dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
HERR PELCKMANN: Moreover he continued to follow the path he had chosen for his organizations General SS and Waffen-SS, and withdrew behind a heavy curtain of secrecy, hiding himself and the excesses of his police activity from these ,organizations as well as from the entire nation. It is quite impossible to understand all of this if one does not appreciate the fact that Himmler had a "Jekyll and Hyde" personality. On the one hand he preached and fostered ethical values, such as decency, manliness, and courtesy. Here he used the instrument of his organizations, the General SS and the Waffen-SS. On the other hand he -exploited his tremendous power by issuing the most uncompromising orders and measures of a police state nature. I would only refer to concentration camps, mass executions without trial, and the Einsatzgruppen. Here, and here alone he used the instrument of the executive power in the Reich. A deep abyss opens up between these two. It was not surprising, therefore, that in the few speeches he made during the war, in which he showed his obsession with his State Police troops of the future, that he met with opposition among the leaders and the troops of the Waffen-SS; for these men were soldiers and were fighting the enemy. It is quite understandable that the Prosecution considers this first side of Himmler's nature to be but a whitewash for the second. But nothing could be more erroneous than an assumption of this sort. It is no coincidence either that the Defendant Seyss-Inquart from his complete knowledge of developments, and the witnesses Hausser and Reinecke, who because of their former high positions and their present knowledge have an over-all picture of events, describe Himmler as a man who had two totally different faces. And when they say that, they are in good company; for on the strength of his many conferences with Himmler, Count Bernadotte says exactly the same thing in his book The Curtain Falls, which has been frequently quoted. Himmler, therefore, is not the SS.
HERR PELCKMANN: The fact that he is referred to as the "Reichsfuehrer SS in all laws and directives which gave him new missions to accomplish does not alter this situation in the least. As the witnesses Reinecke and Kubitz have stated quite correctly in this regard, his official position and title, to all practical purposes, had replaced his name in public life. Specialized departments like the Police and the Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationalism, or the position of Commander-in-Chief of the Reserve Army, and of Chief of the Prisoner-of-War Organization, did not become concerns of the SS just because they -were transferred to the person of the "Reichsfuehrer SS," that is, Himmler. However, that is something asserted by the Prosecution, and in -order to support their position they state further that as soon as -Himmler took over new offices he immediately started to infiltrate them with members of the SS. That is equally wrong. The witnesses Zupke and Bader have7 confirmed the fact that a number of members of the Regular Police were taken over into the General SS, and not vice versa. An infiltration of the Police therefore never took place. As far as the Security Police is concerned, we can see from Himmler's decree of 23 June 1938 (Document 1637-PS) that the civil servants and employees of the Security Police were taken over by the SD and received SS ranks commensurate with their police ranks, and not vice versa. They never served in the General SS for even one day. The testimony of the witness Zupke, who was interrogated before the Commission on 20 May 1946, and Affidavit SS-82, prove that roughly 20 different categories of members of the Regular Police became formal members of the SS when on the strength of ministerial directives they were granted ranks in the SS commensurate with their police rank.
HERR PELCKMANN: This so-called "Co-ordination of Rank," however, did not establish true- membership, for the police officials involved did not take the SS oath, did not pay dues, did not perform SS functions, did not serve in the SS, had no privileges or advantages of any kind because of their rank, and did not even wear SS uniform. Their police service remained constant and unchanged. Everywhere else in public life the same procedure was followed. It was not the case that the SS filled key and other essential positions, but rather that the men holding such positions were taken over into the SS as honorary leaders by Himmler. The affidavits deposed by Herr Fuehrer, SS-63, and Herr Wunder, SS-42, give striking examples of the appointment of honorary leaders; SS-49, and Bethke, Number 48, show that the Kreis- and Ortsbauernfuehrer were taken over as a group by the SS in that way, and Affidavits SS::97 and SS-98 describe the taking over of the leaders of the Reich Veterans Society. Therefore it was not true that the SS infiltrated into the State; on the contrary, elements foreign to the SS were taken over by its organizations. The bulk of the membership remained what it was, a unit of farmers, mechanics, students, workers, and representatives of all the professions. The tasks of the General SS were not changed in any way because of this process. After studying this matter, we can see how little basis in fact there is for the assertion made by some of the defense counsel on behalf of individual defendants and organizations to the effect that during the war the SS exercised all the powers of government in Germany. Many witnesses and affidavits prove that the activity of the General SS, which must be described as typical club life, began to decrease at the beginning of the war and disappeared altogether during the course of the war. The Waffen--5S was fighting at the different fronts, receiving more and more draftees into its ranks It was under the supreme command of the Wehrmacht. These branches of the SS therefore could not rule Germany during the war.
HERR PELCKMANN: As I shall demonstrate later, the VFTHA, which concerned its with concentration camps, belonged to the SS only nominally, an had no administrative authority over any other institutions Germany. A reign of terror may well have been exercised through arrest and the putting of individuals in concentration camps, but that was not a function of any branch of the SS organization, but rather of the Ministry of the Interior, of the Police, and the RSHA (Gestapo) The setting up of Higher SS and Police Leaders does not alt these facts either, for the name is in fact misleading. They had n authority of command over the Police and the Waffen-SS. 0 rarely, when like the Reichsfuehrer SS, who held both State an Police positions-as for instance Police Commissioner-were the authorized to give orders to the Police, but only because of their State position, not because of their position as SS Leaders. This may be seen even more plainly in the Occupied Eastern Territories for there was no General SS there. The Higher SS and Police Leaders there did not have any authority of command in the Waffen-SS, so that the Higher SS and Police Leaders exercised on public police functions. I am referring to the testimony given b the witness Von Eberstein, and to Affidavits SS-86 and 87. Then we see the following: Himmler's power increased tremendously during the war, but the power of the SS was not increased He did not receive this power because of his position. as Reichsfuehrer SS, and he could not exercise this power through the S but solely through State organs, that is, through the various police organizations. Competing with Himmler's authority were other power factors not of the State, but exercised by the Party (Reichs-, Gau-, an Kreisleitung). All branches of the SS were outside this struggle for power between Himmler and Bormann. From the description presented by me we can conclude the following: First, we cannot consider the organizations comprising the SS to be a unified instrument of a conspiracy.
HERR PELCKMANN: Secondly, the -Court can only examine separately the question of the criminal character of each branch of the organization. The accusations raised under the Indictment which I shall have to deal with after these detailed statements-because of lack of time. I can cover only the most important aspects-become weightier the closer we approach the period of the war, and finally the collapse A very serious and comprehensive pattern of accusations against the SS has been included in the term "Germanization." With this, Gentlemen of the Tribunal, I am dealing on the next five pages, 46 to 50, and I shall skip the heading "Enslavement"; the next four pages, 50 to 53, deal with the, "Compulsory Transportation for Slave Labor"; a further page and a half, 54 to 55, with the Einsatzgruppen, and finally three pages, 55 to 57, with "AntiPartisan Combat." Owing to pressure of time I am unable to present them and would ask the Tribunal to give them due consideration. By "Germanization" we certainly cannot understand the resettling of entire sections of a population and transplanting them from their native soil to a new locality, for the same thing is taking place today in those regions between the Oder and the Vistula in Silesia and Czechoslovakia, in areas which were formerly German but have now been given to Poland. In order to arrive at criminal circumstances several vital points must accrue; namely, planning, methods of execution, and their connection with a war of aggression. The contradictory yet determining points in Hitler's orders never appear more sharply than in that pattern which the Indictment understands by the term "Germanization." One thing, however, is clearly evident; these orders, some of which were issued in the form of laws, were not addressed to the SS. The decree of 7 October 1939, Document Number 686-PS, which has been quoted frequently, is of basic importance here.
HERR PELCKMANN: But a jurist can understand this decree only as a law to establish a new public authority to be known as the Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationalism. Out of the many who competed for this position, Himmler succeeded in coming out ahead, for he was made Reichskommissar. In this decree, which was not issued by Party ,authorities but was signed by the Reich Cabinet, Himmler is also referred to by his other title of Reichsfuehrer SS. If he had been a general in the Wehrmacht, then perhaps he would have also been referred to as Lieutenant General; if he had been a civil servant, he probably would have also been referred to as Minister. From this, no instructions to the SS as an organization can be deduced. This new office was paid for by the Reich. The men working there were officials who were taken from the various other offices and agencies, not only from the SS. Of course SS members participated, but they were not predominant and they were not in the most important positions. Please refer to Affidavits SS-113, 110, 111, 43, 73, and 75. The Reichskommissariat for the Consolidation of German Nationalism belonged to the sphere of Himmler's personal authority, but no executive official of the Kommissariat had the power of command over SS offices or SS members except when subordinate to him as his officials. Under the Reichskommissar for the Consolidation of German Nationalism there was the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle, with which the Prosecution have dealt repeatedly. It was the task of the VDM to repatriate Germans who up to that time were not German citizens, and to bring them back into Germany from the countries where they had been living. The VDM furnished the means (Mittel) for this task. That is the real significance of the title used in contrast to incorrect translations. "Means" (Mittel) signifies money or objects which had the value of money. The Mittelstelle procured and cashed the necessary foreign exchange.
HERR PELCKMANN: The VDM was not concerned with the other tasks assigned to the Reichskommissar for the Consolidation of German Nationalism, which are characterized in the decree mentioned as "elimination of the harmful influence of alien minorities." These tasks were taken over as police tasks by Heydrich and by the police departments of the RSHA. They were handled in the same way as the deporting of Jews to the East; for example, into labor camps or to Theresienstadt. For these matters also Heydrich and the police departments of the RSHA were exclusively responsible. These accusations are dealt with in detail by the statements given by the witness Kubitz before the Commission, and the affidavits of Creutz, Greifelt, and Golling (SS-115, 72, 79, 80, 71, 112, 113, 114, 77, 73, and 76). As has been abundantly demonstrated before this Tribunal, only Goering-with, the Four Year Plan had influence over the exploitation of the productive resources, and by no means the Reichskommissar for the Consolidation of German Nationalism or the SS (Golling, Affidavit SS-73). The voluntary resettlement of Germans from abroad carried through by the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle, particularly from the Soviet Union on the basis of the treaty with the Soviet Union, cannot be considered as deportations or evacuations in the sense of the Indictment (Greifelt 3:1, SS-76). The Prosecution concluded the participation of the SS in that activity from the fact that many men in SS uniform had a share in it. The evidence given by Kubitz demonstrated that those people were not SS men and did not carry out SS tasks. The evacuation of Poles from the former German Eastern Provinces had been almost concluded already before the creation of the Reichskommissar for the Consolidation of German Nationalism (Creutz, SS-72; Golling, SS-71). They had been previously carried out by the chief of the civil administration, not by the SS.
HERR PELCKMANN: I In the Government General there existed special legal conditions, so that the office of the Stabshauptamt and the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle were not able to interfere and cannot be held responsible for the conditions that existed there. The evacuations in the West were performed by the chiefs of the civil administration as the agencies exclusively competent for them (evidence Kubitz, Affidavit Bruckner, SS-74; Edgar Hoffmann, SS-75; Creutz 11, SS-80). The members of the former German minority in the former Polish provinces were given German citizenship not by the Reichskommissar for the Consolidation of German-Nationalism, but by the Reich Ministry of the Interior and its subordinate office at a time when Himmler not yet held that ministerial office. The procedure of the Volksliste, which erroneously has been translated "Race Register," was carried through by the Reich Ministry of the Interior. This shows that that list had nothing to do with the Reichskommissar for the Consolidation of German Nationalism or the race ideology of the SS (Golling I, SS-71). The confiscation of the agricultural property by the Reichskommissar for the Consolidation of German Nationalism was based on a decree by the Reich Government of 8 October 1939, in accordance with which the incorporated Eastern territories were declared Reich territory, as well as on those decrees concerning confiscation which in the framework of valid law had been properly promulgated and were not even co-signed by the Reichskommissar for the Consolidation of German Nationalism (SS Document Book, Number 13). A thorough examination of that decree will show that the confiscations ordered actually had already been pronounced before the Reichskommissar for the Consolidation of German Nationalism had taken office. He did nothing but register and re-examine the confiscations which had already taken place (Creutz, SS-72; Golling, SS-71).
HERR PELCKMANN: It would be entirely fallacious to speak of a confiscation through the Reichskommissar for the Consolidation of German Nationalism, much less the SS, for the purpose of settling racial Germans or rewarding deserving Nazis, since the confiscations carried out by the Reichskommissar for the Consolidation of German Nationalism were not qualified to furnish land for settlement or to drive away farmers from their estates (Golling, SS-71; Greifelt 1, SS-73, 76, 78; Creutz, SS-79). For that reason the Reichskommissar refrained from any settlements involving a transfer of property. The only thing which happened was that the trustees on the ownerless estates we, e replaced by trustees taken from the ranks of the resettled ones. The opinion of the Prosecution, which is in conflict with this description (1352-PS), is based on the unauthorized acts and proposals made by some subordinate official, Kusche, who did not even belong to the SS and whose errors-as shown by the document itself and Affidavit Golling SS-7-,,vere corrected. The case of Kusche is characteristic of the Reichskommissar for the Consolidation of German Nationalism inasmuch as this man was relieved of his office because of his entirely erroneous conceptions (Golling SS-71). No uniform plan is apparent in the so-called Germanization. The chiefs of the civil administration had their districts evacuated, and according to other motives. 26 Aug. 467 and orders (Bruckner, SS-2; Edgar Hoffmann, SS-75), the agencies of the Reichskommissar for the Consolidation of German Nationalism and the Chief Staff Office did not approve these evacuations. They could not, however, stop them, although they obstructed them as far as possible and practically put an end to them altogether (Testimony of Kubitz, Affidavit Bruckner, Edgar Hoffmann).Himmler, for instance, did not know anything about the plans of Burckel or Hitler. The Polish population in Posen and West Prussia was evacuated; in Upper Silesia it was not evacuated.
HERR PELCKMANN: The transfer of the Germans living in the Baltic countries was decided within a very few hours, but absolutely nothing was known as to the carrying out of their resettlement (Kubitz). The Reichskommissar for the Consolidation of German Nationalism transferred racial Germans from Lublin to Posen, the Governor General again settled Germans in Lublin (2916-PS, 910-PS; Creutz, SS-72). Continuous retransfers of Germans from abroad brought hundreds of thousands into the Reich, despite the fact that for years more than half a million had been waiting in camps for some kind of resettlement (Kubit7). Polish property was confiscated by the Four Year Plan, the Haupttreuhandstelle East, and the Reich Ministry for Food (Reich Law Gazette, 1940, Page 353, 1270). From this brief picture of the confusion existing one cannot speak of a premeditated plan for Germanization on the part of the Reichskommissariat, or on the part of the SS. The deportation of civilians for slave labor, particularly into Germany, takes an important position in the Indictment amongst the crimes committed in occupied territory against the civilian population, and is directed above an against the Defendant Sauckel. His defense counsel, Dr. Servatius, has dwelt on the taking of evidence and on the legal evaluation of the concept of slave labor, and we will simply refer to that. The Prosecution, and to some extent Dr. Servatius too, however, are of the opinion that the SS shared the guilt for those crimes. As far as the General SS. and the Waffen-SS are concerned, this point of view cannot be adopted. As shown before, the General SS practically had concluded its activity at the beginning of the war. There is not a single piece of evidence which would show that any unit of the General SS had anything to do with the deportation of civilians for labor service. The same is true in regard to the Waffen-SS, which never had any influence on the labor program of Sauckel and which also was never employed for the execution of his measures.
HERR PELCKMANN: The recruiting of foreign laborers for their employment in the Reich was, as a matter of principle, a task of the administration. For making manpower available to Sauckel's organization, the Reich Commissioners in the occupied areas were used, and they employed their executive, staff, as for instance the General Commissioners, and so on. They in turn, as prescribed by the laws of the administration, made use, as far as necessary, of the Regular and Security Police; the SS, particularly the Waffen-SS, was not available to the General Commissioners and had nothing to do at all with the labor program (Affidavit Von Bomhard, SS-108). In special fields this system was-not changed either. The Waffen-SS and the General SS did not give any assistance in the transfer of arrestees to concentration camps and their employment for slave labor there. As is well known, the only authority in charge of assignments to concentration camps was the Gestapo, which was also in charge of the bringing-in of new arrestees. This has been stated already by Mr. Parr of the British Prosecution (Volume IV, Page 194). This is shown also by individual pieces of evidence, such as Document L-61, which speaks of the assignment of criminal and asocial Poles to concentration camps by the Chief of the Security Police and SD. It also proves that the exchange of Jewish against Polish workers in the Reich was based exclusively on an agreement between the office of Sauckel and the Chief of the Security Police. Thus the SS, both Waffen and General SS, had nothing to do with it, as was wrongly assumed (Volume III, Page 413). This is equally true for the transfer of other groups to concentration camps, and their employment in armament plants there. Without exception these assignments were handled by the Gestapo. This is true both for the assignments of Frenchmen (compare Servatius' plea) and that of partisans (744-PS, USA Exhibit 445).
HERR PELCKMANN: Again these cases therefore are eliminated from the material charging the General or Waffen-SS, because the arrests and assignments to a concentration camp of these groups were performed not as measures for securing manpower, but on the basis of Gestapo considerations. Himmler's order, 744-PS, furthermore is based on a decree by the OKW (Keitel), ordering that those prisoners who were taken in warfare against the partisans were to be looked upon as prisoners of war, put into camps, and referred to Sauckel through the labor offices. This was therefore a group of persons who ought to have been referred to courts-martial as snipers and whose assignments to a concentration camp constituted only an improvement. If the General SS and the Waffen-SS had nothing to do with the assignments to concentration camps, it is impossible to charge them with the crime of dragging people away to slave labor simply because the prisoners later worked in concentration camps. The following must be said in this connection. (1) As I shall explain later, the concentration camps were not an institution of the General SS and Waffen-SS. They were a State institution of their own (Affidavit SS-40D, Fanslau). (2) The Chief of the WVHA, Pohl, was in charge only of the administration of the concentration camps. The products of the prisoners, just as those produced by the prisoners of the general Administration of Justice, were administered by a Reich Finance Office which existed in each concentration camp. Just like any other fiscal office of the Reich, they were examined and supervised by the Court of Accounts of the Reich (Affidavit Frank, Number 99). (3) In the main, the prisoners were made available to armament plants of a public or private nature, as well as to the economic enterprises of Himmler (Affidavit SS-9, Frank; and SS-100, Fanslau). Their position was exactly the same as that of other armament plants which received Eastern or other foreign laborers through the office of Sauckel.