dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
OHLENDORF: I estimate that Einsatzgruppe D was one-half or two-thirds as large as the other Einsatzgruppen. That changed in the course of time, since some of the Einsatzgruppen were greatly enlarged.
COL. AMEN: May it please the Tribunal, I have other questions relating to organizational matters which I think would clarify some of the evidence which has already been in part received by the Tribunal; but I don't want to take the time of the Tribunal unless they feel that they want any more such testimony. I thought perhaps if any members of the Tribunal had questions they would ask this witness directly, because he is the best informed on these organizational matters of anyone who will be presented in Court.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now for 10 minutes.
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Amen, the Tribunal does not think that it is necessary to go further into the organizational questions at this stage, but it is a matter which must be really decided by you because you know what the nature of the evidence which you are considering is. So far as the Tribunal is concerned, they are satisfied at the present stage to leave the matter where it is. But there is one aspect of the witness' evidence which the Tribunal would like you to investigate, and that is whether the practices of which he has been speaking continued after 1942, and for how long.
COL. AMEN: [To the witness] Can you state whether the liquidation practices which you have described continued after 1942 and, if so, for how long a period of time thereafter? 3 Jan.46
OHLENDORF: I don't think that the basic order was ever revoked. But I cannot remember the details-at least not with regard to Russia-which would enable me to make concrete statements on this subject. The retreat began very shortly thereafter, so that the operational region of the Einsatzgruppen became ever smaller. I do know, however, that other Einsatzgruppen with similar orders had been envisaged for other areas.
COL. AMEN: Your personal knowledge extends up to what date?
OHLENDORF: I know that the liquidation of Jews was prohibited about six months before the end of the war. I also saw a document terminating the liquidation of Soviet commissars, but I cannot recall a specific date.
COL. AMEN: Do you know whether in fact it was so terminated?
OHLENDORF: Yes, I believe so.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal would like to know the number of men in your Einsatz group.
OHLENDORF: There were about 500 men in my Einsatzgruppe, excluding those who were added to the group as assistants from the country itself.
THE PRESIDENT: Including them, did you say?
OHLENDORF: Excluding those who were added to the group from the country itself.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you know how many there would be in other groups?
OHLENDORF: I estimate that at the beginning there were seven to eight hundred men; but, as I said, this number changed rapidly in the course of time, since the Einsatzgruppen themselves acquired new people or succeeded in getting additional personnel from the RSHA.
THE PRESIDENT: The numbers increased, did they?
OHLENDORF: Yes, the numbers increased.
COL. AMEN: Now, here are perhaps just a half dozen of these questions I would like to ask, because I do think they might clear up, in the minds of the Tribunal, some of the evidence which has gone before. I shall be very brief, if that is satisfactory to the Tribunal. [Turning to the witness.] Will you explain the significance of the different widths of the blue lines on the chart?
OHLENDORF: The thick blue line between the position of Himmler as Reichsfuehrer SS and Chief of the German Police and the RSHA is designed to show the identity of the offices of the chiefs of the Sicherheitspolizei and the SD in their tasks. The RSHA treated both ministerial questions of leadership and individual executive questions, that is to say, matters of the Sipo and the SD. From the legal administrative point of view, however, the organizational scheme shows an illegal state of affairs in that the RSHA as such never actually had official validity. The formal, legal position was different from that shown on this chart. Party and State offices different authority were amalgamated. Under this designation RSHA, no directives or laws or orders could be issued on a legal basis, because the State Police, in its ministerial capacity, was still subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior, whereas the SD, despite this set-up, was an organ of the Party. Therefore if I wanted to reproduce this administrative scheme accurately, I should, for example, have to put in place of Amt IV, the Amt "Political Police", a part of the former Hauptamt Sicherheitspolizei. This Amt "Political Police" existed formally to the very end and had sprung from the Police Department of the Ministry of the Interior. Also, the Secret State Police Amt. the Central Office of the Prussian Secret State Police, the head office of all the political police offices of the different Lander, continued to exist formally. Thus, ministerial questions continued to be dealt with under the heading of the Minister of the Interior.
OHLENDORF: So far as it was necessary to emphasize the formal competence of the Ministry of the Interior, this was indicated in the heading "Reich Minister of the Interior" with the filing notice "Pol," the former designation of the Police Department of the Ministry of the Interior, together with the appropriate filing notice of the competent department of the former Hauptamt Sicherheitspolizei; for example, filing notice "Pol-S" meant Sicherheitspolizei; "V" meant Amt Verwaltung und Recht (Administration and Law). The RSHA was therefore nothing more than a camouflage designation which did not correctly represent the actual state of affairs but gave the Chief of the Sipo and the SD, as a collective designation for the Chief of the Hauptamt Sicherheitspolizei and the Chief of the SD Hauptamt (an office which existed until 1939), the opportunity of using one or the other letterhead at any time. At the same time it gave him the opportunity of an internal amalgamation of all forces and the opportunity of a division of the spheres of work on a practical, effective basis. But the State offices in this Amt did remain in a way dependent on the Ministry of the Interior, and similarly the departments of the SD remained departments of the Party. The SD Hauptamt, or the RSHA, had formally only the significance of an SS Main Office, in which the SS members of the Sipo and the SD belonged to the SS. But the SS, that is to say, Himmler, as Reichsfuehrer SS, gave these State offices no official authority to issue orders.
THE PRESIDENT: I am not sure that I follow altogether what you have been saying; but is what you have been saying the reason why you are shown on the chart as concerned with Amt m, which refers, apparently, only to inside Germany, while, according to your evidence, you were the head of Einsatz Group D, which was operating outside Germany?
OHLENDORF: The fact that I led an Einsatzgruppe had nothing to do with my position as Chief of Amt III. I led the Einsatzgruppe as an individual and not as Chief of Amt III; and in my capacity as leader of an Einsatzgruppe, I entered into a completely new function and assumed an office completely separate from my previous one.
THE PRESIDENT: I see. And did it involve that you left Germany and went into the area invaded in the Soviet Union?
OHLENDORF: Yes.
COL. AMEN: Will you now explain the significance of the dotted blue lines, as compared with the solid blue lines on the right-hand side of the chart?
OHLENDORF: The solid lines indicate a direct official channel for orders, whereas the dotted lines signify that there was, as a rule, no direct channel.
COL. AMEN: Was the term "SD" ever used to include both the Sipo and the SD?
OHLENDORF: In the course of years the term "SD" was used more and more incorrectly. It came to be established as an abbreviation for Sipo and SD, without actually being suitable for that. "SD" was originally simply a designation for the fact that someone belonged to the SS through the SD Main Office. When the SD Main Office was dissolved and was taken over into the RSHA, the question arose whether the designation SD, which was also worn as insignia on the sleeve of the particular SS man, should be replaced by another insignia or a new abbreviation, e.g., RSHA. That was not done because the camouflage of the RSHA would thereby have been endangered. But when, for example, I read in a Fuehrer order that in France people were to be turned over to the SD, that was a case in point of the false use of the designation SD, because there were no such offices in France and the SD, insofar as it functioned in departments, e.g., Amt III, had no executive power but was purely an intelligence organ.
COL. AMEN: Briefly, what was the relationship between the SS and the Gestapo?
OHLENDORF: The relationship between the SS and Gestapo was this: The Reichsfuehrer SS, as such, took over the tasks of the Police and attempted to link the State Police and the SS more closely, that is to say, on the one hand to employ only members of the State Police who were eligible for the SS and, on the other hand, to use the institutions of the SS, e.g., education and training of the younger generation by the Waffen-SS, in order in this way to supply recruits for the State Police. This amalgamation was later extended by Himmler in an attempt to bring about the same relationship between the SS and the Ministry of the Interior, i.e., the whole internal administration.
COL. AMEN: About how many full-time agents and honorary auxiliary personnel did the SD employ?
OHLENDORF: Yes, well, in this connection, too, one cannot use the term SD; one must distinguish here between Amt III and Amt VI. Amt III, as the interior intelligence service, had about 3,000 salaried members, including men and women. On the other hand, the interior intelligence service worked essentially with honorary members, that is, with men and women who put their professional experiences and the experiences in their surroundings at the disposal of the interior intelligence service. I would judge their number to be roughly 30,000.
COL. AMEN: Will you briefly give the Tribunal a general example of how a typical transaction was handled through the channels indicated on the chart?
OHLENDORF: First, a general example, invented to make things clear. Himmler heard that more and more saboteurs were being dropped from planes into Germany and were endangering transportation and factory sites. He informed Kaltenbrunner in the latter's capacity as Chief of the Sipo and instructed him to draw the attention of his organs to this state of affairs and to take measures ensuring that these saboteurs would be seized as soon and as completely as possible. Kaltenbrunner instructed the chief of Amt IV, that is, the State Police, to prepare an order to this effect for the regional offices. This order was drawn up by the competent authorities in Amt IV and was either transmitted by Muller directly to the State Police offices in the Reich or-and this is more probable on account of the importance of the question and the necessity to bring the order at the same time to the attention of the other offices of the Sicherheitspolizei-or he gave it to Kaltenbrunner, who signed it and sent it to the regional offices in the Reich. An order of this sort laid down, for example, that the States Police offices were to report the measures they were taking as well as their results. These reports went back through the same 3 Jan.46 channels from the regional offices to the competent authorities in Amt IV, from there to the Chief of Amt IV, from there to the Chief of the Sicherheitspolizei, Kaltenbrunner, and then to the Chief of the German Police Himmler.
COL. AMEN: And, finally will you give a specific example of a typical transaction handled through the channels indicated on the chart?
OHLENDORF: I take the example of the arrest of the leaders of the leftist parties after the events of the 20th of July: This order was also transmitted from Himmler to Kaltenbrunner; Kaltenbrunner passed it on to Amt IV and an appropriate draft for a decree was formulated by Amt IV, signed by Kaltenbrunner, and sent to the regional offices. The reports were returned from the subordinate offices back to the higher offices along the same channels.
COL. AMEN: May it please the Tribunal. The witness is now available to other counsel. I understand that Colonel Pokrovsky has some questions that he wishes to ask on behalf of the Soviets.
COLONEL Y. V. POKROVSKY (Deputy Chief Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): The testimony of the witness is important for the clarification of questions in a report on which the Soviet Delegation is at present working. Therefore, with the permission of the Tribunal I would like to put a number of questions to the witness. [Turning to the witness.] Witness, you said that you were present twice at the mass executions. On whose orders were you an inspector at the executions?
OHLENDORF: I was present at the executions on my own initiative.
COL. POKROVSKY: But you said that you attended as inspector.
OHLENDORF: I said that I attended for inspection purposes.
COL. POKROVSKY: On your initiative?
OHLENDORF: Yes.
COL. POKROVSKY: Did one of your chiefs always attend the executions for purposes of inspection?
OHLENDORF: Whenever possible I sent a member of the staff of the Einsatzgruppe to witness the executions, but this was not always feasible since the Einsatzgruppen had to operate over great distances.
COL. POKROVSKY: Why was some person sent for purposes of inspection?
OHLENDORF: Would you please repeat the question?
COL. POKROVSKY: For what purpose was an inspector sent?
OHLENDORF: To determine whether or not my instructions regarding the manner of the execution were actually being carried out.
COL. POKROVSKY: Am I to understand that the inspector was to make certain that the execution had actually been carried out?
OHLENDORF: No, it would not be correct to say that. He was to ascertain whether the conditions which I had set for the execution were actually being carried out.
COL. POKROVSKY: What manner of conditions had you in mind?
OHLENDORF: 1. Exclusion of the public; 2. Military execution by a firing-squad; 3. Arrival of the transports and carrying out of the liquidation in a smooth manner to avoid unnecessary excitement; 4. Supervision of the property to prevent looting. There may have been other details which I no longer remember. At any rate, all ill-treatment, whether physical or mental, was to be prevented through these measures.
COL. POKROVSKY: You wished to make sure that what you considered to be an equitable distribution of this property was effected, or did you aspire to complete acquisition of the valuables?
OHLENDORF: Yes.
COL. POKROVSKY: You spoke of ill-treatment. What did you mean by ill-treatment at the executions?
OHLENDORF: If, for instance, the manner in which the executions were carried out caused excitement and disobedience among the victims, so that the Kommandos were forced to restore order by means of violence.
COL. POKROVSKY: What do you mean by "restore order by means of violence"? What do you mean by suppression of the excitement amongst the victims by means of violence?
OHLENDORF: If, as I have already said, in order to carry out the liquidation in an orderly fashion it was necessary, for example, to resort to beating.
COL. POKROVSKY: Was it absolutely necessary to beat the victims?
OHLENDORF: I myself never witnessed it, but I heard of it.
COL. POKROVSKY: From whom?
OHLENDORF: In conversations with members of other Kommandos. * 0nly the first half of the preceding question, originally spoken in Russian, was transmitted to the witness in German by the interpreter. The answer of the witness, therefore, refers only to this fist half of the question. Back 3 Jan.46
COL. POKROVSKY: You said that cars, autocars, were used for the executions?
OHLENDORF: Yes.
COL. POKROVSKY: Do you know where, and with whose assistance, the inventor, Becker, was able to put his invention into practice?
OHLENDORF: I remember only that it was done through Amt II of the RSHA; but I can no longer say that with certainty.
COL. POKROVSKY: How many were executed in these cars? OHLENDORF; I did not understand the question.
COL. POKROVSKY: How many persons were executed by means of these cars?
OHLENDORF: I cannot give precise figures, but the number was comparatively very small-perhaps a few hundred.
COL. POKROVSKY: You said that mostly women and children were executed in these vans. For what reason?
OHLENDORF: That was a special order from Himmler to the effect that women and children were not to be exposed to the mental strain of the executions; and thus the men of the Kommandos, mostly married men, should not be compelled to aim at women and children.
COL. POKROVSKY: Did anybody observe the behavior of the persons executed in these vans?
OHLENDORF: Yes, the doctor.
COL. POKROVSKY: Did you know that Becker had reported that death in these vans was particularly agonizing?
OHLENDORF: No. I learned of Becker's reports for the first time from the letter to Rauff, which was shown to me here. On the contrary, I know from the doctor's reports that the victims were not conscious of their impending death.
COL. POKROVSKY: Did any military units-I mean, Army units-take part in these mass executions?
OHLENDORF: As a rule, no.
COL. POKROVSKY: And as an exception?
OHLENDORF: I think I remember that in Nikolaiev and in Simferopol a spectator from the Army High Command was present for a short time.
COL. POKROVSKY: For what purpose?
OHLENDORF: I don't know, probably to obtain information personally.
COL. POKROVSKY: Were military units assigned to carry out the executions in these towns?
OHLENDORF: Officially, the Army did not assign any units for this purpose; the Army as such was actually opposed to the liquidation.
COL. POKROVSKY: But in practice?
OHLENDORF: Individual units occasionally volunteered. However, at the moment I know of no such case among the Army itself, but only among the units attached to the Army (Heeresgefolge).
COL. POKROVSKY: You were the man by whose orders people were sent to their death. Were Jews only handed over for the execution by the Einsatzgruppe or were Communists-"Communist officials" you call them in your instructions-handed over for execution along with the Jews?
OHLENDORF: Yes, activists and political Commissary. Mere membership in the Communist Party was not sufficient to persecute or kill a man.
COL. POKROVSKY: Were any special investigations made concerning the part played by persons in the Communist Party?
OHLENDORF: No, I said on the contrary that mere membership of the Communist Party was not, in itself, a determining factor in persecuting or executing a man; he had to have a special political function.
COL. POKROVSKY: Did you have any discussions on the murder vans sent from Berlin and on their use?
OHLENDORF: I did not understand the question.
COL. POKROVSKY: Had you occasion to discuss, with your chiefs and your colleagues, the fact that motor vans had been sent to your own particular Einsatzgruppe from Berlin for carrying out the executions? Do you remember any such discussions?
OHLENDORF: I do not remember any specific discussion.
COL. POKROVSKY: Had you any information concerning the fact that members of the execution squad in charge of the executions were unwilling to use the vans?
OHLENDORF: I knew that the Einsatzkommandos were using these vans.
COL. POKROVSKY: No, I had something else in mind. I wanted to know whether you received reports that members of the execution squads were unwilling to use the vans and preferred other means of execution?
OHLENDORF: That they would rather kill by means of the gas vans than by shooting?
COL. POKROVSKY: On the contrary, that they preferred execution by shooting to killing by means of the gas vans. 3 Jan.46
OHLENDORF: Yes, I have already said that the gas van...
COL. POKROVSKY: And why did they prefer execution by shooting to killing in the gas vans?
OHLENDORF: Because, as I have already said, in the opinion of the leader of the Einsatzkommandos, the unloading of the corpses was an unnecessary mental strain.
COL. POKROVSKY: What do you mean by "an unnecessary mental strain"?
OHLENDORF: As far as I can remember the conditions at that time-the picture presented by the corpses and probably because certain functions of the body had taken place leaving the corpses lying in filth.
COL. POKROVSKY: You mean to say that the sufferings endured prior to death were clearly visible on the victims? Did I understand you correctly?
OHLENDORF: I don't understand the question; do you mean during the killing in the van?
COL. POKROVSKY: Yes.
OHLENDORF: I can only repeat what the doctor told me, that the victims were not conscious of their death in the van.
COL. POKROVSKY: In that case your reply to my previous question, that the unloading of the bodies made a very terrible impression on the members of the execution squad, becomes entirely incomprehensible.
OHLENDORF: And, as I said, the terrible impression created by the position of corpses themselves, and by the state of the vans which had probably been dirtied and so on.
COL. POKROVSKY: I have no further questions to put to this witness at the present stage of the Trial.
THE PRESIDENT: Does the Prosecutor for the French Republic desire to put any questions to the witness?
M. FRANCOIS DE MENTHON (Chief Prosecutor for the French Republic): No.
THE PRESIDENT: Does the counsel for Kaltenbrunner desire to cross-examine now or at a later date?
DR. KAUFFMANN: Perhaps I could ask a few questions now and request that I be allowed to make my cross-examination later, after consultation with Kaltenbrunner.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. DR. KAUFFMANN [Turning to the witness.] : How long have you known Kaltenbrunner?
OHLENDORF: May I be allowed to sit? May I sit down?
THE PRESIDENT: Certainly.
OHLENDORF: I saw Kaltenbrunner for the first time during the journey from Berlin to Himmler's headquarters at the time when Kaltenbrunner was to be appointed Chief of the Sipo and SD. Before that, I only knew of his existence.
DR. KAUFFMANN: You did not know him?
OHLENDORF: I only knew of his existence.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Did you come into personal contact with Kaltenbrunner in private or official discussions after his appointment as Chief of the RSHA?
OHLENDORF: Yes, of course.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Do you know his views on the Jewish question, for example?
OHLENDORF: No, I don't know his particular views on this question.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Do you know his attitude in the church question?
OHLENDORF: In the question of the church-he repudiated the anti-church course followed in Germany. We agreed that an understanding had to be reached with the church.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Do you know his attitude on the liquidation of civilian prisoners, parachutists, and so on?
OHLENDORF: No.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Do you know that Kaltenbrunner made special efforts to use the SD, in order to supply the criticism lacking at the Fuehrerstab?
OHLENDORF: Yes, that was the task of the SD even before Kaltenbrunner, and he also gave his material support to this task.
THE PRESIDENT: A little bit more slowly.
OHLENDORF: It was the task of the SD even before Kaltenbrunner came, and he approved and materially supported this tendency.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Do you know, either directly or indirectly, that Kaltenbrunner had no authority to give executive orders, for example, that he had no authority to send people to concentration camps or release them from concentration camps, that all these things were handled exclusively by Himmler and Muller?