dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
VON EBERSTEIN: I believe in 19411. learned about it by chance, that is, from a report of the Criminal Police of Munich-from the morning report-that in the preceding night a number of suicides had taken place in Munich, That attracted my attention as being something quite unusual. I tried to clear up the matter by asking the chief of the Criminal Police why there had been these suicides. I believe there were six or eight in one night. He referred me to the Gestapo. Through the chief of the State Police I learned that the deportation of, I believe, a few hundred Jewish inhabitants of Munich or the district-I do not know whether they were all from Munich-had been ordered for that day. In answer to my question as to where they were to be sent, I was told that it was a resettlement and they would be put to work in the East, and I was informed that the trains had already been arranged for with the Reichsbahn head-quarters and that on instructions from the RSHA to the Gestapo the selection of those concerned had been effected after discussion with the Israelite community, which was quite credible. The persons in question were in possession of certain amounts of money, of ration cards, and a certain amount of baggage. The train included cars with implements for fortifications, that is, pickaxes, spades, et cetera. That is what I learned at the time.
HERR PELCKMANN: How was it that you learned of these things in this -way? Should you not have been informed previously in one of your official capacities?
VON EBERSTEIN: I could have been informed, but I can only describe how it actually happened.
HERR PELCKMANN: Then if I understood you correctly, there was no obligation on the Gestapo offices to inform you, was there?
VON EBERSTEIN: For the Gestapo undoubtedly not, but cer-tainly for the inspector of the Security Police.
HERR PELCKMANN: Witness, you have attempted, in answer-ing my questions, to say that you, as a leader of the General SS, committed no crimes as the Prosecution asserts-I have given some examples-and that the members of the General SS did not commit such crimes, so that in your opinion one cannot say that the General SS was a criminal organization. But I must now submit to you that in the course of a prolonged hearing proof of criminal deeds has been given. I remind you of the thousands of deaths in the concen-tration camps, of the thousands of Jews shot in the East by Einsatz-gruppen and Einsatzkommandos, and I remind you of the gas chambers at Auschwitz. Now I ask you, what did you know of these things up to 1945?
VON EBERSTEIN: I knew nothing. During the whole war, without interruption, I was in Munich, and was never sent to occu-pied territories. I heard of the horrible mass murders and of the gassings while I was in prison. Today I know that it was impos-sible for a person who was not initiated to penetrate into the secret sphere of these extermination camps. There were indications here and there. In my official capacity I now and then saw foreign papers which had been confiscated, but they contained things which, according to my opinion and experience, were not true. I therefore considered reports about such atrocities as fabrications of the enemy propaganda. I did not -listen to enemy radio broadcasts. As the Tribunal knows, this was forbidden to every German and since it was our job to punish people who broke this law, I did not think that I should be allowed to do it myself. As for the mass of the men of the General SS, I am firmly convinced that they neither had a part in these atrocities nor did they know about them. I am firmly convinced that in view of the mutual confidence that existed between my men and me, they would certainly have asked me questions when they came to visit me on front leave. They would have asked me, "Obergruppenfuehrer, do you know about these things? Is it true?" Not a single man asked me anything like that.
HERR PELCKMANN: On the basis of your knowledge of the organization and the facts that you have learned after the beginning of the Trial or after the collapse, do you maintain that the majority of the members of the General SS, for whom you are testifying here, had no, part in these crimes?
VON EBERSTEIN: Yes.
HERR PELCKMANN: At the wish of the Court I have reduced the number of witnesses to the absolute minimum of five witnesses. I will bring only such witnesses who, due to their high position in the organization, can give the Court comprehensive answers on organizational questions, that is, basic questions. Therefore, not-withstanding your high rank, I must ask you how much, according to your conviction, the mass of these many thousands of unknown members of the SS knew? I will reserve the affidavits, documents, and other proof for later.
VON EBERSTEIN: If I, in my position and in spite of the gen-eral view I had of things inside, the country, knew nothing, how could the men at , the front or the few who remained at home know about it? The horrible things that happened later on in the concen-tration camps and which came to light after the collapse and the capitulation I personally can only explain by the general state of things during those last months. People lost their heads; hundreds of thousands of people were put on the move; thousands of detainees were brought from the border territory and crowded into the few camps which were still available. In southern Germany, in Dachau, there was an uninterrupted stream of people coming in throughout the winter. There was a typhus epidemic which claimed many victims. I learned of that also by chance only because the Gauleiter and Reich Defense Commissioner asked for workers to clear up after air attacks, and from a call to the camp, commander I learned that these workers could not be supplied due to a typhus epidemic. Later, I heard at a conference that this epidemic had claimed many victims. Moreover, in the last few weeks, railroad traffic was disconnected. The supply line was completely blocked, and there was already a good deal of hunger. Upon my remark that it should be possible to stop this epidemic the commander told me there were no more medical supplies, the pharmaceutical factories having been destroyed too. Only thus can I explain the terrible pictures, which we all know, which have been shown here. In any case, the mass of the men of the General SS and the German population could, not have known about all this as no one could look into the camps. The General SS, for which I am speaking here, and the Waffen-SS, too, could not have prevented it.
HERR PELCKMANN: Concerning the point which the witness mentioned, about the secrets in the concentration camps and the difficulty of penetrating into them, I refer particularly to, the con-tents of affidavits-Numbers SS-64 to 67 and 69-affidavits of SS judges who concerned themselves with these things. I have no more questions, Mr. President. Thank you.
MAJOR JONES: Witness, you denied on Saturday that the SS was the heart of Nazism. Would you agree with me that it was the fist?
VON EBERSTEIN: I did not quite understand. I beg your pardon.
MAJOR JONES: I will put the question to you again. You denied on Saturday that the SS was the heart of Nazism. Would you agree with me that it was the fist?
VON EBERSTEIN: I did not understand the word before "SS."
MAJOR JONES: I will put the question to you again. I am surprised that you cannot understand the question. I will try again. You denied on Saturday that the SS was the heart of Nazism. Would you agree with me that it was the fist? This, the fist [indicating].
VON EBERSTEIN: Oh, the fist. I assume that the prosecutor means to say that with this fist we waged an attack. I can only point out that we, as Schutzstaffel, had to protect leading personal-ities.
MAJOR JONES: What I meant by the fist was that the SS supplied the brute force of Nazism. Is that not so?
VON EBERSTEIN: I can only repeat what I described. Before 1933 we were a very small group of men who, up to 1933, amounted to about 25,000 to 30,000 men in the whole of Germany, which had about 65 million people in 1933; and that this group was in no pro-portion to the size of the Party, and after 1933 ...
MAJOR JONES: You are not answering my question, you know. You are wandering off into details that have no relevance to my question at all. I suggest to you that the killings by the SS on the 30th of June 1934 were a characteristic use of the SS as the fist of Nazism.
VON EBERSTEIN: The events of the 30th of June 1934 were, according to my firm conviction and to that of my comrades, the result of a state of emergency and the orders which were given were adhered to because they were the orders of the head of the State.
MAJOR JONES: You denied on Saturday that the SS had taken any part in the shootings of the 30th of June 1934. Are you seriously saying to the Tribunal that that is your evidence on that matter?
VON EBERSTEIN: I can only say that in my district the General SS were in the barracks of the Armed Forces and the Police, not on the street, and they did not shoot. The shootings...
MAJOR JONES: So you are saying that it was the Armed Forces and the Police that did the shootings, that it was the forces of General Keitel and the others who were doing the shootings, are you?
VON EBERSTEIN: I did not mention those two names, nor did I say that the Armed Forces had carried out the shootings. In answer to the question of the defense counsel, I told why I believed there was a state of emergency. I said that I received instructions to establish contact with the commander of the Wehrkreis, but that does not mean that the Armed Forces were to supply execution detachments or anything like that, but only that they wanted the Wehrkreis commander to give his consent to their being billeted in the barracks.
MAJOR JONES: You were a frequent visitor to Dachau, were you not?
VON EBERSTEIN: Yes.
MAJOR JONES: And you saw nothing there except good shower baths, good food, satisfactory sanitation; that was a rest camp? That was your evidence on Saturday about Dachau, was it not?
VON EBERSTEIN: I did not use the words "rest camp." I had been a soldier since 1904 and I had an idea what troop billets and a camp should look like. I can only repeat that everything was scrupulously clean, the sanitary installations which I saw were in excellent order, that in peacetime the prisoners were well nourished and, as I saw during the war, on the average their food was like the food of every German outside. I can only say here on oath what I myself saw with my own eyes.
MAJOR JONES: Did you ever ask to see the punishment cells, the completely dark cells where people were kept for 3 months on bread and water?
VON EBERSTEIN: I can recall that such a tour through the camp was extended to the prison too. Unlike the huts, that was a stone building ...
MAJOR JONES: If you answer my questions, we shall get on faster.
VON EBERSTEIN: Yes.
MAJOR JONES: Did you ever see the completely dark cells?
VON EBERSTEIN: I must say that one cannot see from the outside whether a cell is dark. Of course, any cell in any prison can be darkened. I did not see any. As Police President I know that for refractory prisoners there are cells without windows but I did not see them. I will admit, of course, that there could have been such cells.
MAJOR JONES: Did you ever ask to see the camp regulations for the punishment of prisoners who committed offenses in the camp?
VON EBERSTEIN: No, I did not demand that. The camp com-mander made an exhaustive report during the tours. I had no authority to intervene in affairs, of which I had no, idea, before these guests.
MAJOR JONES: I just want you to look at what the regulations were as early as May 1933. I put the Document D-922, My Lord, which will be Exhibit GB-548. [Turning to the witness.] Now, these are the regulations for the camp of Dachau which was on your doorstep, you know, and you see in Paragraph 3 the punishments that can be imposed on prisoners: "The confinement may be mild, medium, or severe. The maximum term for the first two kinds is 8 weeks, and 3 months for severe imprisonment. This kind of punishment is generally served in solitary confinement. In the case of medium confinement, the person undergoing punishment receives a hard bed and only bread and water for food. The same conditions as to medium confinement apply to severe imprisonment, but in a dark cell." And then, if you will look at Paragraph 8 of the regulations, you will see that there is given power of life and death to the camp commandant of Dachau and his staff. And Paragraph 18 sets out the procedure to be followed in the event of charges of disobedience for which a death penalty is decided by a camp court, which consists of the camp commandant, one or two officers to be nominated by the camp commandant and an SS man belonging to the guard personnel: "The prosecution is also to be undertaken by an SS man belonging to the camp commandant's office, who is to be nominated by the camp commandant. In the case of an even vote, the president of the camp court has the deciding vote.  The president is the camp commandant at the time." Did you know that the power of life and death had been given in that way to these SS men who were running the concentration camps, Witness?
VON EBERSTEIN: This document has no heading and no signature-may I point that out? I have not seen these regulations.
MAJOR JONES: I would be obliged if you would answer my question.  Did you know that the power of life and death was given to the SS officials who ran these concentration camps, as far back as 1933?
VON EBERSTEIN: I do not know that. I cannot imagine such a thing. I assume that executions were ordered by higher author-ities, but I cannot pass judgment on that as an expert.
MAJOR JONES: But you were the Higher SS and Police Chief for many years. You were Himinler's man, you know, were you not?
VON EBERSTEIN: In my testimony I have repeatedly stated that the Higher SS and Police Leader, the Oberabschnittsfuehrer of the General SS, and the Police President had no influence whatever on internal arrangements in the camp and were not the superiors of the camp commander.
MAJOR JONES: But whether you had influence or not, you were a confidant of Himmler, his personal representative. Are you saying to the Tribunal that you did not know what the details of Himmler's murderers' organization were?
VON EBERSTEIN: As to these punitive regulations about which I am reproached, and which imply a jurisdiction, I can only say that they were unknown to me, and that Himmler never once spoke to me about these things; nor did I ever receive regulations concerning concentration camps.
MAJOR JONES: Did you ever hear of Oswald Pohl?
VON EBERSTEIN: Yes.
MAJOR JONES: He was the head of the Economic and Admin-istrative Main Office of the SS, was he not, the WVHA?
VON EBERSTEIN: Yes.
MAJOR JONES: Did you know that this organization, using SS personnel, was employing murder as a means to establish loot on a colossal scale for the benefit of the Waffen-SS and other SS organi-zations?
VON EBERSTEIN: Yes; I heard that from the reports on this Trial while I was in the camp. I had never heard before that gold teeth, et cetera, were collected.
MAJOR JONES: Did you know of the great business in death that was bringing millions of marks to the coffers of the Reichs-bank? And it was involving numerous departments of the Third Reich.
VON EBERSTEIN: No, I did not know that.
MAJOR JONES: Let me just read to you Oswald Pohl's affidavit, given to Dr. Kempner upon this matter-it is Document 4045-PS, which will be GB-549-so that perhaps your memory may be re-freshed. The affidavit reads: "1. My name is Oswald Pohl. I was born in Duisburg, Ger-many, on 30 June 1892. Since 1 February 1934 1 was Chief of the Economic and Administrative Main Office of the SS (WVHA), I occupied this position permanently until Ger-many's capitulation. 'T. Through my activity as Chief of the WVHA I remember clearly two large business deals between my office and the Reich Ministry of Economics and the Reichsbank of Herr Walter Funk. One deal concerned textiles from persons killed in concentration camps. In this connection Himmler endeavored to procure through the Reich Minister of Econom-ics, Walter Funk, a higher allotment of uniform cloth for the SS. The other deal concerned the business connection of my office with Reichsbank President Walter Funk and the Reichsbank with regard to jewelry, rings, gold teeth, foreign exchange, and other articles of value from the possessions of people, particularly Jews, who had been killed in concen-tration camps. 'T. The connection of my office with the Reichsbank with regard to textiles of persons who had been killed in concen-tration camps was instituted in the year 1941 or 1942. At that time I received the order from the Reichsfuehrer SS and the Chief of the German Police, Heinrich Himmler, who was my chief, to get in touch with the Reich Minister of Economics, Walter Funk, to obtain a higher allotment of textiles for SS uniforms. Himmler instructed me to demand from Funk that we receive preferential treatment. The Minister of Economics was receiving from the concentration camps a large delivery of textiles. These textiles had been collected in the exter-mination camp Auschwitz, and other extermination camps, and then delivered to the competent offices for used textiles. "4. As a result of this order received from my superior, Himmler, I visited the Reich Minister of Economics Funk in his offices.
MAJOR JONES: I waited only a short while in his anteroom and then met him alone in his private office. I informed Funk of my instructions that I was to ask him for more textiles for SS uniforms, since we had been able to deliver such large quantities of old textiles due to the actions against Jews. The meeting lasted around 10 minutes. It was openly dis-cussed that we perhaps deserved privileged treatment on account of the delivery of old clothes of dead Jews. It was a friendly conversation between Funk and myself and he said to me that he would settle the matter favorably with the officials concerned. How the subsequent settlement between Funk and his subordinates and my subordinates was handled in detail, I do not know. "5. The second business deal between Walter Funk and the SS concerned the delivery of articles of value of dead Jews to the Reichsbank. It was in the year 1941 or 1942, when large quantities -of articles of value, such as jewelry, gold rings, gold fillings, spectacles, gold watches, and such had been collected in the extermination camps. These valuables came packed in cases to the WVHA in Berlin. Himmler had ordered us to deliver these things to the Reichsbank. I re-member that Himmler explained to me that negotiations con-cerning this matter had been conducted with the Reichsbank, that is, Herr Funk. As a result of an agreement which my chief had made, I discussed with the Reichsbank Director, Emil Puhl, the manner of delivery. In this conversation no doubt remained that the objects to be delivered were the jewelry and valuables of concentration camp inmates, espe-cially of Jews, who had been killed in extermination camps. The objects in question were rings, watches, eyeglasses, ingots of gold, wedding rings, brooches, pins, frames of glasses, -foreign currency, and other valuables. Further discussions concerning the delivery of these objects took place between my subordinates and Puhl and other officials of the Reichs-bank. It was an enormous quantity of valuables, since there was a steady flow of deliveries for months and years.
MAJOR JONES: "A part of these valuables from people killed in death camps I saw myself when Reichsbank President Funk and Vice President Puhl invited us to an inspection of the Reichsbank vaults and afterward to lunch. I do not remember exactly whether this was in 1941 or in 1942, but I do remember that I already knew Funk personally at that time from the textile deals which I have described above. Vice President Puhl and several other gentlemen of my staff went to the vaults of the Reichsbank. Puhl himself led us on this occasion and showed us gold ingots and other valuable possessions of the Reichs-bank. I remember exactly that various chests containing objects from concentration camps were opened. At this point Puhl or Waldhecker, who accompanied him, stated in my presence and in the presence of the members of my staff that a part of these valuables had been delivered by our office. "After we had inspected the various valuables in the vaults of the Reichsbank, we went upstairs to a room in order to have lunch with Reichsbank President Funk; it had been arranged that this should follow the inspection. Besides Funk and Puhl, the members of my staff were present; we were about 10 to 12 persons. I sat beside Funk and we talked, among other things, about the valuables which I had seen in his vaults. On this occasion it was clearly stated that a part of the valuables which we had seen came from concentration camps." Now, is the material contained in that affidavit news to you, Witness?
VON EBERSTEIN: Yes, absolutely.
MAJOR JONES: You had no knowledge of it at all?
VON EBERSTEIN: No.
MAJOR JONES: Did you know that SS personnel were used for the great manhunt of Jewish people all over Europe?
VON EBERSTEIN: I have read reports here during the Trial that a certain Eichmann, an SS member, had this task. I never saw Herr Eichmann; I never had anything to do with him. I know the facts from the reports of this Trial.
MAJOR JONES: Did you know that one of the objects of these manhunts, apart from murder, was to secure loot for the SS and for kindred Nazi organizations?
VON EBERSTEIN: No, I did not know that. I may point out that I was always at home and never had anything to do with these matters.
MAJOR JONES: Did you know your colleague, Higher SS and Police Chief Globocznik?
VON EBERSTEIN: Yes; I met Globocznik once at a Fi1hrer meeting. I talked to him once.
MAJOR JONES: He was a Higher SS and Police chief like your-self, was he not?
VON EBERSTEIN: No, I do not believe so. At that time he was Oberfuehrer or Brigadefuehrer. As such he could not be Higher SS and Police Leader. And it was certainly not in Germany, I know that.
MAJOR JONES: We may be at cross purposes. I am speaking of the year 1943. In that year Globocznik was Higher SS and Police chief in the operational zone of the Adriatic coast, was he not?
VON EBERSTEIN: That may be; I do not know. It is possible but not in the Reich.
MAJOR JONES: You have said as to your own position as Higher SS and Police chief that you had no power of command over the SS and no authority over the Police. That seems to have been a summary of your functions as Higher SS and Police chief; is that right?
VON EBERSTEIN: Yes. I may remark that I expressly empha-sized not only before this Tribunal but before the Commission as well that I cannot testify concerning the powers of the Higher SS and Police Leaders outside of Germany because their tasks were different ...