled in the city of Theresienstadt located in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. It is in the nature of the matter that these partly very difficult problems will in the interests of the final protection of our people, only be solved with ruthless severity."

Page255

3. "All these tasks are crowded into the background by the decisive question of national integration of the line south of the Karawanks. This mission has been the guide of your action . Party Member Rainer, it will be your mission to make this country again completely German ... The German language has to come more and more into the foreground in public life ... in school the youth should receive German education at once. Only when not only the exterior picture, official signs, official language and labels are German, but when finally the entire youth speaks German and the German language has replaced the Slovenic language in the intimate circle of the family, will we be able to speak of a Germanization of Upper Karmiola."

Page 255

4. "With the order for immediate notification down to the last Blockleiter during the next service meetings ... I request to charge the Blockleiter again to see to the removal of all Slovenian inscriptions, billboards, posters, etc. The district Pettau is the only one which already has all house number plates in the German language. Therefore it must also be possible to cause the disappearance of these last remnants of Yugoslavian domination. I order the Ortsgruppenleiter to see to it, through personal conversation with the competent priest, that these Slovenian inscriptions will also disappear immediately without exception from all statues, chapels and churches. The Ortsgruppenleiter are responsible, as before, that every office-holder down to the last Blockleiter learns to speak and write German."

Page 256

5. Extract from Minutes of Staff Conference, 12th November, 1941:
"SS Col. Lurker alleges that about 2,000 persons were transferred to Serbia, 400 persons were put into concentration camps .... As a retaliation measure for the last occurrences about 30 persons were shot."
Extract from Minutes of Staff Conference, 29th July, 1942:
"In the County of Cilli 105 executions by shooting and 362 arrests were carried out . The commander of the Security Police will evacuate the prison in Cilli in the course of the next two weeks. The prisoners are in part to be transferred to other prisons, in part to be shot. In this way the necessary space will be created for the carrying out of a new large-scale operation."
Extract from Minutes of Staff Conference, 13th July, 1942:
"It can be counted on that half of those arrested, or about 200 persons, will be rendered harmless through delivery to a concentration camp or through shooting."
Extract from Minutes of Staff Conference, 15th March, 1943:
"On 10th March, 1943, 25 active bandits were shot in Marburg by special procedure, including a Catholic priest. 160 relatives of the bandits were transferred.

Page 256

6. "The Reichsfuehrer SS has come to an arrangement with the Reich Minister of Justice Thierack whereby the Justice waives the execution of the usual penal procedure against Poles and Eastern nationals. Those persons of alien race are in future to be handed over to the police. Jews and gipsies are to be treated in the same way .... This agreement is based on the following considerations: Poles and Eastern nationals are alien and racially inferior people living in the German Reich territory .... In case of necessity, however, there need be no hesitation in informing the Gauleiter in suitable form."

Page 260

7. "The text of the notifications is being variously worded, as I was once more assured yesterday; it can, however, naturally happen that sometimes two families living close to each other receive similarly worded letters."

Page 260

8. "Action begins in the near future. So far hardly any mishaps have occurred; 30,000 dispatched. Further 100,000 to 120,000 are waiting. The circle of those who are initiated is to be kept very small. If necessary the Kreisleiter is to be notified in good time ... At present only clear cases, that is 100 per cent ones, are being settled. Later an expansion will take place. From now on notification will be given in a more clever form ... Kreisleiter Sellmer must be informed."

Page 260

9. "Strangely enough various relatives received notification after the transportation that their patients had died. In some cases pneumonia and in others an infectious disease was given as the cause of death ... illnesses which had no connection with the previous medical history .... The population is terribly disturbed about the transfer of patients ... Moreover the events described give the Church and religious circles cause to revive their attitude against National Socialism."

Page 260

10. "The removal of patients of sanatoria and nursing homes to other districts could not naturally remain hidden from the people. It also appears that the Commissions which were established work in too great haste and are not always lucky and that many mistakes occur. Nor can one prevent individual cases becoming known and spoken about. The following cases should naturally not have occurred:
(i) Through an oversight one family received two urns.
(ii) One notification of death indicated appendicitis as the cause. But the appendix had already been removed ten years previously.
(iii) Another cause of death quoted was a disease of the spinal cord. Relatives of the family had visited the patient, who was physically perfectly healthy, only eight days before.
(iv) One family received a notification of death although the woman still lives in the institution today and enjoys perfect bodily health."

Page 264

11. MacGrowther's case 1746, 18 State Trials, p. 391, Vol. 14, English and Empire Digest, p. 67, cases No. 325.
"Prisoner, a lieutenant in the Duke of Perth's Regiment, was charged with high treason for joining in the rebellion and accepting a commission in the Pretender's service. Prisoner contended that he was compelled to join the rebellion through threats to burn his house and to lay waste all that belonged to him. Held: Prisoner was guilty of treason, the fear having houses burned or goods spoiled being no excuse in the eye of the law for joining and marching with rebels.

The only force that doth excuse is a force upon the person and present fear of death, and this force and fear must continue all the time the party remains with the rebels. It is incumbent on every man, who makes force his defence, to show an actual force and that he quitted the service as soon as he could. (Lee, C. J.)."

Page 264

12. Vol.I. East, p. 70 and R. V. Tyler 1838, 8 C & C 616. "In the chapter in which he deals with the exemption created by compulsion or necessity, he thus expresses himself:
If a man be desperately assaulted and in peril of death and cannot otherwise escape unless, to satisfy his assailant's fury, he will kill an innocent person then present, the fear and actual force will not acquit him of the crime and punishment of murder, if he commit the act, for he ought rather to die himself than kill an innocent; but, if he cannot otherwise save his own life, the law permits him in his own defence to kill the assailant, for by the violence of the assault, and the offence committed upon him by the assailant himself, the law of nature and necessity hath made him his own protector cum debito moderamine inculpatae tutelae." (Hales Pleas of the Crown, Vol. I, p. 51.)

Page 265

13. English and Empire Digest, Vol. 14, p. 78, case No. 455, R. V. Tyler.
"A, who was insane, collected a number of Persons together who armed themselves, having a common purpose of resisting the lawfully constituted authorities; A having declared that he would cut down any constables who came against him. A, in the presence of C and D, two of the persons of his party, afterwards shot an assistant of a constable who came to apprehend A under a warrant.

Held: C and D were guilty of murder as principals in the first degree, and any apprehension that C and D had of personal danger to themselves from A was no ground of defence for continuing with him after he had so declared his purpose."

Page 270

14. "During the early part of the struggle for power, the SA constituted a private army for carrying out the orders of the Nazi Party. Without doubt the SA, as far as the so- called taking of power is concerned, took a dominating role. Without the SA Hitler would never have come to power ... Whoever had not entirely made up his mind had it made up for him by the SA. Their methods were primitive but effective. One learned the new Hitler salute very quickly when on the pavement beside every SA marching column ... a few stalwart SA men went along giving pedestrians a crack on the head if they failed to perform the correct gesture at least three steps ahead of the SA flag, and these Storm-troopers acted the same way in all things. The chronicle of that private army is certainly dramatic. It teemed with beerhall brawls, street fights, knifings, shootings and fist fights, altogether a mad rough-and-tumble affair ...."

Page 270

15. "Until the Gestapo could be organized on a national scale the thousands of local SA meeting-places became 'the arrest points.' There were 50 at least of these in Berlin. Communists, Jews and other known enemies of the Nazi Party were taken to these points and if they were enemies of sufficient importance they were immediately transferred to the Gestapo H.Q. When the Nazi Party won the elections in March, 1933, on the morning of the 6th the accumulated passion blew off in wholesale attacks on Communists, Jews and those who were suspected of being either. Mobs of SA men roamed the streets, beating up, looting and even killing persons ...."

Page 272

16. "The SA as well as the SS are to be employed for the occupation of trade union properties and for the taking into protective custody of personalities who come into question. The Gauleiter is to proceed with his measures on a basis of the closest understanding with competent regional factory cell directors." (Circular letter from the Supreme Directorate of the Political Organization, 21st April, 1933.)

Page 273

17. "In the morning we found out what had happened in Munich. 'Now a revolution will also be made in Nuremberg,' we said. All of a sudden the police came from the Maxtor Guard and told us that we should go home, that the Putsch in Munich had failed. We did not believe that and we did not go home ... One of us then shouted 'Let us go to the Cafe Habsburg!' By the time we arrived, however, the police again had everything surrounded .... Then the police started to beat us up. Then we divided into small groups and roamed through the town and whenever we caught a Red or a Jew we knew a fist fight ensued. Then in the evening we marched, although the police had forbidden it, to a meeting in Furth. During the promenade again the police attempted to stop us .... They did not trust themselves to attack, for what would a blood bath have meant?" (Der S.A. Mann, 30th October, 1937.)

Page 274

18. "The SA man has been branded so often by the foreign Press as the 'bearer of a barbaric and uncivilized race struggle' that I consider it my duty to say especially to this audience a few words on this subject ... Our chief concern is not combating other races, but the preservation of our own ... Our racial consciousness is the basis of our national consciousness and is fundamentally in no way related to race hatred. The awkward position into which Jewry has brought itself in Germany, the country of its adoption, is its own fault. The German has always been known for his hospitality ... And only because of this have the countless crimes committed by the Jews against the German people remained unpunished for such a long period of time. Now that our patience has been exhausted beyond the point of endurance we cannot very well be blamed for keeping away burdensome guests. I need not tell you anything about the value of news reports under the headline 'Persecutions of Jews by bands of SA men'." -(Speech of Chief of Staff to Diplomatic Corps and deputies of foreign Press, 24th January, 1936.)

Page 274

19. "German women finally wake up and do not buy any more from Jews. And you German girl, also finally wake up and do not go with Jews any longer ... Snake remains a snake and Jew remains a Jew. And you German girl, you give your best, your honour and your blood to one of a strange race? Are you not ashamed of yourself?" - (Der Sturmer, 27th July, 1935.)

Page 276

20. "The History, Work, Aim and Organization of the Stormtroops of the Fuehrer and the Supreme SA H.Q.," by SA Sturmfuehrer Dr. Ernst Bayer.
"The operational main office of the basis of the SA Sports Badge must prepare the fighting training of the bodies of all Germans capable of bearing arms, and as preparation thereafter must organize the execution of corporal exercises and sports purposes, so that the widest stratum of the population is laid hold upon and will be kept in condition of bearing arms both physically and spiritually as well as ideologically in character up to the greatest old age."

Page 277

21. "I was at the H.Q. of Comrade Henlein. The SA did give support to that Free Corps, on the one hand, by giving to the Free Corps SA men who served on Border Control service of the SA. That was for the SA men nothing but a mere border control protection measure."

Page 277

22. Letter from Chief of Sipo and SD, 9th November, 1941:
The commandants of the concentration camps are complaining that 5 to 10 per cent of the Soviet Russians destined for execution are arriving in the camps dead or half dead. Therefore the impression has arisen that the Stalags are getting rid of such prisoners in this way. It was particularly noted that, when marching, for example, from the railway station to the camp, a rather large number of prisoners of war collapsed on the way from exhaustion, either dead or half dead, and had to be picked up by a truck following the convoy. It cannot be prevented that the German people take notice of these occurrences. Even if the transportation to the camps is generally taken care of by the Wehrmacht, the population will still attribute this situation to the SS."

Page 278

23. Affidavit of Szloma Gol:
"Thereupon the SA men threw chains into the pit and the Sturmfuehrer ordered the Jewish foreman (for we were a working party) to fasten the chains on us. The chains were fastened round both ankles and round the waist. They weighed 2 kilos each and we could only take small steps when wearing them. We wore them permanently for six months. The SA said that if any man removed the chains he would be hanged. The four women (who worked in the kitchen) were not chained.

We dug up altogether 68,000 bodies. I know this because two of the Jews in the pit with us were ordered by the Germans to keep count of the bodies: that was their sole job. The bodies were mixed - Jews, Polish priests, Russian prisoners of war. Amongst those that I dug up I found my own brother. I found his identification papers on him. He had been dead two years when I dug him up, because I knew that he was in a batch of 10,000 Jews from Vilna ghetto who were shot in September, 1941.

The procedure for burning the bodies was absolutely methodical. Parallel ditches 7 metres long were dug. Over these a square platform of boards was laid. A layer of bodies was put on top, the bodies had oil poured on them and then branches were put on top and over the branches logs of wood. Altogether fourteen such layers of bodies and fuel were put on each pyre. Each pyre was shaped like a pyramid with a wooden funnel sticking up through the top. Petrol and oil were poured down the funnel and incendiary bombs put round the edge of the pyre. All this work was done by us Jews. When the pyre was ready the Sturmfuehrer himself or his assistant Legal (also in the SA) personally lit the pyre with a burning rag on the end of a pole.

The work of digging up the graves and building the pyres was supervised and guarded by about 80 guards. Of these over 50 were SA men in brown uniforms, armed with pistols and daggers and automatic guns (the guns being always cocked and pointed at us). The other 30 guards consisted partly of Lithuanians and partly of SD and SS. In the course of the work the Lithuanian guards themselves were shot, presumably so that they should not say what had been done. The commander of the whole place was the SA officer Murer (the expert on Jewish questions), but he only inspected the work from time, to time. The SA officer Legal actually commanded on the spot. At night our pit was guarded by 10 or 12 of these guards."

Page 282

24. Members of the Waffen SS in the Head Offices (excluding the Operational H.Q. of the SS High Command)

SS Head Office 9,349

Racial and Settlement Head Office of the SS 2,689

SS Economic and Administrative Head Office (WVHA) 24,091

Personal Staff of the Reichsfuehrer SS 673

SS Personal Head Office 170

Head Office, SS Court of Justice 599

Bureau of SS Obergruppenfuehrer Reissmeyer (Education- Ideology) 553

Reich Commissar for the Consolidation of German Folkdom (Staff Head Office) 304

Reich Commissar for the Consolidation of German Folkdom (Head Office of the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle Central Office for Persons of German Race 987

TOTAL 39,415

Page 283

25. "Candidates are extremely thoroughly examined and checked," wrote Himmler. " Of 100 men, we can use on the average 10 to 15, no more. We ask for the political reputation record of his parents, brothers and sisters the record of his ancestors as far back as 1750, and naturally physical examination and his record in the Hitler Youth .... Last, but perhaps most important, is a certificate from the Race Commission . composed of SS leaders, anthropologists and physicians ..."

Page 283

26. In 1937 Himmler said: "In the end only good blood can achieve the greatest enduring things. Strengthened by this conviction of mine, I began to work on this problem. It means that actually only good blood, according to our reading of history, is to be considered as the leading creative element in every State, and in particular, of all military activity, that is to say, only Nordic blood. I said to myself that should I succeed in selecting from the German people for this organization as many as possible who possess this desired blood, and in teaching them military discipline and the understanding of the value of blood and the entire ideology resulting from it, then it would be possible actually to create such an elite organization as would successfully hold its own in all cases of emergency."

Page 286

27. Measures for the further transfer of populations.

As many quarters express themselves against the transfer of populations, on the grounds that it causes too much unrest among the foreigners, thus disturbing production, the following measures have been decided upon

1. Verbal propaganda will spread news about the discontinuation of those transfers.

2. No authority will announce anything before the actual moment when the transfer of populations is to be carried out. Planning to be done secretly.

3. The time for immigration will be fixed for after the spring tilling of the fields, so that the foreigners will carry out the cultivation of the land and the new settlers will be able to make use of the harvest. This has the advantage that, under the above-mentioned presuppositions, the foreigners will till their fields in all districts, while the German settlers will not run the danger, in view of the shortness of the time, of possibly being hindered in their spring work.

4. The transfer of Poles should be carried out in such a manner that the good elements are put, as much as possible voluntarily, in districts cleared by the Security Police, and the, transfer is entitled "The Establishment of Security in the Partisan districts." The bad elements will be taken away gradually, where they are not employed as auxiliary workers.

5. The announcement of the time of immigration will be made only on the day of the transfer of population.

6. All villages will be occupied in advance by the "Landwacht" (country guard) in all parts of the organization formed by settlers who, having received previous training, are to save the use of our own SS forces.


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