dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
HOFFMANN: I must answer that question in the negative. As adviser for Reich Defense to the Inspector of Defense Area VI, who was chief of 6 State Police offices, I had no previous knowledge of an aggressive war being prepared. When Norway and Denmark were occupied, I learned the news from the newspapers. As deputy leader of the Gestapo office in Duesseldorf, I did not have any previous knowledge of the date set for the offensive in the West. On the morning of that day I learned of, it by radio and the newspapers. When the campaign against Russia was started, I was an expert in the Gestapo office. Several days later only-it may have been 3 or 4 days-we were informed of the beginning of the offensive. Before that we had no idea whatsoever about such plans, that is to say, not any more than any German could have gathered from the political tension.
DR. MERKEL: What was in principle the composition of the personnel of a State Police office in Germany?
HOFFMANN: The Gestapo office at Koblenz, the personnel of which-I have reconstructed in my mind, consisted of about 45 to 50 agents in the criminal department who were mostly taken from the Security-- Police and Criminal Police, or else from -the former IA; 'and- in addition, about 15 to 20 administrative and technical officials besides clerks and assistants, bringing the estimated total for the entire office to about 100 persons. I -. -DR. MERKEL- Was the employment of all these people on a voluntary basis in general or not?
HOFFMANN: On the whole, they were employees who had entered the police before 1933 and had been detailed or transferred to the State Police. According to my recollection, there were at the most 10 to 15 percent of them who had entered the organization voluntarily after 1933.
DR. MERKEL: What were the main tasks of a State Police office in Germany?
HOFFMANN: The main subjects that were dealt with were the combating of high treason, or treason, dealing with Church questions; questions which arose from the treatment of the Jews; so-called measures against the Treachery Act (Heimtueckegesetz); criminal acts within the Party; and certain important political questions from the whole complex formed by the press and economy.
DR. MERKEL: How was the question of protective custody dealt with during your term of office with the Gestapo?
HOFFMANN: The majority of the cases were dealt with by means of a warning by the State Police, and in many cases the result of the inquiry was negative. In those cases where custody was necessary, we saw to it that the perpetrators were brought' before the court. Protective custody was only applied for a short term in all those cases where the matter was not ready to be brought to the court. Protective custody by being transferred to a concentration camp was only proposed by the Gestapo if the personality of the perpetrator, judged by his previous behavior, gave reason to expect that he would continue to be an habitual offender against the regulations. To my knowledge, at the beginning of the war there were 20,000 inmates in the concentration camps of whom I estimate, at the most, one-half were held for political reasons.
DR. MERKEL: For what reasons were the other half kept there?
HOFFMANN: They were mostly criminals.
DR. MERKEL: Did the Gestapo take any measures to care for the families of the political inmates?
HOFFMANN: According to a decree of the Gestapo office, the State Police office, when taking people into protective custody, not only had to ask the welfare organizations to take care of the families, but the official who dealt with the particular case had to make sure periodically that they actually were looked after.
DR. MERKEL: Were inmates who were released from protective custody in a concentration camp forbidden to follow certain professions?
HOFFMANN: No, they could go into any profession.
DR. MERKEL: That applies also for the period during which you were in charge of the State Police office? Until what year?
HOFFMANN: That is during the time when I was Deputy Chief -until May 1940.
DR. MERKEL: The Prosecution has said that the Gestapo had fought the churches; what do you know about that from the time when you were in Koblenz and Duesseldorf?
HOFFMANN: Church matters during my period were dealt -with on the basis of a separation of Church and State; that is to say, we intervened when a priest violated the so-called "Pulpit Paragraph" which had been put into the penal code in the days of Imperial Germany or for violating the Treachery Act, or if Church organizations were active in worldly matters, which was prohibited by a decree.
DR. MERKEL: What was meant by "Jewish questions" during the period up to 1938?
HOFFMANN: The emigration of Jews.
DR. MERKEL: What was the number of officials who dealt with Jewish matters at the two offices of the Gestapo known to you?
HOFFMANN: At the Koblenz Gestapo office, one Kriminaloberassistent, who also dealt with matters pertaining to Freemasonry; at the Duesseldorf Gestapo office, one Oberinspektor with, I believe, two or three assistants.
DR. MERKEL: Was there any change brought about by the order of Heydrich of 10 November 1938 to arrest an unlimited number of Jews who were able to work?
HOFFMANN: That decree was a complete surprise for us, for the measure could in no way be expected on the basis of the measures which had heretofore been ordered. Since to my knowledge the majority of these Jews were released again later on, one could not recognize that as a basic change of the course pursued by the State leadership.
DR. MERKEL: Did you or the officials in your office have any knowledge that the deportation of Jews to the East which started approximately in 1942 really meant their destruction, biologically speaking?
HOFFMANN: No. At that time I was an adviser in the Gestapo office. During the discussions with the chief of Amt IV, nothing was ever said about that. The treatment of the Jewish question was at that time in the hands of Eichmann, who had not come out of the State Police, but had been transferred from the SD to the State Police. He and his personnel were located in a building set aside for that purpose and had no contact with the other officials. He particularly did not bring in the other departments by getting them to countersign, when for instance he ordered the deportation of Jews. To our objections in that regard he always answered that he was carrying out special missions which had been ordered by the highest authorities and therefore, it was unnecessary for the other departments to countersign-which would have given them the possibility to state their own opinions.
DR. MERKEL: Were there regulations about secrecy applied within the individual offices of the State Police too?
HOFFMANN: Yes; even within the offices themselves. It was an old police principle already before 1933 that individual cases should not be talked about. The secrecy was rendered more strict by the well-known Fuehrer decree. The SS and the Police courts punished any offenders most severely and all these punishments were regularly made -known to the officials.
DR. MERKEL: You were in charge of Amt IV D 4 in the Reich Security Main Office since 1941. What were the duties of that department?
HOFFMANN: Yes. The tasks dealt with the political and police problems of occupied territories from a uniform po int of view and particularly with summarizing them in reports to higher and to other offices. Later, there was in addition the task of caring for the interned political prisoners and other personalities from these territories.
DR. MERKEL: What was your fundamental attitude, and therefore that of the main Gestapo office, about the origin of the national resistance movement in the occupied territories?
HOFFMANN: After these territories were occupied, the Allies also started to utilize the potential forces in these territories by setting up military organizations. At first this was voluntary-whoever wanted to join such a military organization arrived at the decision to enter such organizations for patriotic or political reasons. Once he had joined such an organization, he was subordinate to military, orders with all their consequences. The measures which he had to carry out were carried out as part of the Allied strategy as a whole and not in the interests of his own country. Therefrom, it resulted that all actions of the resistance movements were military actions which were not carried out spontaneously by the population. The result was that all measures of a general nature against the population were not only useless as reactions in answer to the activities of the military organization, but also harmful to German interests, because the members of these military organizations were not deterred by such measures from carrying through their orders. The consequence was that a combating of these forces was only possible on two lines: First, by Germany attempting through propaganda means to arrive at a policy which would deter people from making the political decision to fight against Germany; and secondly, to neutralize the active groups by capturing them.
DR. MERKEL: Why then did the State leadership not act in accordance with this fundamental conception of the Gestapo?
HOFFMANN: To begin with, because Himmler had not come from the ranks of the Police and because his decisions were not based on the current reports he received from the Police, but primarily on the basis of individual information which he received through other channels, particularly from the Higher SS and Police Leaders.  Moreover, the Police were not able to make current reports on matters and simultaneously give an estimate of the situation. On the other hand, the Higher SS and Police Leaders and the local offices which represented the highest German authorities in the various territories again and again interfered with the work of the Police on the lower level.
DR.MERKEL: You just used the word "interfered." Did not the Gestapo have a-well-organized chain of command?
HOFFMANN: No. The offices assigned in the occupied territories were not only subordinated to the Secret State Police office centrally, but many other civilian and military authorities had influence and could, for instance, issue directives, especially the Higher SS and Police Leaders, Reich commissioners, and in part also, the military commanders.
DR. MERKEL: Can you give us two very striking examples?
HOFFMANN: First, the policy of Reich Commissioner Terboven, to carry out the shooting of hostages and other general measures against the population. For 3 years we fought in order to prevent his measures, and by reports made to Himmler we tried over and over to have him recalled. For instance, we took prisoners from Norway to Germany in order to get them away from his jurisdiction, and released them later in Germany. When ship sabotage in Denmark reached its climax in the autumn of 1944, a directive came from OKW to the military commander to have a decree of the Reich plenipotentiary introduced so that dockers and their relatives could be arrested if any acts of sabotage occurred in their docks. After heated controversy the measure was revoked because it was evident from our experience that the dockers had nothing to do with those acts at all.
DR. MERKEL: How were the Sipo and SD organized in the western occupied territories?
HOFFMANN: The organization was not uniform. In Norway and later in Belgium, there were commanders under the commanders-in-chief; in Denmark and the Netherlands there were branch offices, and in France there were commanders under the commander-in-chief. In all cases, the BDS was not only subordinate to Berlin but also to the Higher SS and Police Leader who again was immediately subordinate to Himmler, and who could therefore make decisions which did not go through the RSHA.
DR. MERKEL: What was the composition of the personnel of these offices?
HOFFMANN: There was a tremendous shortage of trained Criminal Police officers. Therefore, the State Police officers formed only a skeleton staff, which was supplemented by men of the Criminal Police, but primarily by men drafted for that service, who had been transferred with units of the Secret Field Police to the Sipo. They represented more than 50 percent of the staff.
DR. MERKEL: Were the members of the Sipo in the western occupied territories volunteers or not?
HOFFMANN: No, they were transferred or detailed there. Only the native interpreters had volunteered with the State Police.
DR. MERKEL: Who ordered the deportation of Jews from Denmark?
HOFFMANN: That order came from Adolf Hitler through the Reichsfuehrer SS. The commander of the Security Police tried in vain to have it deferred, but he was not successful; to my knowledge, this was one of the reasons why he was recalled.
DR. MERKEL: What was done on the part of the State Police in order to mitigate those measures as far as possible?
HOFFMANN: The ordinary Police who were mainly charged to carry out these measures were informed that doors could not be broken open by force. Secondly, with the help of the Reich plenipotentiary, it was made possible that no confiscation of property was effected, and the keys of the apartments were turned over to the Danish Social Ministry.
DR. MERKEL: Was the deportation of Jews known in Denmark beforehand?
HOFFMANN: It had been known to the Danish population and discussed by them for a long time previously.
DR. MERKEL: Why was the Danish police dissolved and part of it deported to Germany?
HOFFMANN: Because the Danish police, in its entirety, was in the closest contact with the resistance movement and the British Intelligence Service. For instance the chief of the Danish police turned over information on the deployment of German troops on Jutland and Fyn to the British Intelligence Service, and was involved in carrying out sabotage work in case of invasion. Other leading officials were involved in a similar manner. Under these circumstances, the Armed Forces feared the Danish police might be used to attack them from behind.
DR. MERKEL: Did the State Police suggest and carry through deportations?
HOFFMANN: Deportations were not initiated by the State Police, but the Higher SS and Police Leader had already requested the approval of these measures by Himmler in the Fuehrer's headquarters when he announced his intentions to the State Police.
DR. MERKEL: Was there a uniform order to use physical cruelt3 or torture during interrogations?
HOFFMANN: Brutal treatment and torture were strictly prohibited and were condemned by the courts.
DR. MERKEL: Do you know of any cases in which interrogation officers were sentenced by courts?
HOFFMANN: I remember two Gestapo officials in Duesseldorf who were sentenced by a regular court for maltreatment of prisoners.
DR. MERKEL: Were third-degree methods used in interrogations in Denmark when you were in office there, and why?
HOFFMANN: Yes, third degree was carried out during interrogations. To explain this I have to point out that the resistance organizations occupied themselves with the following: First, attacks on German soldiers; secondly, attacks on trains, means of transport and Armed Forces' installations, in the course of which soldiers were also killed; thirdly, elimination of all so-called informers and people collaborating with the German Police or other German authorities. In order to forestall those dangers and to save the lives of Germans the third-degree interrogation was ordered and carried out, but only in these particular cases. This restriction was observed in practice even in spite of the scope of the decree.
DR. MERKEL: What rule was set up about the application of third-degree methods at the conference of those concerned in Brussels in 1943?
HOFFMANN: At a conference of officials it was stated, on the basis of experience gained, that it was already decided for the aforementioned reasons that it was advisable to restri-6t the application of third-degree methods to the extent mentioned.
DR. MERKEL: On whose orders were hostages shot in France? Who suggested it?
HOFFMANN: As far as I know, it was a directive from Adolf Hitler. We constantly made reports in the Gestapo office protesting against these measures, to the same extent as in other occupied territories, for the reasons that I have just given.
DR.MERKEL: Why did the Gestapo especially reject the idea of shooting hostages as reprisal for the shooting of German soldiers in Paris?
HOFFMANN: Because we were of the opinion that these acts had been carried out by a relatively small group of people, and that general measures, therefore, would not only be useless but damaging in view of the considerations which I mentioned before. Facts really proved that in Paris these measures had been carried out by a group of not even 100 persons.
DR. MERKEL: Who ordered and carried out the deportation of workers from France to Germany?
HOFFMANN: That was a measure of the manpower administration. It is not known to me that the State Police had carried out any deportation of workers. I have to make one limitation concerning France where, upon the orders of the Reichsfuehrer, as far as I remember the so-called "Meerschaum Action" was carried out, in the course of which French nationals, I believe 5,000, who had committed minor political offenses were forcibly transferred to Germany in order to be used as workers.
DR. MERKEL: Who was responsible for the evacuation of Jews from France?
HOFFMANN: The evacuation of Jews was carried out by Eichmann's office as I have already explained, without it being possible for the regular offices of the State Police to do anything about it.
DR. MERKEL: Upon whose directive was the harbor district of Marseilles demolished?
HOFFMANN: That was a directive by the Reichsfuehrer, sent directly to the Higher SS and Police Leaders who, especially in France, had reached a closer collaboration with the Reichsfuehrer, by going over the heads of the Gestapo. In Berlin we heard about this order of the Reichsfuehrer's only afterwards.
DR. MERKEL: Did Himmler frequently issue such directives without first telling the Police?
HOFFMANN: While I was in Berlin that happened frequently. He did it on the basis of reports which he received from some other office or in spontaneous reaction to some act of sabotage or an attempted assassination.
DR. MERKEL: Do you, judging from your activity in Berlin, know of any cases of excessive methods during interrogations in the western occupied territories?
HOFFMANN: In the main this became officially known to us at the time only through the Norwegian White Book, which caused an investigation in Oslo and was used as a basis for our reports to the Reichsfuehrer with the obj6ct of obtaining the recall of Terboven.
DR. MERKEL: What do you know about the deportation of French ministers and generals to Germany?
HOFFMANN: This particular deportation was ordered by the Reichsfuehrer evidently after deliberation with only the Higher SS and Police Leader in France. At any rate the Secret State Police office did not know anything beforehand and was confronted with the order that Prime Minister Reynaud and Minister Mandel were to be put into prison cells. The Gestapo office, after much correspondence, succeeded in getting another accommodation for the French statesmen and in reaching an understanding that there would be better quarters from the beginning for those people who were later transferred to Germany.
DR. MERKEL: Do you have any knowledge that one of the French generals at Königstein was to be executed upon the orders of Panziger in November 1944?
HOFFMANN: No.
DR. MERKEL: And that the general was to be taken away from Königstein in a car and then shot while allegedly trying to escape? I put before you the documents which have, just been presented by the American Prosecution, 4048-PS to. 4052-PS, and. I want you to state your opinion as to what you know about them. [Turning to the Tribunal.] I have only an English copy, but the witness understands English very well.
THE PRESIDENT: Is it in your document book?
DR. MERKEL: No, Mr. President, it is not in the document book and I could not put it in because these documents have just been presented by the American Prosecution during the session. The numbers are Documents 4048 to 4052-PS. They have just been presented during the cross-examination of Dr. Best. Witness, I believe it is not necessary for you to read all the documents now. I want you only to refer briefly to these documents and answer my question, that is, if you know anything at all about this incident?
HOFFMANN: The dates of the documents are January 1945 and December 1944. During that time I was in Denmark and I was not in the Secret State Police office.
DR. MERKEL: Generally, was the deportation of foreign workers to Germany carried out by the Gestapo?
HOFFMANN: No. I recall from my activity that even the arrests of escaped workers in the western occupied territories were not carried out by the Gestapo. I remember particularly that in 1940 Reich Commissioner Seyss-Inquart stressed specifically that such things should not be done.
DR. MERKEL: Was the so-called Nacht und Nebel Decree of the OKW` brought before you in order to make it known to the State Police offices and commanders?
HOFFMANN: Yes.
DR. MERKEL: Did you agree with that decree?
HOFFMANN: The Nacht und Nebel Decree had been issued by the OKW in conjunction with the Reich Ministry of Justice. The Gestapo office had nothing to do with the drafting of it. There were, to begin with, great difficulties, in the way of technical Police administration, because the act which had been committed abroad had to be clarified in Germany. If only for these reasons, we rejected it as being difficult to carry out. Furthermore, its effect proved to be negative, for the relatives did not know anything about the person arrested, and this was in contradiction to our fundamental tendencies. The difficulties arose immediately when the first people were arrested and transferred to the State Police offices which had to clarify the proceedings. They showed that innocent people, too, were brought to Germany. We then succeeded in having, in spite of the terms of this decree, these people returned to their native country.
DR. MERKEL: Were the so-called Kugel Decree, the Commando Order, and the NN Decree applied in Denmark while you were there?
HOFFMANN: No.
DR. MERKEL: What do you know about the application of these decrees in the other occupied we stern territories?
HOFFMANN: All these were decrees which were issued after I left Berlin and therefore I cannot say anything about them.
DR. MERKEL: Do you know whether the Gestapo in the occupied western territories had -special groups in the prisoners-of-war camps so as ' to select and execute those men who were racially or politically undesirable?
HOFFMANN: I cannot say anything about that because the decree was not known to me before the surrender.
DR. MERKEL: Did the decrees mentioned have the character of State Police decrees?
HOFFMANN: These decrees did not originate as the work of the professional Police, but they were ordered from above. The regular State Police officials therefore could not expect that such decrees would ever be issued, and besides, owing to the regulations on secrecy, the contents of these decrees were real ly not known to the great majority of State Police officials.
DR. MERKEL: I have no further questions to put to the witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Do the Prosecution wish to cross-examine?
M. HENRI MONNERAY (Assistant Prosecutor for the French Republic): Dr.Hoffmann, you were a member of the Nazi Party, were you not?
HOFFMANN: Yes.
M.MONNERAY: Since when?
HOFFMANN: Since I December 1932.
M. MONNERAY: And when you became a candidate for government service, and in particular the Police, you indicated too that you were a member of the Party, did you not?
HOFFMANN: I beg your pardon; I did not quite understand the question. M. MONNERAY, When you put in your application for government service, that is for the Police, you indicated that you were a member of the Nazi Party, did you not?
HOFFMANN: Yes, of course.