dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: 91. 1 had forgotten that they had been given. And the second one is the affidavit of Dr. Schuhmacher, D-947, which will be handed up to the Tribunal, SA-92. I think the second half of Paragraph 1 is probably the paragraph to which Dr. Bohm referred: "That voluntary membership remained customary extensively after 1934..."-well, he is dealing now with the SA and the SS--In a great number of cases membership resulted also from direct or indirect pressure or was the result of personal wrong speculations." And then he says that that is so particularly in the case of the Stahlhelm, and that the Stahlhelm consisted of a number of persons who were not-National Socialists. My Lord, I would draw the Tribunal's attention particularly to the last paragraph, Number 4, of that affidavit, which deals with Blockleiter and Zellenleiter. They "were the foundation for the whole system of terrorism, including the activity of the Gestapo."
DR. SERVATIUS: Mr. President, this, document which is being introduced is directed against the Political Leaders, and I object to its use, but for a reason different from the one which has so far been mentioned. I have received a number of copies of these affidavits, and they are the outcome of a general inquiry which has been made. Only some of the answers to this inquiry are contained in the document, and it is my contention that if the result of such an inquiry is utilized at all, then all answers available should be submitted. I think that if, say, one hundred questionnaires were sent out, then there must be material for the defense of the Political Leaders in those answers which the Prosecution has not submitted. I request, therefore, that if the document is admitted, all the results of the inquiry be submitted. We can then obtain a true picture, which might be more useful to me than the testimony of the members of my organization, because the people who have deposed those important affidavits are opponents of National Socialism, and because I must assume that favorable arguments, which might be very valuable as part of a general picture, are contained in those affidavits which have not been submitted.
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Griffith-Jones, the Tribunal doesn't think it is right at this stage of the Trial to allow this document to be put in against the Political Leaders, and therefore the document will have to be excluded altogether.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: My Lord, if that is so, then that, of course, will apply to the other eight or nine affidavits that the Prosecution has got. These affidavits were obtained to rebut the vast mass of material which has been put in in the form of affidavits by all those organizations. In actual fact, I can state that there were no other affidavits other than the ones that I am proposing to put before the Tribunal, and these two which we were not intending to put because, as I say, they were not in the form of an affidavit; but there are no other affidavits that we have obtained and they, all of them, or most of them, deal with one or more or all the organizations. They are put in simply in rebuttal of the mass of material which has been presented to the Court on behalf of the defense of those organizations. And, if I might say so...
THE PRESIDENT: I think you had better offer those so we may see them. We have seen this one, and we know, of course, from what you have told us that it is one which the Prosecution had before and did not propose to offer, but the others may be different.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: My Lord, they are all in very much the same form, and of course, Defense Counsel have had copies of them now for nearly a fortnight.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you had better offer them to us and we can look at them.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: And without referring the Tribunal to any particular passage?
THE PRESIDENT: No, I think you had better offer them and refer to the passages, and we will see whether we will admit them.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: If Your Lordship pleases.
DR. SERVATIUS: Mr. President, may I add one remark? These affidavits all originate from persons who are today holding high government offices. They are probably the most important of all the affidavits which have so far been submitted, and I shall now have no opportunity to investigate ho-%v they may be refuted in detail. I should like to be in a position to do so, but that, of course, is no longer possible at this stage. Moreover, I did not even know whether these affidavits would be introduced or not, and I have now completed my evidence and am ready with my final speech.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: My Lord, might I say this? Sir David, of course, asked the Tribunal's permission to put these in some days ago, the Tribunal will remember. Ever since then Defense Counsel have had an opportunity of investigating and seeing these documents and Dr. Servatius says that he has no-he had no opportunity to investigate, whatever he means by that, these documents. The Prosecution has had no kind of opportunity to investigate the 300,000 affidavits that have been put in on behalf of the Defense.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal considers that they had better look at them and see.
DR. SERVATIUS: Mr. President, may I draw your attention to a point of formality? I have not got the documents at the moment, but as far as I was able to see, they were deposed after 7 May, which was the key-date, and they do not comply with the formalities. They should have been certified before an officer, but some of them were only certified before a- notary; so that according to the rules of the Tribunal which have been in force up to now, they would have to be rejected. I myself have not ' been able to introduce any statements which were not certified or sworn to before an officer.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: At least half of them were performed before Mr. Marreco, counsel, whom you know. Others, from the north of Germany, were-there I agree-some of them performed before local notaries. My Lord, some were performed before Mr. Marreco, of course, who is an Allied officer, and others appear to be sworn before notaries. And as I say, the two that Dr. B61im had hoped to put in were not signed before anyone. THE PRESIDEN~: I think we should see the documents before we consider the objection.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Might I hand up first D-929, which becomes GB-620. My Lord, it is an affidavit by Dr. Anton Pfeiffer, Bavarian Minister of State, in, the State Ministry for Special Tasks.
THE PRESIDENT: When was he Minister?
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: He is now-he says that: '~At the time of the seizure of power, in the year 1933, 1 was Secretary General of the Bavarian People's Party."
DR.BOHM: Mr. President, it was precisely in order to prevent the type of proceedings which are developing now, that during the hearing of the witness Aittner I...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Bohm, the type of proceedings which are now going on are the type of proceedings which the Tribunal has just ordered. The Tribunal wishes to ~ee the documents in order to decide upon them. Go on, Colonel Griffith-Jones.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: My Lord, in that affidavit he says that pressure was brought to bear on certain officials to make them join the Party, that is, civil servants. And then he goes on in the latter half to say how he and other people heard of and knew 22 AU.-. 46 about the atrocities that happened in the East and the annihilation of the Jews. He says in the center paragraph, "I am not aware that officials who were Party members were threatened with dismissal from the service if they refused to accept a political Party job, like Blockleiter or Zellenleiter." At any rate, he says: "I never heard of such a case." My Lord, I don't think it is necessary for me to read any other passages of that affidavit, Number D-929. My Lord, the next affidavit to which I shall refer is D-949, which becomes GB-621, from the Lord Mayor of Brunswick. He describes himself, he gives his own personal data. He then goes on to describe the activities of the SA from 1921 to 1923, in the first paragraph of Number 1; that is, he then goes on to describe their activities in 1933, how he himself was removed from his office by the SA. On the next page, he describes how he was led out of the town hall and put into prison, by this SA again. In the next paragraph he states that membership in the SA was absolutely voluntary until 1937. "While until 1933 one could assume that many SA members acted in good faith, believing that the SA had a just task for combating Communism, after the events of March 1933 there was, in my opinion, no longer any doubt that the SA acted contrary to law by their participation in the seizure of power by Hitler." Then he goes on to say how they distinguished themselves later in illegal manner. He deals then with the SS. He says that they were voluntary except for those SS that were compelled to join during the course of the war, or drafted to the SS during the course of the war. He then goes on in the last paragraph of that page to describe his own illegal arrest by the SA-SS and the appalling torture to which he was subjected by members of that organization.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: He says, some 12 lines down that next page: "Before I was ill-treated, I pointed out that I was a war cripple, to which Sturmfuehrer Meyer replied that in that case the arm would be spared." And he was then beaten with hippopotamus-hide whips until he was unconscious; when he was knocked out, he was revived with cold water and beaten to unconsciousness again. The second small paragraph on Page 3: "The organization and the ideology of the SS were aimed -so exactly and so pitilessly at eliminating political opponents and so-called racially inferior persons that everyone who joined it was bound to realize its criminal nature." My Lord, I pass on to the next one that I offer to the Tribunal, D-938, which becomes GB-622. That is an affidavit from Dr. Viktor Fenyes, President of the Central Committee of Former Political Prisoners of the Province of Hanover. It first of all deals with the Leadership Corps, in particular the Block- and Zellenleiter.
THE PRESIDENT: Would you tell us, as you introduce each one of these, how they were taken and before whom?
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: My Lord, I am very much obliged, of course. That one was taken-if the Tribunal would look at the next page of it, it was taken on oath before a notary in Hanover. The previous one-My Lord, the previous one states that it was taken on oath, but I am afraid it is not witnessed. My Lord, dealing with D-938, as I said, he deals with the Block and Zellenleiter and he states there was definite pressure brought on people to join the Party, pressure by way of threats; that they assisted in the persecution of the Jews and that the Block- and Zellenleiter participated, almost without exception, in the setting on fire of the synagogues in 1938. It then deals with the SA, "membership, was voluntary." In the last three lines he states that former members of the SA protest to-day they entered the organization under pressure. This is not true, for actually not everyone was admitted into the SA. My Lord, he then goes on to deal with the SS; I think it is only cumulative to read any of it again. My Lord, the next document was one which was signed before Mr. Marreco, D-931, which becomes GB-623. He is the Secretary General of the Bavarian Peasants' Union in Munich, Dr. Schl6gl, who was a delegate of the Bavarian Diet at the time of the seizure of power by the Nazis. Dr. Alois Schl6gl, My Lord, was the victim of an assault. And the decision of the Court against the SA men who perpetrated that assault is already before the Tribunal. It was D-936, GB-616, and the Tribunal will remember that, because the decision stated that the deeds and intentions of the SA men were only aimed at the well-being of the National Socialist movement. Political reason and the purity of the intentions was thus beyond doubt. Dr. Schl6gl in his affidavit described the ill-treatment he received.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: And then he says in the third paragraph, "Following my complaint, the perpetrators were not punished but pardoned, the ringleader Bernhard was promoted as a reward and, as I have been told now, rose to the Tank of Brigadefuehrer." He goes on to say that in his opinion the criminal nature of the SS and SA were common knowledge and that everybody who joined them must have known to what use they were to be put by the Party. And then he-in the last paragraph he ...
THE PRESIDENT: Well, perhaps you could just hand them up and not read them into the record, because the Tribunal reserves the right to reject them.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Yes, My Lord. I submit D-934, which is an affidavit-D-934 becomes GB-624, which is an affidavit sworn before Mr. Marreco, an affidavit by Albert Rosshaupter, Bavarian Minister of Labor in Munich. D-932, which becomes GB-625, is an affidavit also sworn before Mr. Marreco. D-933, which becomes GB-626, by a Joseph Ackermann, a director, of Munich, also sworn before Mr. Marreco. And Affidavit D-950, which becomes GB-627, of a Mr. Adolf Fahlbusch, which was sworn before a notary in Hanover. Perhaps I ought to say of all the affidavits which were not taken by Mr. Marreco, they were taken by the Legal Division of the Control Commission for Germany, or were taken under their auspices. This Legal Division of the Control Commission for Germany were asked to obtain these affidavits and that is how it comes about that they were perhaps not sworn in accordance with the regulations laid down by the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: Is that all?
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: My Lord, I have one further affidavit of a somewhat different nature, which shows the credit of, or the value the Tribunal should place on, the affidavits which have been submitted by the Defense. It is an affidavit of an SS man who was in one of the internment camps in the British zone when the questionnaire was filled out at the camp, the questionnaire which I understand the Tribunal allowed the Defense Counsel to submit in these camps. My Lord, I have this affidavit, which I shall hand up to the Tribunal; it is D-973 and becomes GB-628, an affidavit by Mr. Kurt Ehrhardt. My Lord, he was an SS man who joined the SS in 1933; he never took any part in their activities and was dismissed from the SS in 1937 because he had a Jewish partner and a Jewish brother-in-law. He was ...
THE PRESIDENT: I can get all this from the affidavit, I suppose.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: My Lord, that affidavit does not show on the copy that it was signed on oath and before whom. My Lord, the original shows that it was sworn before Major Hill of the British Delegation. My Lord, that ...
THE PRESIDENT: Could you tell me when it was that Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe offered to introduce these affidavits, or intimated he was proposing to do so?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My Lord, I shall check it during the adjournment; I would have thought it was the Friday before last, because it was before-My Lord, it was certainly before-I cross-examined the SA witnesses. As Your Lordship may remember, I offered as the alternatives either to put the affidavits to the SA witnesses or to put them in with the-after the documents of the Defense Counsel were presented.
THE PRESIDENT: That is what I wanted to know. That will be in the transcript, I suppose, that you said-if you could let us know.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Yes, My Lord, I understand it was accepted that Your Lordship asked if there were any objections and I said that I would give copies at once. And, My Lord, there was no objection from those over there. That is my neglect and I will find the place for Your Lordship. . HERR BOHM: Mr. President, I recall this matter very clearly. I brought up the subject of these affidavits during the examination of the witness Juttner, and in view of my objection the Tribunal stated at the time that, if these affidavits were to be presented, they had to be presented then. My objection was that I would no longer be in a position to refute the affidavits once my last witness had been heard, because I would then have no other means of introducing new evidence. I took the decision of the Tribunal to mean that the Tribunal agreed with me that affidavits should not be submitted by the Prosecution once I was no longer able to reply to them as part of my own evidence, and that these affidavits should be submitted while the evidence was being taken, or before that.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Bohm, we will refer to the transcript to see exactly what happened.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My Lord, they had already been mentioned before the incident arose. That was an incident that arose with regard to Dr. H6gner's affidavit during the evidence of Juttner. All the affidavits were mentioned at an earlier date which I'll discover for Your Lordship during the adjournment.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, then the Tribunal will adjourn now and will sit again at 2:30. [A recess was taken until 1430 hours.] . Afternoon Session
THE PRESIDENT: With reference to the first group of documents which were objected to by the Soviet Prosecutor, the Tribunal thinks that, as those documents had been included in the Document Book for the SA after the agreement and the Affidavit 82 had been allowed by the Commission, in spite of the fact that those documents relate to a remote period, they ought to be allowed. They are, therefore, admitted. They are Documents 285, 286, 287, 132, and 82. With reference to the 11 affidavits-perhaps I should say to the 10 affidavits which the British Prosecution offered in evidence, the Tribunal has reconsidered the shorthand note which shows what Sir, David Maxwell-Fyfe said on the 9th of August and what was said on the 14th of August and on the 15th of August, and although there was at that time no doubt a suggestion that these documents might be put in, the Tribunal considers that the question still has to be considered whether the documents ought to be admitted as rebuttal. In view of the nature of the documents, the Tribunal thinks that the documents are not proper evidence in rebuttal on the whole, and that therefore they ought to be excluded. That includes all the affidavits with the exception of the affidavit of Kurt Ehrhardt, 'which stands in a different position. In view of the nature of the evidence contained in that affidavit, it will be admitted. That is all.
HERR BOHM: Mr. President, I should like to ask you to hear me a moment longer. In my presentation of documents, I avoided quoting from my document books. As, however, this morning the Prosecution put Document SA-156, which is a directive of the SA University Department in Munich, in juxtaposition to the same directive as given out by the SA Hochschulamt in Cologne, I should like to point out that in Figure 3 of both of these directives the same decree of 7 February 1934 is mentioned and that when these two documents are put in juxtaposition, 'it says in each case, "For all members of the German student body service in the SA has been made obligatory." In order to make it understandable that the Prosecution believed they had found a contradiction, I should like to read the last sentence under Figure 3 of the directives issued by the SA University Department in Cologne.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will consider the true interpretation. We quite understand that on the one hand you are contending that the service in the SA was compulsory and the Prosecution are contending the opposite, and they are putting in this other document which they say supports their view. It isn't necessary to have an argument about it at this stage.
HERR BOHM: I merely wished to add four more words, four words to the last sentence of Figure 3, ". . or not to study." Then the Russian Prosecutor stated today that Document 91 ...
THE PRESIDENT: Are you saying that there is some misprint in the document or what?
HERR BOHM: No, Mr. President, I wanted to ...
THE PRESIDENT: Then you are simply arguing on the interpretation Of the words and I have told you that the Tribunal will consider the interpretation and decide the interpretation for itself.
HERR BOHM: Very well, Mr. President; but may I put in the next document, which the Prosecution asserts I submitted only because of the last paragraph. That is not correct. The next document, General SA-91, was not submitted by me because of the last paragraph, but rather because of the first paragraph. That refers to the attitude of the Attorney General with the District Court of Appeal in Brunswick.
THE PRESIDENT: All right. We understand that you rely on the first paragraph and not on the last paragraph.
HERR BOHM: Yes, Mr. President. Thank you very much.
HERR PELCKMANN: Your Lordship, may it please the Tribunal. Yesterday, on behalf of the SS which I represent, I submitted a summarization of 136,213 affidavits. I ask you not to confuse this summarization with some statistics, which I said at the conclusion of yesterday's session I would submit without comment. Everything that I said yesterday about the testimony and points of view of SS men refers only to the 136,000 affidavits which contain a complete text and which are independent affidavits. The statistics which I mentioned toward the end of yesterday's session are based on a questionnaire, and are not to be confused with those 136,000 affidavits which I used. This questionnaire, however, was not asked by me. I did not attach any value to this questionnaire and the replies made in answer to it, and I merely handed it in-merely handed in these statistics-in order to get rid of all the -material which I had received. I did not ask for this questionnaire, and I was not the attorney or defense counsel for the SS mentioned by Herr Kurt Ehrhardt in his affidavit. It is well known to the High Tribunal that the defense has changed counsel in the meantime.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, we quite understand that it was not asked for by you. We accept that.
HERR PELCKMANN: Still, I should Eke to clarify matters by stating that the assertion made by Herr Ehrhardt does not refer to the 136,000 affidavits, but rather to the answers to a questionnaire. I should expressly like to withdraw as evidence the statistics which I announced yesterday in a couple of words, and which the General Secretary now has. I do not attach any value to these statistics.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Pelckmann, you are 'going to make a speech, aren't you, in a few days time. Isn't this a matter with which you will deal then? You will have the opportunity of criticizing Ehrhardt's affidavit. This isn't the time to do it.
HERR- PELCKMANN: Mr. President, I believe it is my duty to state my views concerning an affidavit which has been submitted by the Prosecution even though the presentation of evidence has been concluded. I will do more ...
THE PRESIDENT: Well, Dr. Pelckmann, I just told you that it is not your duty and you will be able to deal with it when you make your speech and therefore the Tribunal doesn't desire to hear any more about it.
HERR PELCKMANN: In order to reply to this affidavit by Herr Ehrhardt, although I attach no value to the statistics, I request you to summon two, witnesses from this camp, for naturally I cannot..
THE PRESIDENT: If you want to make an application, you must make it in writing. Now, Dr. Servatius.