dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
COL. STOREY: However, the martial tread of the SA took care that even the drowsiest citizens had to see at least the existence of a fighting troop." The importance of the work of the SA in the early days of the Movement was indicated by Goebbels in a speech which appeared in Das Archiv , October 1935. This is our Document 3211-PS, Exhibit Number USA-419. It is on the first page of the English translation: "The inner-political opponents did not disappear due to mysterious unknown reasons, but because the Movement possessed a strong arm within its organization; and the strongest arm of the movement is the SA. The Jewish question will not be solved separately but by laws which we enact, for we are an anti-Jewish government." Specific evidence of the activities of the SA during the early period of the Nazi movement, from 1922 to 1931, is found in a series of articles appearing in Der SA-Mann entitled, "SA Battle Experiences Which We Will Never Forget." Each of these articles is an account of a street or a meeting-hall battle waged by the SA against a group of political opponents in the early days of the Nazi struggle for power. These articles demonstrate that during this period it was the function of the SA to employ physical violence in order to destroy and subvert all forms of thought and expression which might be considered hostile to the Nazi aims or philosophy. A number of such articles have been translated, and the tines are sufficiently descriptive to constitute evidence of the activities of the SA in the early stages of the movement. I should like to quote from a few of these tines by giving the page reference of this big newspaper volume. Here is one of 24 February 1934, Page 4-the title: "We Subdue the Red Terror." From the 8th of September 1934, Page 12; The article is entitled: "Nightly Street Battles on the Czech Border." From 6th of October 1934, Page 5: "Street Battle in Chemnitz." Another one of 20 October 1934, Page 7-the tine: "Victorious SA." I will skip several of Them.
COL. STOREY: Here is one of 26 January 1935, Page 7-the tine: "The SA Conquers Rastenburg." Another on 23 February 1935, Page 5: "Company 88 Receives Its Baptism of Fire." One of 20 October 1934, Page 7-the article is: "SA against Sub-humanity." Finally, I mention the one of 10 August 1935, Page 10-the title is: "The Blood Sunday of Berlin." And then there is a portrait in the article of 11 September 1937, Page 1, which symbolizes the SA man as the master of the streets. For an example of the nature of these articles, one appeared in the Franken edition of the SA-Mann for 30 October 1937, Page 3. It is entitled: "9 November 1923 in Nuremberg," and I should like to quote from Pages 14 and 15 of Document 3050-PS, which is an English translation of this article: "We stayed overnight in the Colosseum (that means Nuremberg). Then 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 police station 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. Then came the State Police with fixed bayonets and drove us out of the hall. One of us then shouted: 'Let's go to the Cafe Habsburg!' By the time we arrived, however, the police again had everything surrounded. Some shouted then, 'The Jewish place will be stormed.... Out with the Jews!'. Then the police started to beat us up. Then we divided into small groups and roamed through the town, and wherever we caught a Red or a Jew we knew, blows ensued. "Then in the evening we marched, although the police had forbidden it, to a meeting in Furth. In the Hornschuch promenade the police again attempted to stop us. It was all the same to us. In the next moment we attacked the police in our anger so that they were forced to flee. We marched on to Geissmann Hall. There again they tried to stop us. But the Landsturm, which was also there, attacked the policemen like persons possessed and drove them from the streets.
COL. STOREY: After the meeting we dissolved and went to the edge of town. From there we marched in close column back to Nuremberg. In Willstrasse, at the Plarrer, the police came again. We simply shoved them aside. They did not trust themselves to attack, for that would have meant a blood bath. We decided beforehand not to take anything from anyone. In Furth, too, they had already noticed that we were up to no good. A large mass of people accompanied us on the march. We marched with unrolled flags and sang so that the streets resounded: Comrade reach me your hand; we want to stand together; even though they have false impressions, the spirit must not die; swastika on the steel helmet, black-white-red armband; we are known as Storm Troop (SA) Hitler!" I now skip to the use of the SA to consolidate the power of the Party. The third function of the SA was to carry out various programs designed to consolidate Nazi control of the German State, including particularly the dissolution of the trade unions and the Jewish persecutions. The SA groups were employed to destroy political opposition by force and brutality wherever necessary. An example of this is shown in Document Number 3221-PS, Exhibit Number USA-422; and that is an original affidavit made in the State of Pennsylvania, in the United States of America, by William F. Sollman, which we now quote in its entirety: "William F. Sollman, Pendle Hill School, Wallingford, Pennsylvania, being duly sworn according to law, deposes and says: From 1919 until 1933 I was a Social Democrat and a member of the German Reichstag. Prior to March 11th, 1933, I was editor-in-chief of a chain of daily newspapers with my office in Cologne, Germany, which led the fight against the Nazi Party. "On March 9th, 1933, members of the SS and SA came to my home in Cologne and destroyed the furniture and my personal records. At that time I was taken to the Brown House in Cologne, where I was tortured, being beaten and kicked for several hours.
COL. STOREY: I was then taken to the regular government prison in Cologne, where I was treated by two medical doctors and released the next day. On March 11th, 1933, I left Germany. (Signed and sworn to)." Prior to the organization of the Gestapo on a national scale, local SA meeting-places were designated as arrest points; and the SA members were employed in the taking into custody of Communists and other persons who were actually or supposedly hostile to the Nazi Party. This activity is described in Document Number 1759-PS, Exhibit Number USA-420, which is an original affidavit made by Raymond H. Geist. Mr. Geist was formerly United States Consul in Berlin. He is now in Mexico City. I should like to quote from a portion of his affidavit, the first being on Page 5 of the English translation, about the middle of the page, starting: "At the beginning of the Hitler regime, the only organization which had meeting-places throughout the country was the SA (Storm Trooper). Until the Gestapo could be organized on a national scale, the thousands of local SA meeting-places became the arrest points. There were at least 50 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 headquarters. During 1933 and 1934, when the Gestapo became universally organized, the SA were gradually eliminated as arresting agents, and the SS were incorporated as administrative and executive officials into the Gestapo. By the end of 1934, the SA had been fairly well eliminated and the SS, the members of which wore elegant black suits and were therefore called Elite Guards, became almost identical as functionaries with the Gestapo." I now pass to Page 7 of this same document, Page 7 of the English translation. It begins...
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Storey, does that mean that the SA were eliminated for the purpose of arrest or for other purposes too?
COL. STOREY: No, Sir. As I understand, Sir, the SA reached its height of popularity in 1934 and immediately after the Rohm purge began to decline. In the meantime, the SS, which originated out of the SA, was growing and became really the strong part and grew and prospered after that. So I think the evidence will show that after 1934 the SA started a rapid decline in its importance. Now, on Page 7 of the English translation I should like to quote a part of the consul's report, beginning in the middle of the page: "Another American, Herman I. Roseman, made an affidavit which stated: "Yesterday, March 10th, 1933, in the afternoon about 4:30, I came out of KDW with my fiancee, Fraulein Else Schwarzlose, residing in Wilmersdorf (giving the address). A man in SA uniform stepped on my toe purposely, obviously offended me and said "Pardon." I said "Bitte," and walked ahead. He then followed me and kicked me saying, "Na und?" A policeman saw this and walked ahead, paying no attention to attacks made on me. Then I took my passport out of my pocket, showed it to the second policeman, and said that I was an American citizen, but he walked ahead, obviously not able to afford me protection, or at least being unwilling. The SA man continued to attack me, struck me in the face, wounded me over the eye, and continued to do me bodily harm. During this attack, all the time my walking along, we reached another policeman, and I applied to him, showing my passport and said, "I am an American and am entitled to protection." He shrugged his shoulders and said "What can I do?" By this time the SA man had obviously inflicted enough attack upon me and walked away. " 'Upon my appeal, the policeman brought my fiancee and me to the station house at 13 Bayreutherstrasse. My fiancee and I reported to the officer in charge. He heard the story and said that he was sorry, but that there was nothing to do. My face was bleeding. The policeman said that he had orders not to interfere in any affair in which an SA man took part. I then asked him what I could do to protect myself.
COL. STOREY: He said that there was nothing to do but to wait until the situation was better. He added that the police were absolutely powerless, and were under the direction of the SA, and that there were SA Sturmabteilungen in the police itself. Thereupon I departed....' " Now on the next page, on Page 8, is another American, Mrs. Jean Klauber, and I quote from her affidavit: "On the night of Friday, March 10, 1933, she and her husband had retired for the night when they were awakened by a prolonged ringing of their apartment bell. They heard pounding upon the street door and a demand for immediate entry and a concurrent threat to break the door down. The street door was opened by the janitor's wife; and a party of four or five men entered and went at once to the apartment of the deponent, where they again rang and pounded on the door. Mr. Klauber asked who was there and was answered, 'The police.' He opened the door and a party of four or five men in brown uniforms, one wearing a dark overcoat and carrying a rifle, pushed in, jostling Mr. and Mrs. Klauber aside. One asked Mrs. Klauber where the telephone was and she indicated the room where it was to be found and started to go there. Thereupon, she was knocked down by one of them. They went on to the bedroom where Mr. and Mrs. Klauber followed them, and there they demanded their passports. Mr. Klauber went to the wardrobe to get his and was stopped, being asked by the intruders whether he was carrying any weapons. Being clothed only in pajamas, his denial was accompanied by a gesture indicating his garb. He then turned to the wardrobe, opened it, and reached for one of his four suits hanging therein where he thought the passport was, and was immediately attacked from behind by all but . one of the intruders, who beat him severely with police clubs, the one with the overcoat and rifle standing by. Remarks were shouted such as, 'look! Four suits, while for 14 years we have been starving!' Mrs. Klauber tried to inquire the reason for their actions, and was answered, 'Jews. We hate you.
COL. STOREY: For 14 years we have been waiting for this, and tonight we will hang many of you.' "When the intruders stopped beating Mr. Klauber he was unconscious, and they again demanded the passports of Mrs. Klauber. Mrs. Klauber found her American passport and her German passport (required by local authorities as the wife of a German citizen and issued by the police at Munich after her arrival here); and the intruders took both in spite of Mrs. Klauber's protests that she was American. She then searched for her husband's passport, laid hold of his pocketbook, and in her excitement offered it to them. Though full of money they refused it, and again demanded the passport. Mrs. Klauber then found it and handed it over. "Then the intruders returned to the unconscious Mr. Klauber, saying, 'He hasn't had enough yet,' and beat him further. Then they left, saying, 'We are not yet finished,' and just as they departed, one of them said to Mrs. Klauber, 'Why did you marry a Jew? I hate them,' and struck her on the jaw with his police club...." That is the end of the affidavit. Now continuing, the next paragraph is the statement of the U.S. Consul: "I personally can verify that the police had been instructed not to interfere; and that is, that there was official sanction for these activities. Affidavits taken from numerous victims attest this fact. I had become acquainted with the two police officers stationed at the corner of Bellevuestrasse and Tiergartenstrasse near where the Consulate General was located; these officers told me that they and all the other police officers had received definite instructions not to interfere with the SA, the SS, or the Hitler Youth." In addition, SA members served as guards at concentration camps during this consolidating period and participated in the persecution and mistreatment of persons imprisoned therein. I now refer to Document 2824-PS, which is a book entitled, Concentration Camp at Oranienburg . It is Exhibit Number USA-423. This was by an SA-Sturmbannfuehrer named Schafer, who was the commander of the concentration camp at Oranienburg.
COL. STOREY: I quote the excerpt on the first page of the English translation, reading: "The most trusted SA men of long service were selected in order to give them homes in the camp, since they were the permanent camp guard", and in such a manner we created a cadre of experienced guardsmen who were constantly prepared to be employed." Further evidence concerning the operation of the concentration camps by the SA is found in Document 787-PS, Exhibit Number USA-421. This is a report to Hitler from the public prosecutor of Dresden concerning the nolle-prossing of one Vogel, who was accused of mistreatment of persons imprisoned in the concentration camp. I quote from that report: "On 14 March 1935 the prosecuting authority in Dresden has indicted . . . Oberregierungsrat Erich Vogel in Dresden on account of inflicting bodily injury while in office. The following subject matter is the basis of the process: "Vogel belongs to the Gestapo office of the state of Saxony since its foundation and is chief of Main Section II, which formerly bore the title ZUB (central section for combatting subversive movements). In the process of combatting efforts inimical to the State, Vogel carried out several so-called 'borderland actions' in the year 1933 in which a large number of politically unreliable persons and persons who had become political prisoners in the border territories were taken into protective custody and brought to the Hohnstein protective custody camp. In the camp unusually severe ill-treatment of the prisoners has been going on at least since the summer of 1933. The prisoners were not only, as in the protective custody camp Bredow near Stettin, beaten into a state of unconsciousness for no reasons with whips and other tools, but were also tortured in other ways, as for instance with a drip-apparatus, especially constructed for the purpose, under which the prisoners had to stand so long that they came away with serious purulent wounds on the scalp.
COL. STOREY: The guilty SA leaders and SA men were sentenced to punishments of 6 years to 9 months of imprisonment by the main criminal court of the provincial court in Dresden on 15 May 1935... Vogel, whose duties frequently brought him to the camp, took part in this mistreatment, insofar as it happened in the reception room of the camp during completion of the reception formalities and in the supply room, during issuing of the blankets. In this respect it should be pointed out that Vogel was generally known to the personnel of the camp-exactly because of his function as head of the ZUB and his conduct became at least partly a standard for the above-named conduct of the SA leaders and men." I want to read the remainder of that quotation. I am sorry, I don't have it here. That is a little portion there that should be read immediately following my statement, and then I started-I will skip to the quotation just below there: "Vogel stayed in the reception room a long time and watched these proceedings without doing anything about them. In his presence for instance, the SA man Mutze dealt such blows to one man, without provocation, that he turned around on himself. As already stated, Vogel not only took no steps against this treatment of the prisoners, but he even made jokes about it and stated that it amused him the way things were popping here. "In the supply room, Vogel himself took a hand in the beating amid the general severe mistreatment. The SA men there employed whips and other articles and beat the prisoners in such a manner that serious injuries were produced, the prisoners became partly unconscious and had to lie in the hospital a long time. Vogel was often present in the supply room during the mistreatment. At least in the following cases he personally participated actively in these mistreatments." And then skipping down: , "...the prisoner was laid across the counter in the usual manner, held fast by the head and arms, and then beaten for a considerable time by the SA men with whips and other articles.
COL. STOREY: Along with these, Vogel himself took part in the beating for a time, and after this mistreatment slapped him again, so that the prisoner appeared green and blue in the face. The prisoner is the tinsmith Hans Kuhitz, who bore the nickname 'Johnny.' Upon his departure, Vogel gave the head of the supply room, Truplpfuehrer Meier from 5 to 6 Reichsmark with the stated reason that the SA men 'had sweated so.' The money was then distributed by Meier to those SA comrades who had taken part in the mistreatment." Another activity of the SA during the days just following the Nazi seizure of power was to act as auxiliary police. This is shown in Document 3252-PS, Exhibit Number USA-424. This publication is a book written about Hermann Goering.
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Storey, is that a document which shows on its face that the man was punished for this conduct?
COL. STOREY: I think it does; yes, Sir. I think it does.
THE PRESIDENT: I think that fact ought to be stated.
COL. STOREY: I believe it is stated, Sir. You see in the beginning it says that the prosecuting authority in Dresden had indicted Vogel on account of bodily injury, and I thought it stated that he had been punished.
THE PRESIDENT: The document does appear to state it, but I think you ought to state it in court. The document ends up with Paragraph 3.
COL. STOREY: It does state that he was punished. The purpose of introducing it was to show what actually took place. I now turn to Document 3252-PS. As I have just mentioned, the book is entitled, Hermann Goering, the Man and His Work by Erich Gritzbach, in which it is declared that the ranks of the Security Police were strengthened by the SA and which was characterized as the most reliable instrument of the Movement. I should like to quote on the first page of Document 3252-PS, the English translation-it is the fourth paragraph: "The present reorganization of the Protection Police is hardly noticed by the public. Its ranks are strengthened by the SA, the most reliable instrument of the Movement. The auxiliary police has given effective aid by its fighting spirit in the struggle against the Communists and other enemies of the State, not only to Goering but has, driven by its National Socialist desire for a new spirit within the executive police, assisted in the rigid organization." I now skip to the SA participation in the Jewish pogrom of 10-11 November 1938 shown by Document 1721-PS, Exhibit Number USA-425. This is a confidential report of the SA-Brigadefuehrer to his group commander, dated 29 November 1938. In the English translation, starting at the beginning without reading the addresses, it is to SA Group Electoral Palatinate (Kurpfalz) Mannheim: "The following order reached me at 3 o'clock on 10 November 1938. "On the order of the Gruppenfuehrer, all Jewish synagogues within the 50th Brigade are to be blown up or set on fire immediately. "Neighboring houses occupied by Aryans are not to be damaged. The action is to be carried out in civilian clothes. "Rioting and plundering are to be prevented. Report of execution of orders to reach the brigade Fuehrer or office by 8:30. "I immediately alerted the Standartenfuehrer and gave them the most exact instructions; the execution of the order began at once. I hereby report that the following were destroyed in the area of...." Then there follows a list of 35 synagogues that were destroyed.
COL. STOREY: I just refer to a few of them: "1) The synagogue at Darmstadt, Bleichstrasse, destroyed by fire.... 4) The synagogue at Grafenhausen, interior and furnishings wrecked."-And then under "Standarte 145"-"The synagogue at Bensheim, destroyed by fire." And then the next four items are synagogues destroyed by fire. In Standarte 168 eight synagogues are shown to have been destroyed by fire. In Standarte 86 the synagogue in Beerfelden was blown up; and then follow several others where the furnishings were wrecked. In Standarte 221 the synagogue and chapel in Gross-Gerau was destroyed by fire, and the next one torn down and the furnishings destroyed. And then it is signed by the Fuehrer of Brigade 50, by the signature which is illegible, "Brigadefuehrer." In connection with the persecution of the Jews, we again find the SA performing its function of propaganda agency for the Nazis. In this connection it was the function of the SA to create and foster among the people an anti-Jewish spirit and sentiment without which the terrifying Crimes against Humanity perpetrated against the Jewish race certainly would not have been tolerated by any civilized peoples. Substantial and convincing evidence of this function is to be found in these bound volumes of Der SA-Mann . Throughout the period covered by these volumes, there appeared in this publication article after article consisting of the most cruel and vicious sort of anti-religious propaganda designed to engender and foster hatred and hostility toward the Jewish race. I will simply refer to a few of the titles appearing. On 27 July 1935, at Page 4, the title is "Finish up with the Jew." That is shown, if Your Honor pleases, in Document 3050-PS, Pages 16 to 18 there listed.