dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, we will pass several more pages of debate, unless there is something you want to call attention to; and I come to the point where Heydrich is stating his position. I call your attention to this dialogue: Goering: One moment, please. I find it now.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Is that correct? Goering: One moment. I do not find it here yet, but generally that is correct, yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Pass on a little further. Heydrich is making suggestions and says: Is that what you said? Goering: I said that. At that time the problem was also to get the Jews together in certain parts of the cities and in certain streets, because on the basis of the tenancy regulations there was no other possibility, and if the wearing of badges was to be made obligatory, each individual Jew could have been protected.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, passing further in the discussion, I call your attention to this warning from Heydrich about the measures which have been discussed: Did Heydrich give that warning? Goering: Here it says so, yes, but it can be seen from the following discussion that I said: "Now comes that which Goebbels mentioned before, compulsory renting. Now the Jewish tenants will come together." It was a question of the Jewish tenants drawmig together in, order to avoid the disagreeable results which arose from reciprocal subletting.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: You have omitted that Funk also remarked at this point that "Jews will have to stand together. What are 3 million? Every one will have to stand up for the next fellow. Alone he will starve." Do you find that? Goering: Yes. But in another part of these minutes it is stated very clearly: "One cannot let the Jews starve, and therefore the necessary measures must be taken."
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Toward the close of that meeting you said the following, didn't you? Goering: That was correct, yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Were you joking about that too? Goering: I have told you exactly what led to the fine of 1,000,000,000.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: You pointed out that the chauffeurs of Gauleiter must be prevented from enriching themselves through the Aryanization of Jewish property, right? Goering: Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: We will now take up the subject of art. I call your attention to Document 141-PS, Exhibit Number USA-308. That is the decree establishing priorities on the claim for Jewish art property. Do you recall that? Goering: That has been mentioned several times, and I have recently spoken about it in detail.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: The order was issued as here stated, was it not? Goering: Yes, certainly; I emphasized that.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: In Paragraph 5 reference is made to art objects that are suitable to be given to French museums, and which were to be sold by auction. The profit from this auction was to be given to the French State for the benefit of war widows and children. You say that this was never done? Goering: I did not say that this never happened. That was my intention in that decree.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, I am asking you if it ever has been done. Goering: As far as Paragraph 5 is concerned, I cannot say. I can only refer to the payments mentioned in Paragraph 2 -- the things that I pointed out -- which I had had effected after an estimate, and I said the other day that this amount was kept in readiness and that I repeatedly asked into which account it should be paid. And among the objects destined to go into the collection which I was to make, I had every single item valued.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Where was this amount kept? Goering: In my bank, under the name "Art Funds."
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: In what bank? Goering: It was -- I cannot say for sure, there were several banks -- in which bank exactly the art fund was deposited, I cannot say. I would have to have the documents here for that.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: In the several interrogations you have never been able to point out where that fund is, have you? Goering: I cannot say, but you would only have to question my secretary who kept account of all the funds; she can tell you quite accurately.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: This order, 141-PS, was carried out by the Rosenberg Special Staff (Einsatzstab), wasn't it? Goering: Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Did you know who carried it out, who actually was there? Did you know Turner? Goering: I did not understand the name.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Did you know Mr. Turner? Goering: I know a certain Turner, who, however, had nothing to do with the Einsatzstab, the Rosenberg Special Staff and who, as far as I know, was in Yugoslavia.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Wasn't State Counsellor Turner in Paris in connection with the art collections? Goering: I repeat again so that no error is possible, you said Turner, T-u-r-n-e-r, or Korner, K-o-r-n-e-r?
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Turner. Goering: Korner?
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: T-u-r-n-e-r. Goering: Turner -- I do not know whether he had anything to do with Rosenberg 's Einsatzstab.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: But you knew him, did you not? Goering: Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And did you know a Dr. Bunjes? Goering: Bunjes, B-u-n-j-e-s, yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: You knew him? Goering: Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: He had to do with captured or confiscated Jewish art treasures, did he not? Goering: I do not believe that Dr. Bunjes had anything to do with that. He was competent in a different field of art; but the Einsatzstab Rosenberg and certain departments of the military administration, had something to do with it.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I will ask to have you shown, so that you can follow me, to refresh your memory, Document 2523-PS, Exhibit Number USA-783, a letter from Dr. Bunjes, and ask you if this refreshes your recollection of certain events. Do you recall such a meeting? Goering: No, it was not important enough for me to remember it, but I do not deny it, in any case.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: We shall see if this refreshes your recollection: Goering: I cannot follow here.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: You mean you do not find these words, or you do not recall the events? Goering: No, I have not found the passage yet, and I would like to have a little time to see the context of this letter, which was neither written by me nor addressed to me.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Let me call your attention to a further paragraph of it and see if it does not refresh your recollection: Goering: Yes, I have already stated before that at Jeu de Paume I selected the art treasures which were exhibited there. That is right.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: That is right; now we are getting there. Now, does that refresh your memory? Goering: Not in the least, but it is not at all in contradiction to what I have said with respect to the art treasures, with the exception of one sentence. It is pure nonsense that I should have said that I was the highest jurist in the state because that, thank God, I was not. That is something which Mr.Bunjes said, and I cannot be held responsible for every statement which anyone may have made to somebody else without my having any possibility of correcting it. As for the rest, it corresponds to the statement I made recently.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, the art objects then were loaded on cars and shipped to Berlin, were they not? Goering: A part of them, yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I now call your attention to, and ask to have you shown, Document 014-PS, Exhibit Number USA-784. Now, I ask you to refresh your recollection by following this report to the Fuehrer with me, and tell me if this conforms with your testimony: Goering: I would like to point out that this report did not come from me.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I understand that. I am asking if it is right or wrong. Have you found that and is it correct? Goering: I do not know whether this is correct, since the report did not come from me. The only thing which I can remember is that I was asked by the Einsatzstab to see to it that a sufficient number of special cars, box cars was put at their disposal to ship the art treasures, since Jeu de Paume was not a safe place in case of air attacks. Neuschwanstein lies south of Munich. This concerns the objects destined for the Fuehrer. I should like, however, to refer to the next sentence of this document, which was not written by me. It goes as follows: That coincides with what I have said in my previous statements.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And would you care to read further? Goering: You mean where it says: They are those most precious works of art which I had designated for the Fuehrer, and which were to be sent, at the wish of the Fuehrer, to the air raid shelter. This had nothing to do directly with my affairs, but I did not dispute the fact, and I have explained it in detail.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: When you were examined by the American Foreign Assets Commission, you estimated your art objects as having a value, at the time you turned them over to the government, of 50 million Reichsmark, as I recall it. Am I right? Goering: That is not quite correct. The Commission insisted on a valuation, and the discussion continued a long time backwards and forward. I expressly told the Commission that I could not assess the value because I did not have the objects in hand nor a list of them, and I could not quote them from memory; furthermore, that the estimates were subject to fluctuation depending on the one hand upon the prices art lovers might pay and, on the other, upon the actual market value. Since I did not see a copy of the minutes, in spite of my pleas, and especially as minutes of this nature often give rise to misunderstandings, I can only acknowledge the records which I have signed.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, do you question this fact? "When I gave the news to the Minister of Finance I estimated the value at that time at 50 million marks." Did you say that or did you not? Goering: I cannot estimate the value. I only told the Finance Minister that the entire collection, including my own, would be turned over to the State. And since I know my passion for collecting, I thought that it was quite possible that something might suddenly happen to me, and that as I had put my entire fortune into these works of art, the entire collection might possibly become State, that is, public property, and my family would thus be deprived of every means of subsistence. I therefore asked him to provide for a pension or some compensation for my family. That was the negotiation with the Finance Minister, to which he can testify.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: What proportion of your art collection was acquired after 1933? Goering: I did not understand the question.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: What proportion of your art collection was acquired after 1933? Goering: That I could not say in detail -- quite a number of pictures and statues.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, you have claimed that some part of your art collection you bought? Goering: Certainly.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And in connection with that some inquiry was made into your financial transactions, was there not? Goering: I do not know who made the inquiries.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, you were asked, were you not, about your receipt of 7,276,000 Reichsmark from the Reemtsma cigarette factory? Goering: No, I was never asked about that.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: You were never asked about it? Goering: No, neither about the amount nor about the cigarette factory, nor anything else.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Let me refresh your recollection about that. Did you not tell them and did you not tell Colonel Amen in interrogations that this money was given to you by this cigarette factory and that their back taxes were canceled? Goering: No, I even denied that their back taxes were ever canceled. I remember now that the question was put to me in a different connection. A sum of money was set aside for the so-called Adolf Hitler Fund, and this amount the Fuehrer put at my disposal for general cultural tasks.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: By the cigarette factory? Goering: Not by the cigarette factory; a number of business men subscribed to the Adolf Hitler Fund, and Mr. Reemtsma gave me this sum from the fund in the course of the years, after agreement with the Fuehrer. A part of it was allotted to the State theaters, another part for building up art collections, and other cultural expenditure.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, you were interrogated on the 22d day of December 1945 by the External Assets Branch of the United States Investigation of Cartels and External Assets, were you not? Goering: May I first say explicitly that I had been asked whether I would be ready to make any statements about it, and was told that these statements would in no way be connected with this Trial. Therefore the presence of my defense counsel would not be necessary. This was expressly told me, and was repeated to me by the prison authorities, and before the interrogation it was again confirmed to me that these statements should in no way be brought in in connection with this Trial. However, that is all the same to me. You may produce them as far as I am concerned. But because of the method employed, I desire to have this made known here.
DR. STAHMER: I protest against the use of the statements for the reason that has just been given by the witness. I myself sometime ago -- I think it was around Christmas -- was asked by, I believe, members of the United States Treasury whether they could interrogate the Defendant Goering on questions of property, adding expressly that I did not have to be present at the interrogation because this had nothing to do with the Trial, and would not be used for it.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I am not able either to affirm or deny, and therefore I will not pursue this subject further at this time. I do not believe that any stipulation was made that these facts should not be gone into. I was not informed of it, and if there has been, of course, it would be absurd. [Turning to the witness.] Now, you were asked about receiving some art objects from Monte Cassino. Goering: Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I ask you if it is not the fact that an altar statue taken from the Cassino Abbey was brought and delivered to you, and that you expressed great appreciation for it. Goering: I am glad to be able to clarify this affair also. After the monastery of Monte Cassino had been completely destroyed by shelling and had been defended by a paratroop division, a delegation arrived one day bringing along a statue of some saint, entirely worthless from an artistic point of view, as a souvenir of this destroyed monastery. I thanked the men and showed the statue to the curator of my art collection, and he also considered the statue as of absolutely no value. It then remained in the box and was put away somewhere. The other ...
THE PRESIDENT: I do not think this is coming through sufficiently loud for the shorthand writers to hear. Goering: The rest of the art treasures from Monte Cassino, according to my knowledge, were shipped in the following manner: A large part, especially those objects which belonged to the old monastery itself, was sent to the Vatican. I must assume this from the fact that the abbot of the monastery sent me and my division a letter written in Latin in which he expressed his extreme gratitude for this action. Secondly, as far as I remember, the art treasures from the museum in Naples, which were at Monte Cassino, were for the greater part sent by us to Venice and there turned over to the Italian Government. Some pictures and statues were brought to Berlin, and there they were turned over to me. On the very same day I gave the list to the Fuehrer, and some time later also the objects themselves which were in my air raid shelter, so that he could negotiate about the matter with Mussolini. I did not keep a single one of these objects for my own collection. If my troops had not intervened, these priceless art treasures, which were stored in Monte Cassino and belonged to the monastery there, would have been entirely destroyed by enemy bombardment, that is to say, by the British-American attackers. Thus they have been saved.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, you say of no value -- no substantial value? Goering: That is even now my conviction, and I depended, above all, on the judgment of my experts. I never took this statue out of its packing case. It did not interest me. On the other hand, I wanted to say a few words of thanks to the men who brought it.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: The labor shortage in the Reich was becoming acute by November of 1941, was it not? Goering: That is correct.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And you yourself gave the directives for the employment of Russian prisoners of war, did you not? Goering: Employment for what?
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: For war industry -- tanks, artillery pieces, airplane parts. Goering: That is correct.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: That was at the conference of the 7th of November 1941, that you gave that order, was it not? Goering: At what conference that was I could not tell you; I issued these directives only in a general way.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And the directive was that Russian prisoners of war should be selected in collecting camps beyond the Reich border, and should be transported as rapidly as possible and employed in the following order of priority: mining, railroad maintenance, war industry -- tanks, artillery pieces, airplane parts, agriculture, building industry, et cetera . You gave that order, did you not? Goering: If I have signed it, the order is from me. I do not remember details.
THE PRESIDENT: What was the number of that, Mr. Jackson?
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I ask to have you shown Document Number 1193-PS. Goering: I have not seen it yet. [Document 1193-PS was submitted to the witness.] This document, which you have just mentioned ...
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I did not get the answer. Goering: Excuse me. I have just received a document about the use of Russian troops. Is that the document of which you speak?
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: That is right. I call your attention to the fact that it is referred to as an annex in the letter signed by Goering. Goering: I want to point out that thisdocument is not signed by me, but by Korner, which, however, does not diminish my responsibility.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, you do not question that on the 7th day of November 1941, you gave the order, as Korner reports it, do you, in the document referred to as 1193-PS? Goering: I said only that it was not signed by me but by Korner, and here even a still younger official, a Regierungsrat, and I wanted only to explain that this was my field and that therefore I assume responsibility. But I have not read it through yet. This deals with directives and outlines which I gave in general and which were then filled in and revised by the department concerned, whereby naturally not every word or every sentence written here was said or dictated by myself. But that does not alter the fact that I bear the responsibility for it, even if I did not know it in detail, or would have perhaps formulated it differently. But the general directives were given by me and implemented accordingly by the lesser authorities.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: You also gave the order, did you not, that 100,000 men were to be taken from among the French prisoners of war not yet employed in armament industry? Gaps in manpower resulting therefrom will be filled by Soviet prisoners of war. The transfer of the above-named French prisoners of war is to be accomplished by October the 1st. You gave the order, did you not? Goering: That is correct. Here we deal primarily with the fact that a large part of French skilled workers who were prisoners of war were turned into free workers on condition that they worked in the German armament industry. The shortages which occurred at their previous places of work at that time, where they had worked as prisoners of war, were to be remedied by Russian prisoners of war, because I considered it pointless that qualified skilled industrial workers should be employed in agriculture, for instance, or in any other field not corresponding to their abilities. Thus there was an incentive in the fact that these people could become free workers instead of remaining prisoners of war, if they would agree to these conditions. The directives were given by me.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And did you know that there was any forced labor employed in Germany? Goering: Compulsory labor.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Did you not testify under interiygation on the 3rd of October 1945, that: Did you say that? Goering: That is obvious, because without workers one cannot do any work.
THE PRESIDENT: I do not think you answered the question. The question was if you said the forced labor had been a succes. What do you have to say to that? Did you say that? Goering: I have said what I did in answering the question whether the manpower used was successful; yes, that is correct.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, you were shown a document, 3700-PS, written by Schacht to you, and you have said that you received it? Goering: Yes, I remember.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, you and Schacht were somewhat rivals in the economic field at one period, were you not? Goering: I explained that only recently, and to what extent.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: You wanted his position abolished in the event of war and he wanted your position abolished in event of war, did he not -- your economic position? Goering: Not quite. They were two similar authorities having similar powers at the same time, two personalities, and that in the long run was not possible. It simply had to be decided which one of the two should be the sole authority. That would have been especially necessary in case of a mobilization.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: You, in testifying on the 17th day of October last, as to your relations with Schacht, made this statement, did you not, in reference to your disagreements with Schacht: "This I must underline: Schacht always tried to maneuver for a new post, while all the other ministers co-operated absolutely." Did you say that? Goering: Not exactly as it is there, but I wanted to emphasize that, contrary to the other ministers who obediently followed my directives for the Four Year Plan, I had certain difficulties with Schacht, which I have already explained, due to his original and strong personality.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: The question was whether you made that statement in substance or in those words? Goering: Not exactly in these words, but as I have just explained, in substance.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, do you have in mind Schacht's letter to you, Document Number 3700-PS? Goering: Yes, I read it a short time ago.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And in that letter Schacht said this to you, did he not, referring to 3700-PS? "It may be militarily necessary. . . " Do you want to follow it? [Document 3700-PS was submitted to the witness.] Can you fix any more definitely than you have done the date when you received that letter? Goering: I can only say again that it is dated the 3rd of November, but the year is missing. If I were to be given a copy where the year is stated, I could give an exact answer. I have said recently that, according to my knowledge of events, it is a question of either November 1944 or November 1943. But, unfortunately, that is not indicated here. I can only see 3rd of November. The year is missing.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Do you know when Schacht was sent to the concentration camp? Do you know the date of that? Goering: Not exactly, but now that you remind me of it, I can say that this letter certainly was not written in 1944 because in November 1944, I believe, Mr. Schacht was already in the concentration camp; consequently, it must date back to November 1943.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And he was sent to the concentration camp shortly after dispatching that letter to you, wasn't he? Goering: No, that is not correct.