dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
DR. LATERNSER: Then I wish to speak about Documents Mil-15 and Mil-20. Both are letters, the admissibility of which is of importance to me particularly since ordinary letters have frequently been admitted as evidence during this trial. I will remind you in particular of the Rainer letter in the case of the Defendant Dr. Seyss-Inquart. Then there is the letter of Generaloberst Zeitzler, dated 8 July 1946, which is Mil-20. It is important because it shows that as a result of the efforts of a general who comes within the indicted group the Commissar Order was rescinded. That is why this letter assumes particular significance for me as defense counsel of the indicted group.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you give me the dates of the letters?
DR.LATERNSER: The letter is dated 8 July 1946, and it was addressed to me. That, Mr. President, is all I have to say to the objections raised by the Prosecution.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Mr. Dodd, that concludes the arguments that we need hear this morning, does it not?
MR.DODD: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, the Tribunal will consider your suggestions. I call on Dr. Steinbauer for the Defendant Seyss-Inquart.
DR. STEINBAUER: Gentlemen of the Tribunal, on Friday I was on Page 71 and, with the permission of the Tribunal, I should like to continue on that page. From what has been said it is shown that the Reich Commissioner had to assume only a limited responsibility for the German Police, that is to say, insofar as he used them for the execution of his orders in civilian matters. When the Reich Commissioner called for their help, the Police as a rule first got in touch with Himmler. But in all matters which came within the jurisdiction of the Police, the Reich Commissioner could neither issue orders to them nor intervene de jure in their activity. This fact must never be lost sight of when judging the Jewish question, the concentration camps, and the deportations. The admissibility of special courts and police protective custody is recognized even in the report of the Dutch Government. The Police were responsible for the arrests and the management of the concentration and prison camps. As explained in detail by the defendant when examined as a witness, he went to great trouble, as Wimmer and Schwebel also confirmed, to put an end to abuses he had heard about in the camps. I shall refer only briefly to the treatment of the so-called Dutch reprisal hostages in whose case the defendant was very interested, also to the fact that he succeeded in obtaining permission for the members of the clergy who had been imprisoned in the Reich to return to the Netherlands. Having thus briefly outlined the position of the Police and their tremendous power, I shall pass on to one of the main points of the Indictment-the Jewish question.
DR. STEINBAUER: In their trial brief the Prosecution state that Reich Commissioner Seyss-Inquart alone bears full responsibility for the carrying out of the Nazi program to persecute the Jews in Holland, and that in his Amsterdam speech before the members of the NSDAP on 13 March 1941 he himself declared: "To us the Jews are not Dutchmen; to National Socialism and to the National Socialist Reich the Jews represent the enemy." In that speech Seyss-Inquart also explains why, as defender of the interests of the Reich, he believed he had to adopt that attitude toward the Jews. He knew them to be people who, through their influence on the German people, would paralyze their will to resist, and who would always prove to be the enemies of the German people. But this speech shows more than anything else that Seyss-Inquart considered all measures against the Jews as security measures for the duration of the war only. He speaks of his desire to create tolerable measures during the period of transition and says that after the occupation had come to an end it would be for the Dutch people to decide what was to be the fate of the Jews. It was quite natural and obvious for the Jews, as a result of the treatment they had experienced in Germany and later in the occupied countries, to become no matter what their nationality the most bitter opponents of National Socialist Germany That had to be taken into account by every official who had to look after the interests of the Reich in occupied territories. This also makes the speech referred to in the beginning understandable. Therefore when Seyss-Inquart was commissioned by the Fuehrer decree to safeguard the interests of the Reich in Holland, he also had to take some kind of stand on the Jewish question. It was his intention to remove the Jews from leading positions in the State and in the economic life of the country for the duration of the occupation, but otherwise to refrain from further measures against them.
DR. STEINBAUER: Actually, the measures instituted by him merely provided that those Jews who were working for the State were sent on leave or were retired with a pension. In the meantime Adolf Hitler had transferred the handling of the whole Jewish question to Himmler, or to Heydrich, who received full powers for the whole sphere of interest of the Reich. The Security Police, dissatisfied with the dilatory way in which the Reich Commissioner handled the Jewish problem, availed themselves of their full powers and had established an office in Amsterdam, whose interference was the cause of constant friction with the deputy of the Reich Commissioner in Amsterdam. The Security Police claimed that they were unable to guarantee the safety of the Reich, with which task they had been entrusted, unless further measures against the Jews were taken to restrict their activities in the field of economy and limit their personal liberties. English and French people had been assembled in separate camps and had been driven over the Reich border after their property had been confiscated as enemy property, which treatment Germans living abroad had likewise experienced in enemy countries. The Police made it known that very many Jews were actually involved, and often took a leading part in all the more serious attempts at sabotage and other forms of resistance. The Dutch Jews also, some of whose ancestors had come from proud Spain, and many of whom had come from Germany and the East as emigrants, had already held leading positions before the occupation in the economic field, and especially in the press, which they had used to combat National Socialism. When the enemy entered the country, they knew it would be a life-and-death struggle and, contrary to Shylock's words in the Merchant of Venice: "For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe'" they not only placed their property at the disposal of the resistance movement but also their lives. The Reich Commissioner could not close his eyes to this fact.
DR. STEINBAUER: Because of the great number of persons involved, it was simply not possible to mete out to the Jews treatment similar to that of the English or the French or other enemy aliens by confining them in a camp. Measures restricting personal freedom of action were taken by the Higher SS and Police Leader as Himmler's direct subordinate, or by the Security Police on direct orders from Heydrich. Included in these measures was also the introduction of the Jewish star-incidentally, the Dutch did not consider this a mark of abasement. At the same time that measures affecting the freedom of movement were taken, the property of Jewish organizations and Jews was also placed under control. The Reich Commissioner appointed Dr. Boemker his special trustee and gave him the task of supervising the measures taken by the Police-insofar as this was administratively possible-and of preventing excesses. In fact, he intervened a number of times and was able to prevent unjustified police measures. A large part of the activity of the Reich Commissioner's office was concerned with economic measures, and the description by the Dutch Government Commissioner for Repatriation, Exhibit Number USA-195, (Document Number 1726-PS) gives a clear picture of the entire Jewish problem in Holland. The chart shows that the Reich Commissioner was able to delay measures against the Jews for almost a year, and that really intensive measures did not begin until February 1941 with the formation of the Central Office for Jewish Emigration which was ordered by Heydrich and which was under the supervision of SS Obersturmfuehrer De Funte. A comparison with measures taken against the Jews in Germany itself and in other occupied countries shows a pronounced uniformity, which likewise indicates that the measures in question were not taken by the Reich Commissioner but were measures applied uniformly by Reich offices, in other words, by the Police. The Reich Commissioner also saw to it that Jewish property was sequestrated in an orderly manner.
DR. STEINBAUER: When it finally came to the liquidation of the property, following orders from the Berlin central offices, proceeds from the liquidation were not confiscated, but credited to the Jewish owners. Toward the end the Jewish administrative office had accumulated some 500 million guilders. In order to put an end to the constant pressure and interference by the Police through Heydrich, the Reich Commissioner, together with the Higher SS and Police Leader, tried to stabilize the Dutch Jewish question by assembling the Jews affected by the restrictive regulations in two districts of Amsterdam and in two camps, where they were to live under their own administration. One of the camps was Westerborg, where they had a Jewish camp police of their own. On the outside, the camp was under the supervision of the Dutch police. When, in the spring of 1945, it was taken by the Canadians, the British radio reported that they found the Jews housed there to be in good condition, unlike the state of affairs in other camps which were found outside Holland. The second confinement camp was to be Vught. Himmler made a concentration camp out of it. The Jewish community of Amsterdam was under the direction of Ascher, a merchant who dealt in precious stones. Funds were made available to the Jewish community, especially for school purposes; negotiations were carried out with firms to provide work in the Jewish quarters. At the beginning of 1942 Heydrich, or rather Himmler, demanded the transfer of the Dutch Jews to assembly camps situated in Germany. Both referred to the full powers given them by the Fuehrer and pointed out that sooner or later an invasion had to be expected. Holland seemed a likely territory, because the ports of Rotterdam and Amsterdam provided suitable supply bases, and from there the British would take the shortest route to the Ruhr, the industrial center of Germany. To permit so many people extremely hostile to Germany to remain in a territory which would see future operations in the battle against Britain was inconsistent with the safety of the Reich.
DR. STEINBAUER: The Police were adamant and all the Reich Commissioner was able to do was to take steps to make the evacuation by the Police more humane. The Reich Commissioner succeeded in getting thousands of Jews exempted so that these people were able to remain in Holland. The defendant got his agents to inspect the internment camps and, insofar as he was able to do so, he managed to have bad conditions remedied by the intervention of the Christian Church. The order for the evacuation was not given by the defendant but by Himmler or Heydrich. The defendant did not even give his consent for the evacuation. As a result of representations by the defendant, a number of Jews were taken to Theresienstadt, which was said to be a camp supposedly under the supervision of international agencies, such as the Red Cross, and where the Jews were said to be well treated. As a result of exemption regulations introduced at the request of the Reich Commissioner, a great many Jews were exempted from evacuation. The afore-mentioned Dr. Boember was appointed to supervise the transport of the Jews in Holland and in many cases succeeded in getting the Higher SS and Police Leader to remedy bad conditions. Most of the Jews were taken to Poland, and probably one of the most terrible sentences is that to be found in Exhibit Number USA-195-a document submitted by the Prosecution-which reads: "Total number of deportees: 117,000.... After their leaving Holland all trace of them was lost. Absorbed in an agglomeration of deportees from almost all occupied countries, they can no longer be identified as a separate group." Now comes the cardinal question of the whole Indictment, the dramatic climax in the Trial against this defendant. Did the defendant know of the fate of these many unfortunate and innocent people; did he intentionally approve of their fate or is he guilty because he did not prevent it?
DR. STEINBAUER: Again and again, the defendant has solemnly declared, even when questioned as a witness under oath, that he did not know anything about this, and that he was of the opinion that the Jews really were going to be resettled in the East for the duration of the war. When in 1942 or 1943 the defendant had an opportunity of speaking to Adolf Hitler himself, when he had to make a report to him, he steered the conversation round to the Jewish question. When the Reich Commissioner pointed out that the evacuation of the Jews was causing serious unrest in the Netherlands, Adolf Hitler replied that he had to segregate the Jews from the body of the German people, because they were a destructive element, and that he wanted to resettle them in the East. When Himmler, the Chief of the SS and of the German Police, was questioned by the defendant at the beginning of 1944, all he said in answer to the Reich Commissioner's apprehensions was that he should not be worried about his Jews, his Dutch Jews were his best workers. The government representatives who had been sent to inspect some of the camps returned with the report that the Jews were getting along well and that they were satisfied. News from the deportees reached the Netherlands at regular intervals, although it became less frequent as time went on. Now that the heavy curtain which concealed the horror of these mass murders has been lifted, we know the circumstances and the truth. The scrupulously careful probings in this Trial especially have revealed the diabolical manner in which Hitler and Himmler knew how to disguise and conceal their criminal intentions concerning the final solution of the Jewish question. When I read the Dutch report about the Jewish question for the first time, I myself was deeply moved. This is the document which, together with the so-called Hossbach document-the last will of Hitler of the year 1937-I have especially submitted to my client. As for the Hossbach document, in which the evacuation of 1 million Austrians was demanded, Dr.
DR. STEINBAUER: Seyss-Inquart told me that he had never seen it and had also never heard of it. He said: "If I had known about such intention I would never have been a party to it." Also when I submitted to him the document concerning the Jews, he told me in a way which convinced me that at the time he knew nothing about the "final solution" and the happenings in the extermination camps. When I then asked him why he did not resign when he found he could not prevail upon Himmler and his accomplices, especially concerning the Jewish question, he told me that, after all, I too, had been a soldier and knew that a soldier must not desert in wartime. He had arrived at the conclusion that if he had remained in his post, quite apart from his other tasks, it was because he doubted very much that the Netherlands would fare any better under a successor. As a defense counsel and jurist, I must add the following: One could not know of the measures of extermination which the Prosecution have mentioned. If extermination did take place to the extent alleged, then these are the acts of a special group of Himmler's hangmen resulting only from a desperate situation. But in penal law, the principle applies that the causal nexus is interrupted if an independent criminal act interposes. This is the case here. Before I conclude the most difficult chapter of the whole Indictment I should still like to examine the question, as to whether the statement of the defendant, that he actually could not have had any knowledge of the terrible crimes which were committed in the extermination camps, is, in fact, credible...
THE PRESIDENT: Wouldn't that be a convenient time to break off? [A recess was taken.1
THE PRESIDENT: I will deal with these documents. The documents objected to in the case of the SS, 69, 85, 86, 96, 101, and 102, are all disallowed. In the case of the SD and the Gestapo all the documents are agreed. In the case of the High Command, the Tribunal allows the Documents 8 and 9 to be translated and put in the document book. Number 11 is withdrawn. Numbers 5, 13, 15, and 20 may be submitted to the Commissioners, but they will not be translated for the document books. That is all. Now, Dr. Steinbauer.
DR.STEINBAUER: I continue. First of all I should like to present the testimony of a French medical doctor, who himself was a prisoner in an extermination camp for a long time. This is Dr. Goutbien from Montgeron (Seine-et-Oise), who writes: "It is difficult for a normal human being to picture exactly what a concentration camp, which is designated in the German language by the two letters 'KZ,' is like. "It is difficult for various reasons: First of all, a man brought up according to the principles of our civilization, which is based on the elementary Christian humanitarian doctrine, cannot believe the statements made by the victims of so many atrocities; the sadism, the exaggerated refinement used in causing suffering, go beyond the normal powers of feeling; moreover, the Nazis tried to conceal their crimes in a hypocritical way, so that a foreigner who might have inspected a concentration camp 2 or 3 years ago would have been impressed by the order and cleanliness. "If a jurist had examined the execution cases, he would always have found at least sufficient reasons, if not valid ones, for their justification. Finally, if a doctor had searched for medical records, he could very easily have concluded that the causes of death were normal. "So heavy was the curtain which covered the concentration camps, so careful were the SS to see that it was so kept-and so jealously did they guard the secrets! The SS tried to give a legal appearance to their crimes. We have here a characteristic feature of Hitlerian hypocrisy." The Jesuit, Father Kueble, also expresses himself in a similar vein in his book, Die Konzentrationslager, eine Gewissensfrage fuer das deutsche Volk and fuer die Welt (The Concentration Camps-a Question of Conscience for the German People and the World). He writes, Page 19: ". . . and he believed it possible to prevent discovery by an absolutely impenetrable ring of silence with which he surrounded his works.
DR.STEINBAUER: This ring was so tightly drawn that a German had to travel abroad to learn something concrete about the camps and to read there about these 'Soldiers of the Marshes' (Moorsoldaten). At home books like these did not exist, and one learned only very little from hearsay. Nobody came out of the worst camps, and the wrongdoers themselves were 'liquidated' from time to time, so that they could not tell anything. But the few who got out of the less terrible camps were so intimidated, that they gave only quite general, obscure hints-just enough to create in the entire people a general feeling of horror of these mysterious places." But even the little which went from mouth to mouth never came to the knowledge of higher officials of the Third Reich, for if they followed up these things, the Police learned about it and took care to see that the bearers of such "atrocity propaganda" kept silent. Therefore, as time went on one refrained from telling anything to these officials. But the most important testimony is that of one who knows, who himself had an active share in the liquidation of the Jews. On 25 June 1946 Dieter Wisliceny, the special representative of Eichmann, who was in charge of the liquidation of the Jews, was questioned as a witness by the appointed judge of this Tribunal. He stated that commissions of the International Red Cross or foreign diplomats were conducted to Theresienstadt in order to make it appear that conditions were normal. The Jews who were brought to Auschwitz were forced to write postcards before they were murdered; these postcards were then mailed at long intervals in order to create the impression that the persons were still alive. He invited various representatives of the press.
DR.STEINBAUER: To the specific question, "Under whose jurisdiction is the Jewish question in the occupied countries, under the commander of the Order Police, the Security Police, or the Security Service?" he gave the answer: "According to my knowledge, the Jewish question in the other occupied countries is an affair of the Higher SS and Police Leader, according to a special order by Himmler." In order to make the deception even greater, 500 Reichsmark, for instance, would be demanded from the Slovak Government as settlement contribution for every Jew. I confronted the defendant with this, and he told me that Himmler also demanded from him a settlement contribution of 400 Reichsmark for every Dutch Jew. As Reich Commissioner he refused this, because of the inadequate information about the actual settlement of the Jews. Also he argued that the final settlement would have to be left over until the peace. During his examination the defendant, of his own accord, mentioned individual cases of sterilization. The applications I made to have the letters written by Seyss-Inquart to Himmler procured as evidence, taken in conjunction with the statement of the defendant, show the following facts: Contrary to the statement of the then 18-year-old informant Hildegard Kunze, Seyss-Inquart never reported through any sort of official channels to Himmler about the Jewish question. What happened was that Seyss-Inquart asked Himmler not to aggravate the situation of the Jews in the Netherlands any further, referring in this connection to the measures which had been carried out in the meantime against the Jews and which exceeded the measures in the Reich, and at the same time pointing out the cases of sterilization. Seyss-Inquart took an immediate stand against the sterilization of women and made a statement to the Christian Churches that no coercion must be exercised. As a matter of fact, after a short time there were no further cases.