dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: "After the murder had been carried out, these SS troops went in the direction of the villages of Srijane, Bisko, Gornji-Dolec, and Putisic in order to continue there mass murder and arson. All the cattle they found in the burned-down villages they took with them. "The entire series of these crimes, which were committed in March 1944 in the district of Split, stands out distinctly be-cause it is the climax of a brutal cynicism, which till now was unknown in the history of criminality. The criminals locked up women and children in stables filled with hay and straw, delivered speeches to them, and thereafter burned them alive." I am asking you, Witness, are not these heinous crimes against humanity in sharp contradiction to your description of the Waffen-SS?
HAUSER: Of both these paragraphs I can only say that Split is situated in the Balkans. More than that, I do not know. I do not know which units are meant here. I cannot comment on the docu-ment at all.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I want to submit to you another document, a statement by one of your old acquaintances. I think you will remember the name, August Schmidthuber. Do you remem-ber the name of this general?
HAUSER: Yes, I know that name.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Maybe you will recall that he commanded a battalion of the Division Das Reich in the period when you were the commander of that division.
HAUSER: He was in the division before I commanded it, and that is why I remember him, but later on he served in the Balkans for a long time.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I would like to quote only one sentence from the statement of this major general of the Waffen-SS. You will be shown this passage at once; I submitted the original to the Tribunal. Please listen to this paragraph, Page 3 of the Russian text: "A war correspondent told me that the commander of my 1st battalion, Kasserer, had a large number of citizens locked up in a church in Krivaya Rekà" - I emphasize "in a church" - "and then ordered the church to be blown up. I do not know how many persons perished." Do you consider this action as a very serious crime against humanity or not?
HAUSER: This appears to be hearsay evidence; it is not the testimony of an eye witness.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: No, this is the statement of a division commander, who speaks about the official report of a war correspondent. It is the report of a general of the Waffen-SS, a firsthand statement and not hearsay.
HAUSER: But this is the statement of a war correspondent who is supposed to have heard it from a battalion commander. But I cannot comment on this, because I was not there and this division was never under my command.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Well, perhaps you can comment on another document. I would like to show you Document USSR-513. Did I understand you correctly yesterday when you asserted that the SS troops did not murder hostages?
HAUSER: Yes, and moreover I think I said that the divisions which were-under my command did not even take hostages.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I will read three sentences only of a proclamation by SS Sturmbannfuehrer Breimeier, who was commanding a battalion of the Prinz Eugen Division. Please follow me: "On 3 November 1943, around 2000 hours, a German soldier on the Velika Street in Sinj was ambushed and killed. Since, despite all efforts, the culprit has not been found and the population has not supported us in this matter, 24 civilians will be shot and one hanged. The sentence will be carriedout on 5 November 1943 at 0530 hours." --Signed-- "Breimeier, SS Sturmbannfuehrer and Battalion Commander." I omit what follows; it is of no importance. Is this not a typical example of hostage shooting carried out by the Waffen-SS?
HAUSER: I hear the name Breimeier for the first time. I do not know whether he held a court-martial beforehand. If this account here is correct, then he was not entitled to do this.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Very well. Perhaps I will succeed in convincing you by photographic evidence-Photograph Number 7, with the two heads cut off. With the permission of the Tribunal I will read a brief extract from the report of the State Commission of Yugoslavia. The original, which we have certified, will be submitted to the Tribunal. It is now being submitted to the witness. Will you listen under what conditions these persons were beheaded: "On 9 June 1944 and on the following days the SS troops from Trieste committed atrocities and crimes against the Slovene population in the Slovene coastal area, as we have already stated above..." I omit the next two sentences, which are cumulative. "On that day Hitler's criminals captured two soldiers of the Yugoslav Liberation Army and the Slovene partisan battal-ions. They brought them to Razorie, where they mutilated their faces with bayonets, put out their eyes and then asked them if they could see their comrade Tito now. Thereupon they called the peasants together and beheaded the two vic-tims before Sedefs house. They-then placed the heads on a table. Later, after a battle, the photographs were found on a fallen German. From this it can be seen that they confirm the above-described incident, namely the crime of bloodthirsty German executioners in Razorie." Do you not consider these acts typical crimes against humanity?
HAUSER: If they were perpetrated by men of the Waffen-SS, they would be crimes, but that is not proved here, and moreover the deeds of only one of 35 divisions in the Balkans would then be generalized as typical of the whole corps of the Waffen-SS.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Then I will show you an original German document, which is Document USSR-133 and which is a letter of information from the German High Command to the Italian High Command. I will quote only two sentences. You stated yester-day that the Waffen-SS did not kill prisoners. Did I understand you correctly?
HAUSER: Yes.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMMNOV: I will then ask you to listen to two sentences quoted from a German document. First, at the beginning of the page: "The western group of the SS division is near Ripac in front of barricades, which are being removed." I omit two sentences, and continue: "As a result of the successful engagement, 23 dead and 34 wounded and more than 100 enemy dead have been counted, 47 prisoners shot"-please pay attention to these three words-"47 prisoners shot, and 363 provisionally appre-hended." Do you not think that when a letter of information from one command to another officially mentions executions of prisoners of war, these proceedings practiced by the Waffen-SS are very cruel indeed?
HAUSER: This is the report of a first lieutenant on crimes which an SS detachment is supposed to have committed-without giving details of the unit to which this detachment belonged. I cannot comment on this.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I believe that the number of 47 soldiers shot is concrete evidence. Are you of a different opinion?
HAUSER: I have no proof that men of the Waffen-SS did this.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Then please answer a few other questions. Do you know where the 3rd SS Tank Corps was engaged in the territory of the U.S.S.R?
HAUSER: The 3rd Tank Corps? The 3rd? Is that a corps, a Panzer corps? I believe it was used in the southern sector.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: No, it was engaged in Estonia. Do you know General Steiner?
HAUSER: Yes, the commanding general was General Steiner.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Do you know where the Toten-kopf Division was engaged?
HAUSER: Yes, we discussed that today already.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: It was engaged at Demyansk, Pavlovsk, and other districts of the Novgorod region, is that not right?
HAUSER: Did you say Demyansk? Did I hear that correctly?
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Yes.
HAUSER: Yes, one division was there.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: That division was commanded by Major General Eicke, is that not right?
HAUSER: Eicke? Eicke; yes, indeed.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Do you know where the Adolf Hitler Division was engaged?
HAUSER: Do you mean at the time when the Totenkopf Division was at Demyansk? I believe it was also in the southern sector at Demyansk-I believe that was in 1942 or 1941.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Quite right. This division was commanded by General Simon, is that not right?
HAUSER: Simon was the successor of Eicke, yes. That is the same division.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: All right. Then will you tell me, when did Obergruppenfuehrer Dietrich command the Adolf Hitler Division? Was that later?
HAUSER: No, he was in command until the summer of 1943.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Do you know where the 134th SS Division was engaged?
HAUSER: We did not have such high numbers.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: And the 97th SS Division, Golden Idly?
HAUSER: That did not exist, either. We had at the most 35 to 40 divisions ...
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: But the Golden Lily was an SS division. Is that right?
HAUSER: I hear that name for the first time. What is the name?
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Golden Lily.
HAUSER: No, that is entirely new to me.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: And, the Storm Brigade Lange-marek-did you ever hear of that name or nGt?
HAUSER: There was a Battalion Langemarck which must also have been a part of the 3rd German Panzer Corps.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Do you know Stunubannfi.1hrer Sehling?
HAUSER: I did not understand the name.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Sehling.
HAUSER: No. No, I do not know him.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: And do you know Lieutenant General Lueneberg?
HAUSER: Lingeberg, yes.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: No, Lueneberg.
HAUSER: Oh yes; he was the commander of the SS Police Division.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Quite right, it is the name of an SS Police Leader.
HAUSER: Yes, General Lueneberg was the commanding officer of the SS Police Division.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: That is correct. Thank you. Mr. President, I am submitting to the Tribunal a document of the Extraordinary State Commission about the activities of the Waffen--SS troops against the civilian population and prisoners of war in the occupied territories. This report was compiled on the basis of evidence which had been submitted by the Extraordinary State Commission. It is signed by the responsible secretary of the Extraor-dinary State Commission, Bogoiavlensky, and is sealed. This report might aid the Tribunal in its examination of the material already submitted by the Extraordinary State Commission.
THE PRESIDENT: Have you, Colonel Smirnov, the original of this document?
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Yes, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: May I see it?
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Smirnov, have you put in yet the report of the Extraordinary Commission?
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Yes, Mr. President. A series of reports by the Extraordinary State Commission has been submitted, reports about the Estonian S.S.R., about Kiev, Kharkov, et cetera. This document is a summary of the material which has already been submitted.
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Smimov, does this document consist of extracts from the Extraordinary Commission's report?
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: No, Mr. President. Strictly speaking, it is only a detailed list of the various military units engaged in different regions of the U.S.S.R. They are not extracts from the report of the Extraordinary State Commission, but a list of separate units or SS detachments engaged in the different areas. Mostly these are the facts which serve as evidence in judging individual units. They are all mentioned in the reports of the Extraordinary State Commission which we have already put in.
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Smirnov, I think the Tribunal appre-ciates that you have done this for the convenience of the Tribunal, that this document has been prepared for the convenience of the Tribunal, but the Tribunal thinks they had better refer only to the report of the Extraordinary Commission itself which has already been offered in evidence.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Yes, Mr. President. I have no further questions to put to the witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Witness, what unit were you commanding at the time war against Russia broke out?
HAUSER: At the beginning of the campaign against Russia I was commander of the Division Das Reich.
THE PRESIDENT: Das Reich? Where was that division stationed at the outbreak of the war?
HAUSER: It was in action in the middle sector of the Eastern Front.
THE PRESIDENT: The middle sector of the Eastern Front? Was it employed in the original attack upon the Soviet Union?
HAUSER: The attack was west of the Beresina, and south of Brest-Litovsk. However, the division was not deployed there, it was brought up later, THE
PRESIDENT: You mean it was not deployed there upon the first day?
HAUSER: No, it was brought up as a rear echelon unit.
THE PRESIDENT: How long after the attack opened?
HAUSER: Yes, several' divisions were drawn up at the pene-tration points, one behind the other, for the motorized divisions could advance on good roads only.
THE PRESIDENT: I asked how long after the attack opened was your division deployed?
HAUSER: Only 2 to 3 days after the outbreak of hostilities.
THE PRESIDENT: And are you telling the Tribunal that at that time or about that time you never heard of the order to kill commissars?
HAUSER: I have already testified that we did not receive this order regarding the commissars and that the division did not act according to it. I know only that later on we received an order for the "separation" of the commissars, and I have already stated that the troops had very little to do with this matter, since the com-missars were not recognized by the troops.
THE PRESIDENT: You say you did not receive the order. What I asked you was: Did you hear of the order?
HAUSER: When the second order arrived concerning the "separation," I believe I heard that a previous order had gone out, but that the High Command had not transmitted it to many offices.
THE PRESIDENT: This order to kill the commissars?
HAUSER: That first order, of which I spoke, we did not receive.
THE PRESIDENT: Now, when you received the second order, you said you had heard of the other order, and what I wanted to know is if the other order was the order to kill the commissars?
HAUSER: I did not quite understand the question.
THE PRESIDENT: You said you received a second order to separate the commissars, and at that time you heard of the first order. What was the first order?
HAUSER: I believe that I heard of the first order to kill the commissars, but only later, when the other order for the "separation!' had already come through.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness can retire now.
HERR PELCKMANN: May I have another word, Your Honor?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, certainly. I thought you were through.
HERR PELCKMANN: In the course of the cross-examination of this witness the British and the Russian Prosecution submitted, as far as I was able to judge, 20 to 30 completely new documents. Not all of these documents were used in the questioning of this witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Pelckmann, the purpose of re-examination is to ask questions and not to argue.
HERR PELCKMANN: I am not going to do that, Mr. President. I shall not put any questions dealing with these documents to which I shall return later. But the Prosecution did not put any questions either, and I am of the opinion that these documents cannot be used. One document is in the Polish language, and unfortunately I cannot read it and therefore cannot put questions on it. Witness, I should like to refer you, as an example, to a poster in a document in English, entitled German Crimes in Poland, and comprising 184 pages. Will you please read the poster and will you tell me what connec-tion it has with the Waffen-SS, and if possible tell the High Tribunal the page on which it is found.
HAUSER: This poster, after Page 184, contains an announcement of the SS and Police Leader. It is therefore an instrument of the Higher SS and Police Leader and, as I have stated repeatedly, has nothing whatever to do with the Waffen-SS.
HERR PELCKMANN: Now I am having submitted to you another document, Document 4039-PS, a document about which you were not questioned by the Prosecution. Please tell me what con-nection this document has with the Waffen-SS?
HAUSER: This is an announcement of the chief of the Warsaw district-that is an official subordinate to the Governor General which has no connection with the Waffen-SS.
HERR PELCKMANN: Is there nothing mentioned about the Waffen-SS in this document?
HAUSER: It says here only that the German Wehrmacht ...
HERR PELCKMANN: Please speak clearly. I was asking you whether the document contains anything at all about the Waffen-SS?
HAUSER: I am sorry I have to say "No." There is nothing about the Waffen-SS in this document.
HERR PELCKMANN: I should like further to show you Docu-ment 4038-PS. This document was also not submitted to you by the Prosecution. Please read it carefully and then tell me what connec-tion it has with the Waffen-SS.
THE PRESIDENT: What number is that?
HERR PELCKILANN: It is 4038-PS, Your Lordship.
HAUSER: This also' is an announcement by the chief of the Warsaw district who was subordinate to the Governor General and has no connection with the Waffen-SS.
HERR PELCKMANN: I should further like to submit Document D-954, or the figure might be 957, it is not quite clear. This is an interrogation of 27 May 1946 of the witness ...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Pelckmann, I think all these documents speak for themselves, and if they don't refer to the Waffen-SS, the Tribunal will take note of that fact.
HERR PELCKMANN: Yes, Mr. President. But then I should like to know just why these documents were submitted. May I respect-fully say that they are not relevant at all. As you suggest, Mr. Pres-ident, I shall not submit this document. Can you judge, Witness, whether this book, D-956, which you had in your hands, contains anything at all about the Waffen-SS?
HAUSER: I looked at it only briefly, but I could not establish any connection.
HERR PELCKMANN: Thank you. You were reminded, Witness, of the speech of Himinler at Kharkov. You said that Himmler's idea that terror had been of use to the troops was wrong. Did you -express your view about this to Himmler, and if so, in what way?
HAUSER: I made my view known to Himinler on the same day and, as is customary with military subordinates, I spoke to him alone.
HERR PELCKMANN: The SS Division Prinz Eugen was men-tioned. How many divisions of the Waffen-SS were there?
HAUSER: To my knowledge, there were more than 35 divisions. I believe there were even more, but they did not all exist at the same time. One of these divisions was the Division Prinz Eugen, of which I have already said that it contained many racial Germans in its ranks.
HERR PELCKMANN: Is it true that Serbs and Croats also served in this division?
HAUSER: I cannot give you any particulars on that point. We had several divisions in the Balkans which contained Croats, Mon-tenegrins, and Moslems.
HERR PELCKMANN: Do you know that the war - in the Balkans was waged with particular intensity on both sides, and were atrocities by the other side ever reported to you? I am not asking this to ascertain whether the other side committed atrocities; I am asking only to determine that on the basis of isolated atrocities, one cannot draw conclusions about a system of the enemy.
HAUSER: I had no personal insight into the campaign in the Balkans. But from history I know that even before the first World War such excesses did take place in the Balkans.
HERR PELCKMANN: Do you know through reports from the Eastern Front-and again I want to qualify the question to make my intention quite clear...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Pelckmann, the witness has already told us that he knows nothing about the war in the Balkans, and there-fore any questions you put to him will have no significance to us.
HERR PELCKMANN: Witness, do you understand that I am now asking you about the Eastern Front?
HAUSER: Yes, incidents of that type did take place. And reports -of them were collected at headquarters and were forwarded, I believe, through the OKH and, I think, by the Red Cross at Geneva; but I cannot give you particulars.
HERR PELCKMANN: Do you know that reports of that sort were collected?
HAUSER: Yes.
HERR PELCKMANN: And would you conclude therefrom that the Red Army did things like that systematically?
HAUSER: You can hardly expect me to state whether these things were done systematically or not.
GEN. RUDENKO: Mr. President, I would like to make the fol-lowing brief statement. The Defense has in the course of the pro-ceedings tried more than once on the basis of inventions published in Fascist White Books to draw attention to, atrocities committed by the opponent. This practice has already been categorically rejected by the Tribunal and I therefore consider that the question now put by the defendant's counsel is also inadmissible.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Pelckmann, the Tribunal considers that you have no right to ask this witness for his opinion about these matters. You must confine yourself to asking him questions as to facts, and what he knows about facts. And you can make any argu-ment about those facts that you like when you come to make your argument.
HERR PELCKMANN: Witness, in order to clarify the meaning of my previous question, I should like to ask you this: If you could now see the deeds which allegedly on the basis of these documents were committed by the SS, would you, nevertheless, say that these things were not representative of a system but were isolated in-cidents arising out of the severity of the battle, and caused partly by the lack of discipline on the part of certain foreign elements, incidents which for these reasons could happen everywhere?
THE PRESIDENT: You should not begin by asking the witness for his opinion. He has already given it to us, you know; he has already said, when he was being cross-examined About those incidents in which the Waffen-SS took part, that they were indi-vidual instances. He has already said that.
HERR PELCKMANN: [Turning to the witness.] You have seen the document which says that hostages were shot and a Yugoslav was hanged. If you had received knowledge of a case like that among your troops, would you have taken any steps?
HAUSER: A case like that falls in the first instance under the jurisdiction of the divisional commander as the judicial authority. If I, as the commanding general, would have received reports like that, I would have taken steps, and I would have appointed a military court to deal with the case. And that indeed is what happened several times.
HERR PELCKMANN: You were asked about the case of Oradour in France. Do you know whether your units, that is, when they were under your command, participated in this crime?
HAUSER: I know this incident only from the Indictment, and I have no further knowledge of it. Apparently, it %-as a criminal act of a single company leader. It took place at an earlier date. If it- had been brought to my knowledge and if the division commander had been subordinate to me, I would have given Him the order to appoint a military court to try the case.
HERR PELCKMANN: Your unit was used in Normandy; is that correct?
HAUSER: Yes, but Oradour is not in Normandy.
HERR PELCKMANN: It is in southern France? Was your unit, while it was under your command, responsible for it?
HAUSER: No, neither the unit nor I.