dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
HERR PELCKMANN: In this connection allow me to develop another principle governing the evidence which to my mind must serve as the basis for the proper evaluation of the evidence in these proceedings: where any doubts may arise as to whether the individual charges are proven by the evidence, the weakness of which I have just made apparent, particularly also where doubts arise as to whether proved individual crimes may be said to be typical so that the entire organization, that is, all its members, can be considered criminal; where one counter-proof or one piece of circumstantial evidence is given as against ten or a hundred proofs of circumstantial evidence of the Prosecution, I believe that the Tribunal -cannot draw any conclusions which are sufficient to warrant a condemnation in the meaning of the Indictment. This is a fair and logical conclusion arising from the nature of these proceedings. From the huge mass of evidence at their disposal, the Prosecution have chosen some incriminating facts, and then made the assertion that these were typical cases, that they were the same everywhere, that these actions were typical of the SS, et cetera. As already stated, it is the sole responsibility of the Defense to furnish exonerating evidence. And this is where the difficulties for the defense of the organizations, particularly of the SS, begin. The organizations have been dissolved; they no longer exist. When we accumulated the evidence most of the members of the organizations, and all their leaders, were in custody, and many of them still are. The occupational authorities have secured the entire written evidence, all personal files, correspondence, decrees, and orders. It is true that we have been able to speak to most of the prisoners; but after so many years, and particularly on questions of detail, the information was bound to be incomplete, and was not given until April or May, since it depended on the progress of the Trial. -We could not always reach the competent persons.
HERR PELCKMANN: In connection with the question of the legal hearing, I would ask you to consider that we, have no evidence at all from SS men from Austria and the Soviet-Russian Zone of Germany. For reasons of security we could not be granted permission to conduct a research in the, Allied document centers in which the confiscated documents are classified .according to subject matter, and thus we were not able to obtain some valuable documentary information. We could not counter this deficiency by an approximate indication of the documents based upon certain assumptions, because a specified indication was demanded. As things stand, the counter-proof must be considered successful if the Defense succeeds in establishing but a shadow of a proof for their counter-evidence. And now for lack of time I shall skip two pages, Your Honors, for the interpreters 32 and 33, and I shall deal with the charge of the participation of the SS in the pogrom of 9 November 1938. The next four pages deal with that, which I must also skip for lack of time, Pages 33 to 36. 1 ask you to read them. Before I began with my considerations upon the Charter and the law of procedure, I endeavored to refute the charge of the Prosecution that the members of the SS were incriminated by the happenings of 30 June 1934. Not even the few members of the Leibstandarte directly concerned could have felt that they were committing a crime in killing men who were presumably guilty of high treason. That was how it appeared to the Germans and the bulk of SS men, -who had been fooled in such a masterly manner. A further and final confirmation of the legality of his intentions came when Hitler, after the elections in the summer of 1934 (nobody knew then that th6y had been falsified), declared that the struggle for power had now come to an end (Document SS-106). And it really seemed to be so.
HERR PELCKMANN: Even the issuing of the Nurnberg Laws, which came as a surprise to the SS as well as to most Germans, seemed to be merely a confirmation of the Party Program, branded above as absurd, though not as criminal in the sense of the Charter; in particular, a confirmation of the policy which Frick had declared publicly already in 1934, and which formally denied the idea of compulsory transfer of population (Document SS-93). It is significant that, apart from the concentration camp system until 1938that is, 3 to 4 years-the Prosecution cannot raise any concrete charges against the General SS. The underhand anti-Semitic measures taken by the Party itself, or by other organizations, found no echo in the General SS. Only in November 1938 did anti-Semitism receive new official criminal impulse. The Prosecution charges the SS with having taken part in the planning and execution of the measures against the Jews in the Reich on 9 and 10 November 1938. This charge is based upon Documents US-240, 3051-PS, and 374-PS, which, however, if they are brought into connection with the evidence of the witnesses, prove the contrary. Many Germans who were indignant witnesses of those happenings know that other Party organizations-partly in civilian clothes-took part in these excesses. That Is why I am concerned with establishing historical truth: on the evening of 9 November 1938, Goebbels made a speech in the Ceremonial Hall of the old Munich Townhall, following upon the murder of the German Legation Secretary Vom Rath. It was an aggressive speech against the Jews, which led to anti-Jewish demonstrations and excesses throughout the entire Reich that same night, obviously not only spontaneously but through preparatory measures of the Reich Propaganda Minister, as has been shown in the course of the Trial. According to Affidavit Number SS-5 by Schallermeier, together with the testimony of Von Eberstein, neither Hitler nor Himmler heard Goebbels' speech. Hitler retired early to his apartments, Himmler was with him.
HERR PELCKMANN: Considering the evidence it does not seem Impossible to me that Himmler at least was surprised by this action. The testimony of Eberstein and Schallermeier, Affidavit Number SS-5, makes clear beyond doubt that Heydrich was informed of the action already taking place in Munich only towards 11:15 p.m. by the office of the 26 Aug. 4 Gestapo in Munich; that Himmler could be informed only shortly before the beginning of the swearing-in ceremony at midnight; and that Himmler could come, and indeed did come, to some decision only after this ceremony, toward one o'clock. What was the situation at this time? After the ceremony in Munich and other places where the swearing-in of the SS men had taken place, the SS marched of] and had-as every year-general orders to return directly to their homes in vie of the special solemnity of the preceding ceremony. In the meantime the action against the Jews had been afoot for several hours. We know from Document US-332, the report of the Party judge Buch, that this action was started oral instructions of the Reich Propaganda Chief, which were given by telephone immediately, that is, sometime before the first telegram of the Gestapo, by a large part of the Party members present to the agencies of their Gaue. The Party leaders present understood Goebbels' instructions to mean that the Party should not appear as the instigator of these demonstrations, but in reality, should organize and carry them out. It is clear beyond doubt that purely reasons of time the SS until then could not have taken part in these horrible happenings. In the meantime Himmler had arrived towards one o'clock at the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten in Munich. According to the aforementioned affidavit o Schallermeier, the truth of which is established by other evidence, such as Affidavit Von Bassewitz-Behr, Number 8S-9, and the testimony of the witness Vo Eberstein, Himmler gave two orders. The first was transmitted at 1:20 a.m. b Heydrich to all Gestapo agencies. This order was issued after the disaster ha already occurred.
HERR PELCKMANN: For reasons of security it demanded that political agencies be contacted concerning the carrying out of the demonstrations, ordered unconditional protection for German property and life, and furthermore, made provisions for the taking into custody of Jews. The contents of this order, and the agencies to which it was given, clearly established that these were merely police measures. The SS organizations which I am defending are certainly not incriminated connection with these police instructions, since Heydrich, who held no office either in the General SS or the Verfugungstruppe, could not give them an. order (Witness Norbert Pohl). Himmler's second order was given orally to the leaders of the chief sections of the General SS who were assembled at the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten. It contained definite instructions to the agencies of the General SS to help, if necessary, the Gestapo in safeguarding Jewish property, against all manner of plundering. He was obviously taking into consideration, the opinion that this was an unworthy and despicable action, from which the S should on principle stay away upon the definite instructions of Hitler. The task of the General SS was only to alleviate the consequences of this action if this should become necessary. This order was immediately telegraphed by the Oberabschnittsfuehrer from Munich to their local agencies. This is established without doubt in Affidavit Number SS-5, Schallermeier The contents of the notes which, according to Schallermeler's affidavit, Himmler made of this occurrence, gain in credibility if considered from this aspect. In n event can the assertion of the Prosecution, that Himmler and Heydrich ha deliberately assigned the SS for the action of 9 and 10 November 1938, be considered proven. The contrary would seem to me more probable. In this connection let us consider the actual participation of the SS in the Reich. The witness Von Eberstein has described the occurrences in the Munich district.
HERR PELCKMANN: Throughout the Reich the SS was never ordered to participate in the excesses, nor did units of the General SS participate out of their own initiative Their nonparticipation has been proved by numerous affidavits for all parts o the Reich (for instance, Von Roedern, Kaufmann, Lott, Enzner, Eschholdt, Fischer and Kampp-Pranz, Numbers 7, 8, 104, 6, 105, 10, 70). According to the affidavit of Kampp-Franz, approximately 200 affidavits have been submitted in proof 0 the nonparticipation of the SS in-the whole Reich territory in Camp 73. According to these affidavits the units of the General SS, and most member of the SS in barracks, had come to be sworn. in in Munich, as everywhere in Germany. They all agree in saying that after the ceremony the members 0 the SS returned to their homes, without knowing anything about this action Also, according to the affidavit of Kampp-Franz, participation was strictly forbidden as far as this action became known during the swearing-in. Most 0 the SS members only heard of this action on the morning of 10 November 1938 26 AU-_ 46 on their way to work or through an alarm given. Those units of the General SS who had been alerted upon the order of Himmler to the Oberabschnittsfuehrer were assigned in several places in the course of 10 November to safeguard synagogues, for instance at Offenburg in Baden (Affidavit SS-104, Lott); see also 4407 affidavits summarized and collected in Affidavits Number SS-119-122. These affidavits prove that the General SS in many cases prevented further excesses, and that within the SS this disgraceful action was disapproved of from the very beginning. Document USA-332, a report upon the juridical party proceedings, in which four or six SS men are named, does not contradict this, for in such excesses, committed by the masses throughout the whole Reich, the participation of individuals against express supreme orders cannot be avoided entirely. But that cannot be considered as symptomatic for the criminal nature of the SS without further proofs.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Pelckmann, you say that you have only got to Pages 32 and 33?
HERR PELCKMANN: I want to start on Page 36 now. But as far as I am informed, Your Lordship's copy is longer. I am farther on.
THE PRESIDENT: - I do not have a copy at all; but I do not understand how you are proposing to finish your speech, if your speech is, as I am told, about 100 pages long. I tried to point out to you at an earlier stage that the sort of general topics which are very familiar to us were topics which you might just as well pass over, and you said "Very well; I am going to shorten my speech. I have taken steps to shorten it." Now we find that when you have been speaking for nearly two hours, you have not got any farther than Page 33. All I want you to understand is that you will not be allowed more than a half day. Now will you go on, please?
HERR PELCKMANN: In the pages which I am skipping I have 	dealt with the events of November 1938. 1 will add that if in connection with the arrests, which were purely a political matter and 	were up to the Gestapo, some officials may have worn black uniforms, this did not make it an SS action. Gestapo officials also wore black uniforms. This would be a typical erroneous generalization which can be traced back to the fascination of the black uniform and of the SS insignia, and its misleading influence upon truth and recollection must not be underestimated for the entire proceedings against the SS. This insignia, in its insolent aggressiveness, flaunted by visual and auditory means, was not only dangerous in the past because through its doubling of a Germanic rune it awoke romantic historical feelings in the German, but even today after the destruction of all the myths surrounding it, it has the peculiar power of preventing any clear conception as to its nature. This word "SS" is so easily pronounced without being accompanied by a clear conception as to its real meaning. There is a, danger of a historical myth being born which, like any other such myth, is based upon ignorance of the facts, or, even worse, upon partial knowledge of the facts. We, who combat the Hitler myth wherever we can-we have done so in the evidence before the Tribunal-do not wish to see a myth form around a group of people under the slogan "SS," around the guilty and innocent alike. We do not want to help to create so-called "martyrs" in the interests of neo-Fascist propaganda. That is why we must ask a definite question and give the answer: What is really to be understood by SS? The decisive error in the Indictment is, that all, or at least all essential, spheres of activity of Himmler's are considered as activities of the SS.
HERR PELCKMANN: Without inquiring into the origin or tasks of the many agencies and units under Himmler's command, without inquiring as to whether there ever existed any organized ties or links, the Indictment assembles the General SS, Waffen-SS, the SD, the Police, the concentration camp system, the affairs of the Reich Commissar for the Consolidation of German Nationalism, the activity of the Chief of the Prisoner-of-War Organization, and others, in one great imaginary unit, the SS. The Indictment must proceed from such a unity in order to create a basis for the evidence that, within the framework of an alleged conspiracy, all sectors of the public life in the State, the Party, and the Wehrmacht were permeated with this SS, a monster which had spread its tentacles over Germany and Europe. That Himmler's activity was identical with the activity of the SS is only true for the period up to 1933 or 1934. Only until then did an organized unity in the SS exist; and the Prosecution has taken over this idea of the unity of everything which they call SS from this time, thus falsely interpreting the actual developments. The SS was a part of the SA and therefore a section of the NSDAP. The seizure of power opened an era in which a great part of all supreme and superior State positions were filled with Party Leaders. From this time on, Himmler went his own way alongside the SS. At first-by comparison with other high Party members-extremely cautiously, later more and more determinedly and arbitrarily. It was mainly Heydrich who awakened Himmler's interest for State affairs, for power politics. Himmler, like many of the SS leaders, had become Police Commissioner, namely, in Munich in 1933. Soon he was made Chief of the Political Police in Bavaria, and then in the other states of Germany, with the exception of Prussia. Here G6ring was still Chief of the Gestapo. But soon Himmler became his deputy and Heydrich the leader of the Secret State Police Office in Berlin.
HERR PELCKMANN: Himmler's ambition for the widening of his power in the State, which the SS could not offer him, now became ever more obvious. His goal was the Ministry of the Interior. Already in 1936 he took over the entire police power of the Reich, which until then had been the affair of each land, in the capacity of Chief of the German Police. Thus he had become the highest superior not only of the Secret State Police and of the Criminal Police, which were jointly named the Security Police, but also of the entire Regular Police in Germany. Only then did he hold a position of power which was of the greatest importance, and it was given to him by Hitler, and not by the SS, or through the SS, or for the SS. I ask the Tribunal to consider that these police organizations existed independently alongside the SS before Himmler became their chief. In 1939, he was made Reich Commissioner for- the Consolidation of German Nationalism and was thus assigned a new task, the re-transfer of populations, et cetera. Finally, in 1943, he was actually nominated Reich Minster of the Interior. Through his personal allegiance to Hitler, and through his acceptance of any and every new task, he gained the personal confidence of Hitler and thus continually extended his personal position of power within the Reich. It was peculiar to this Reich that Hitler should have united so many offices and tasks in one single person who had his confidence. As an example, I would point to Goering. In the measure that Goering continued to lose Hitler's confidence, Himmler's power, rose like a meteor. He had gained this position of power for himself alone and without the help of his SS, and quite independently from the fact that he was, their Reichsfuehrer. The witnesses Grauert, Reinecke, and Pohl have amply testified to this effect. The SS, formerly so closely connected with Himmler, had, In the course of time, followed an individual and quite independent line of development, owing to the great number of the entirely different sections which began to take shape.
HERR PELCKMANN: Unfortunately, the short time at my disposal does not permit me to describe here this development in detail, although it is of the greatest importance to the entire defense. To prove the unity they have asserted, the Prosecution say that the General SS was the basis upon which all the other organizations have been established. The fact alone that almost a million men have at one time been in the Waffen-SS, whereas the General SS had only numbered 250,000 members, refutes this statement. In the aforementioned appendix I have shown how the individual organizations were built up, augmented, and developed according to their own intrinsic nature. The General SS is not the source of life for the other organizations, but an ancient vestige which at first managed to keep alive, but which during the war was forced to disappear altogether for lack of any special task., (Witnesses Eberstein, Hinderfeld, Juttner, Pohl-) The Indictment did not, however, mention the most important aspect. To my mind this is an aspect which is particularity suited to shed light upon the question of the imaginary unity of the SS: where lay the executive power in the State? For an alleged conspiracy only such an instrument could have been suitable, which controlled some means of the State authority, which had executive power in the State. Neither the General SS nor the Waffen-SS was such an organization. At no time in its existence did a leader or a simple member of the General SS have more rights in public and especially police matters than any other German citizen. He could not and did not at any time carry out arrests or house searches with impunity. (Witnesses Reinecke, Eberstein.) The fact that revolutionary excesses were committed immediately after the seizure of power does not alter this fact. They were at once successfully combated, as testified by the witness Grauert. No member of the Waffen-SS ever had more rights than any members of the Wehrmacht (Witness Hausser).
HERR PELCKMANN: Indeed the executive power in the State was solely in the hands of the Police: the Gestapo and Criminal Police combined as Security Police, and the Regular Police. A policy of power in the sense of an alleged conspiracy could logically have found support only through them. The testimony of the witness Grothmann, who belonged to the closest circle around Himmler, is particularly revealing for the question as to which activities of the SS are to be considered as connected with the executive power. This testimony is nothing special inasmuch as he tells us that Himmler was informed of the affairs of the Waffen-SS by the adjutant of the Waffen-SS, and of police affairs by the Police Adjutant, while the General Secretariat had to inform him of the other affairs of the General SS. Thus the sharp separation existing among the various fields again becomes very clear. The essential point, however, is that all matters concerning the concentration camp system and the totally different sphere of the SD were not dealt with and reported on by the SS Adjutant, but rather by Himmler's own Police Adjutant. In this way the testimony given by the witness Reinecke, who testified as to the judicial basis for the separation into five independent spheres of influence under Himmler in the sense of the Indictment, into General SS, Waffen SS, SD, Concentration Camps, and Police, is again reaffirmed. Executive power is indeed the key to full understanding of the charges raised under the Indictment, and for a just evaluation of this case. In the beginning, Himmler was on the side of his SS and was entirely absorbed by it. After the police power of the entire Reich had been transferred to him alone, the only thing he concerned himself with was this one sphere, the sphere of executive power. He played the leading role in the rapid development of Germany into a police state. Very soon he let every vestige of regard for any legal consideration go by the board.