dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
HIRT: In many places there were so-called "Stuermer cases"; that is right.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Were they set up by the Party?
HIRT: I knew nothing whatever about that.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: You cannot tell me, can you, whether those Stuermer cases were set up on the instructions of either the Kreis- or Ortsgruppenleiter?
HIRT: At times, I personally had the impression that the local SA was responsible for setting up the Stuermer cases.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: There were also, were there not, both in towns-particularly holiday resorts-and all over the countryside, notices saying that Jews were undesirable (Juden unerwuensdit)?
HIRT: I have seen such notices in various parts of Germany.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Do you know whether they were set up on the instructions and by the authority of the local political leader?
HIRT: I do not know.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Very well. My Lord, I have one new document, which was put to this witness before a commission. Perhaps I might draw the Tribunal's attention to it now and to -the relevant parts. It is Document D-901 (a), which will become Exhibit GB-546. Your Lordship will see that that is a circular issued in the Gau Cologne-Aachen on the 31st of January 1941, and it contains instructions to all Kreis- and Ortsgruppenorganisationsleiter regarding the installing and keeping of card indexes of households. Under Paragraph 1, "The sense and purpose of card-indexing households," it is stated that the purpose is as a basis for statistical inquiries and, combined with the entries on the back of the card index of households, for the political judgment of the members of a household. Then a few lines farther on, the information contained on them must enable the Ortsgruppenleiter to give at any, moment a judgment of the household member concerned which is sufficient in all respects. Then, My Lord, under Paragraph 5: "The Blockleiter must be in possession of lists which contain the same printed text as the household card index, and which are to be provided with the necessary entries by the Blockleiter (family status, Party membership, membership of an organization, affiliated body, et cetera)." On the next page, the second paragraph in Number 10 sets out the information which is to be obtained. Halfway down that paragraph it says: "It is thus to be recorded how long the Völkischer Beobachter has been subscribed to, whether the family already possessed a swastika flag before the 1935 flag law, and what wireless apparatus is available in the household ... It is easy to obtain this data from a conversation of the Blockleiter with the members concerned." The next paragraph deals with the political judgment of the inhabitants.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I quote the last three lines: "The political judgment of every compatriot is to be found by the Ortsgruppenorganisationsleiter in co-operation with the competent Block- and Zellenleiter, as well as in agreement with the Ortsgruppenleiter." Then in the last paragraph, Number 14 on the next page, it describes how this information can be obtained: "It is prohibited on principle to give compatriots and Party members lists or index cards to fill in themselves. Owing to their frequent visits to the individual households, the Blockleiter have sufficient opportunity to obtain the required data for the index by means of conversations with compatriots. The Blockleiter must make sure of the accuracy of the data supplied to him by looking through membership papers and such like. The Blockleiter is responsible for the accuracy of the data supplied to the Ortsgruppenorganisationsleiter." Your Honor, I have no further documents and no questions. My Lord, General Raginsky has three documents which he desires to put in.
STATE COUNSELLOR OF JUSTICE M. Y. RAGINSKY (Assistant Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): Mr. President, with your permission I would like to submit three documents which characterize the role of Kreisleiter and Blockleiter in the participation of such crimes as the Germanization of occupied territories and their populations. The first document I am submitting is Document USSR-143. This document was discovered in the archives of the Kreisfuehrer of the town of Pettau in Yugoslavia in May 1945. I would ask the Tribunal to pay attention to the fact that the document begins with the following phrase: "...with the instruction to inform at once all the Blockfuehrer, down to the last one, at the next roll call." The document is signed by the Kreisfuehrer. Point Number 1 of this document states as follows: "In the course of my tours of inspection through the various Ortsgruppen I ascertained that there are still some Slovenian inscriptions on the houses principally signs of insurance companies ... and so on. I -request the Blockfuehrer once more to see to it immediately that all these Slovenian inscriptions, billboards, posters, et cetera be removed.... I, therefore, charge the Ortsgruppenfuehrer to see to it, that through personal conversation with the responsible priests, the Slovenian inscriptions are also removed immediately, without exception, from all church images (ikons), chapels, and churches." Point 3 of this document is as follows: "The Ortsgruppenfuehrer will, as before, be personally responsible to me to see that every officeholder down to the last Blockfuehrer learns to speak and to write German." The next document, which I am presenting under Number USSR-449, is an excerpt from the speech of Reich Minister of the Interior Dr. Frick, dated 16 December 1941, in connection with the appointment of Gauleiter Dr. Friedrich Rainer. This document was seized in the archives of the Kreisleiter in Maribor by the Yugoslavian Army in May 1945. In the speech it is said: "Dear Party Comrade Rainer: "The Fuehrer has appointed you to be a Gauleiter. I do not wish to read the whole excerpt, it is translated.
THE PRESIDENT: General Raginsky, have you got the original of this document?
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: I beg your pardon, Mr. President, I did not get your remark.
THE PRESIDENT: It is all right. We have the original of the document now. Now can you explain to us what the document is; I mean, how it is certified, how it is proved?
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: This document has been authenticated by the Yugoslav Government Commission for the investigation of crimes committed by the German occupants in Yugoslavia. The original of this document is to be found in the archives of this commission. The copy which I am submitting to this Tribunal has been authenticated by the president of the government commission, Dr. Nedelkovitsch: "Your duty, Party Comrade Rainer, consists in seeing that this entire district is again made totally German.... The German language must be given more and more priority in public life. It is the only authorized language and the only one which may be used officially ... the youth in the schools must immediately be taught in German. Instruction must be given as soon as possible exclusively in German... "When not only the outward appearances, such as official signs, official language and inscriptions are German, but when also all the young people will speak German, and when in the family circle the Slovene language is replaced by German-only then will we be able to, speak of the Germanization of the Upper Kranj." Finally, the last document, which I am submitting under Number USSR-191. This document is an excerpt from the minutes of a staff conference of the Gauleiter of Lower Styria. The original of this document was seized by units of the Yugoslav Army in the archives of the Gauleiter of the town of Maribor in May 1945. On the first page of this excerpt, Mr. President, we can see that on 12 November 1941, the Gauleiter held a conference with the Security Service. Members of the SS were present at this conference, and: "SS Standartenfiffirer Lurcker states that approximately 2,000 persons had been removed to Serbia and 400 persons had been put into concentration camps ...
MR. COUNSELLOR RAGINSKY: As a reprisal for incidents which have recently occurred, some 30 other persons will be shot." In the last paragraph on this page, an excerpt from the minutes of the conference of 5 January 1942, it also states: "On 27 December 1941, as a reprisal for an attack, 40 persons were shot." And further, in the report of a speech by Dr. Carstanjen, Deputy Gauleiter of Styria, it states: "The resettlement into the old Reich is practically completed. Only about 10,000 persons remain to be resettled." I do not wish to quote the following pages, which contain excerpts of a similar kind.
DR. SERVATIUS: Witness, you were not able to comment on the documents. I shall ask you a few brief questions about them. The first letter submitted was Document D-90.1(a). It was a circular letter issued by the Gau Cologne-Aacheri dated January 1941. It mentions a card index of households, Do you know whether such card indexes of households similar to those mentioned here were kept in your district?
HIRT: I know only of card indexes for inhabitants on which all inhabitants were listed according to their name, family status, birth, profession, and membership in the Party or its branches. No other essential questions were put on these cards, nor were they answered.
DR. SERVATIUS: Can this order here be considered an organizational exaggeration?
HIRT: Up to now, I have really had no knowledge of this order. I-lad it been universal for all local districts in Germany, it would have had to be promulgated and carried out by us, too. Since such a far-reaching order was issued in the Gau of Cologne-Aachen, it was certainly only the local Gauleiter and the executive officer of the Gau who was responsible for that, and it was certainly an exaggerated interpretation of the situation on their part.
DR. SERVATIUS: The next letter was a letter from the Styrian Heimatbund of Pettau dated 30 April 1942. It was addressed to an Ortsgruppenfuehrer and came from the Kreisfuehrer. It concerns the removal of Yugoslavian signs. Did you ever obtain any information at all about such matters abroad?
HIRT: No, they were completely unknown to me.
DR. SERVATIUS: Do you know that up to 1918 Pettau was an old German town, and that it only became part of Yugoslavia after 1918?
HIRT: I did not quite understand the name of the town.
DR. SERVATIUS: Pettau. Then you cannot give an answer?
HIRT: No.
DR. SERVATIUS: Then there has been submitted a speech by Dr. Frick to Reichsstatthalter Rainer. It refers to conditions in the new border Gau. Were you informed about these conditions which existed in the border Gau?
HIRT: No, I had no knowledge of them. DR. SERVATIUS; The last document contained notes on staff conferences of Gauleiter Uiberreither, which also refer to the border Gau and the adjoining Yugoslavia. Can you also not testify about these things?
HIRT: Nothing whatsoever.
DR. SERVATIUS: I have no more questions to put to this witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Did you have anything to do with the deportation of foreign labor?
HIRT: No.
THE PRESIDENT: Who did?
HIRT: I do not know.
THE PRESIDENT: Did you not know anybody who was employing slave labor?
HIRT: I did not understand the question.
THE PRESIDENT: There was a great amount of foreign labor used in Germany, was there not?
HIRT: There were many foreign workers in Germany who were employed in factories.
THE PRESIDENT: And also in private houses?
HIRT: I know that foreign women were also employed in private homes as maids.
THE PRESIDENT: What I asked you was, did you have anything to do with the placing of that foreign labor either in factories, or in offices, or in workshops, or in private homes?
HIRT: I had nothing to do with it in any respect.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you know what officials did have to do with the placing of such labor?
HIRT: I do not know that. I was certainly never inte rested in it.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness can-retire. DR. SERVATIUS- With the permission of the Court I will call the last witness, Hupfauer. He is for the technical offices, especially the German Labor Front. [The witness Hupfauer took the stand.]
THE PRESIDENT: Will you state your full name, please?
THEO HUPFAUER (Witness): Dr. Theo Hupfauer.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat-this oath after me: I swear by God-the Almighty and Omniscient-that I will tell the pure truth-and will withhold and add nothing. [The witness repeated the oath.]
THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down.
DR. SERVATIUS: Witness, when were you born?
HUPFAUER: On 17 July 1906.
DR. SERVATIUS: You were for 8 years, from 1936 to 1944, a Political Leader in the supreme office of the DAF, the German Labor Front, in the central bureau with Dr. Ley, and after that, up to 1945 you were the liaison official between the Ministry for Armament and War Production of Minister Speer and the German Labor Front, is that correct?
HUPFAUER: Up to 1944 I was office chief in the central bureau of the German Labor Front.
DR. SERVATIUS: And as such a Political Leader?
HUPFAUER: As such a Political Leader.-After my appointment I was from 1942 liaison official of the German Labor Front to the Ministry for Armament and War Production and from the end of 1944, 1 was chief of the central bureau in the Ministry for Armament and War Production.
DR. SERVATIUS: Was the German Labor Front an organization affiliated with the Party, while the political direction originated from the Party itself?
HUPFAUER: The German Labor Front was an organization with organizational, financial, and personnel independence. It was affiliated to the Party. The tasks of the political direction were, however, matters for the Party itself.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did the leaders of the DAF, who were political leaders, have political tasks and were they Political Leaders for that reason?
HUPFAUER: The leaders of the DAF had purely social-political tasks. Only those leaders of the DAF were Political Leaders who were appointed as such.
DR. SERVATIUS: The German Labor Front was represented in the Gau, Kreis, and local districts by so-called Obm5amer. Were these Obmänner Political Leaders with the Party staffs?
HUPFAUER: These Obmänner were Political Leaders only insofar as they were appointed as such.
DR. SERVATIUS: Were there, in the German Labor Front, Political Leaders who were not active in the Party staffs?
HUPFAUER: In the Party staffs only the local Obmänner were active. All other functionaries of the DAF who were Political Leaders had no office in the Party.
DR. SERVATIUS: Was the number of those who had no office, but were nevertheless Political Leaders in the DAF very large?
HUPFAUER: The majority of the functionaries who were Political Leaders held no office in the Party.
DR. SERVATIUS: Can you estimate approximately how many people there were?
HUPFAUER: I cannot give a figure nor can I give a percentage, but in the offices of which I was in charge, it was by far the majority.
DR.SERVATIUS: What was the occupation and duty of these Political Leaders who were not on the staff?
HUPFAUER: The Political Leaders who were not on the Party staff had the same duties as those who were on the Party staff, that is, social-political and technical tasks.
DR. SERVATIUS: All persons holding office in the DAF, the functionaries, were called Amtswalter, is that correct?
HUPFAUER: Yes.
DR.SERVATIUS: Were all these Amtswalter appointed at the same time Political Leaders?
HUPFAUER: No, only part of the Amtswalter were appointed. For example, it could happen and it did happen that if there were two functionaries who directed equally important offices, one was a Political Leader and the other was not. It also happened that the superior did not have the rank of Political Leader, but his colleague, his subordinate, did.
DR. SERVATIUS: What was the purpose of appointing Political Leaders? Did such officials receive special political tasks and special rights?
HUPFAUER: Special tasks and special rights were not connected with the appointment as Political Leader.
DR. SERVATIUS: What was then the sense of appointing them as such?
HUPFAUER: That was essentially for representative purposes and may be attributed to the wish to show the authority of the Party abroad in the economy and in the State, but it had nothing to do with the office as such.
DR. SERVATIUS: What were the duties of the Political Leaders as Obmbnner in the Party staffs?
HUPFAUER: The Obm5.nner who were Political Leaders in the Party staffs had to advise the Hoheitstrdger with regard to their own specialized branch.
DR. SERVATIUS: What was the ratio of the Political Leaders of the DAF to the total number of all Political Leaders? Did they constitute a considerable part?
HUPFAUER: The DAF was a membership organization consisting of about 20 million. The organization, therefore, extended to the Ortsgruppen and even to private business. Thus it had a large number of functionaries and therefore a large number of these functionaries were Political Leaders. This explains the fact that the majority of the Political Leaders most certainly belonged to the DAF.
DR. SERVATITJS: , The DAF was a so-called affiliated formation. Are you in a position to testify on the position of the Political Leaders in any other professional or technical organizations?
HUPFAUER: As an Amtsleiter of the DAF, I was, of course, in contact with the functionaries of other organizations. I can, therefore, give information on these organizations in a general way but not in detail.
DR. SERVATIUS: Was the position of the Political Leaders in these professional and technical organizations and in the social organizations regulated in the same way as in the DAF?
HUPFAUER: It was essentially organized in the same way; that is, the local leaders of these formations were also bound up in the Party. They had no duties of political leadership, but as leaders of organizations they had to look after the interests of their members.
DR. SERVATIUS: Were these also Political Leaders within this specialized formation who were not active in the Party agencies, for example, in the NSV?
HUPFAUER: There also were Political Leaders who were not on the Party staff.
DR. SERVATIUS: Can you give us the most important of these specialized formations, professional organizations, and the corresponding offices in the Gau, Kreis, and Ortsgruppenleitung?
HUPFAUER: I can recall the following formations and their corresponding offices: The NSV was the office for peoples' welfare; the Lehrerbund was the office for education; the Beamtenbund was the office for civil servants; the Bund Deutschet Techniker was the office for technology; the Rechtswahrerbund was the legal office.
DR. SERVATIUS: Were these offices which you have added in each case, established in the Party offices, in the Party staffs?
HUPFAUER: These offices are established in the Party staffs, and were generally directed by the local leader of the organization of the affiliated group.
DR. SERVATIUS: What were the tasks of these Political Leaders?
HUPFAUER: The tasks of these Political Leaders were also specialized tasks and not political leadership tasks. It was their duty to look after the interests of their members.
DR. SERVATIUS: What was the numerical relationship of these Political Leaders of the specialized groups, those who sat on the Party staff as heads of these offices, and including those who were in the associations? Was that also a large number?
HUPFAUER: The number depended mainly on the size of the organization.
DR. SERVATIUS: What was probably the largest of those mentioned?
HUPFAUER: Of the organizations which I mentioned, apart from the DAF, the NSV was the largest.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did the German Labor Front destroy the trade unions in 1933?
HUPFAUER: The German Labor Front did not really exist on 2 May 1933. There were functionaries of the National Socialist Factory Cell Organization (Betriebszellen-Organisation), called NSBO, which did not destroy the unions at that time but took over their direction and continued their work.
DR. SERVATIUS: What was the purpose of this measure? Was it possibly to break the resistance of the workers against the Party and thus to remove the internal opposition against the policy of a war of aggression?
HUPFAUER: In May 1933 the first visible effects for the German worker were already felt by the elimination of unemployment for millions. The situation was such that the German workers were again sure of getting work and bread. Therefore, there can be no talk of any resistance of these workers against the Party. The foundation of the DAF served the following purposes: In the first place, in order to carry out economic reconstruction without interference and to regulate the labor market it was necessary to avoid any trouble through labor struggles which might interfere with social economy, such as strikes and lockouts. It was, therefore, necessary to find an equitable balance between the interests of employees and employers. This was best done in a joint organization of employers and employees.
DR. SERVATIUS: Then the employers' organizations were also dissolved at that time?
HUPFAUER: The employers' organizations were also dissolved with the view of creating a joint organization which would eliminate class struggle, thereby securing the essential prerequisites for the establishment of a really socialistic order.
DR. SERVATIUS: Were not the trade unions taken over by force with the help of the SA, SS, and Police, and were not the union leaders arrested? HUPFAUER- On 2 May the trade union houses were in reality occupied by the Police, or through measures by the auxiliary Police in which SA and SS men and Stahlhelm men participated. For a short time the union leaders were also arrested. This measure served the purpose, at this moment, of preventing misuse of the available union funds so that the work in these organizations could be carried on.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did the National Socialist Factory Cell Organization (NSBO) then claim for itself the funds which had been taken over and what did it do with them?
HUPFAUER: These union funds were not claimed for the use of the NSBO as this organization financed itself from the dues of its members. The funds of the unions were used in order to carry on the social work and furthermore they were used to guarantee the long-standing legal claims of the union members; that is, to continue paying invalids, sick, death benefits, and so forth to these union members.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did the unions have large funds available at that time?
HUPFAUFR: 1933 was the end of the economic crisis which began in 1930. This economic crisis, of course, also had a detrimental effect on the unions. It is certain that, owing to millions becoming unemployed, the union membership was constantly decreasing and old members of these unions were becoming unemployed in greater numbers, so that a great percentage of them could no longer pay their dues and a still greater percentage of them had to draw upon the union funds, thus depleting these funds.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did not Dr. Ley himself admit that he used the union funds illegally, and would have run the danger of being imprisoned had the Fuehrer not given legal sanction to the confiscation of the funds?
HUPFAUER: If I recall correctly, Dr. Ley made this statement at a Party rally here in Nuremberg in a report on the achievement of the German Labor Front. He wanted thereby to emphasize that he was interested in having this confiscation of the funds sanctioned legally, a confiscation which had been carried out through political action. In the same speech he speaks of the recorded achievements of the German Labor Front and points out that these funds were used in the interest of the German workers.
DR. SERVATIUS: Was not the purpose of the creation of the German Labor Front that of securing an instrument to fight against the pacific attitude of the workers?
HUPFAUER: The German Labor Front ...
THE PRESIDENT: Isn't this all contained in the summary?
DR. SERVATIUS: I did not see this summary; I do not know it.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, it extends over six or seven pages.
DR. SERVATIUS: I did not see it.