dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
HERR PELCKMANN: Morgen in person, since his testimony concerns the most important matters. [Turning to the witness.] What was Himmler's attitude with regard to these investigations? REINECKE: When the crimes were discovered at Buchenwald, at the end of 1943, Himmler was given a report on the matter at once, and he was throughout kept informed of the progress of the investigations. Himmler displayed very considerable activity, and he himself ordered that the investigations be strictly carried out. Only with his authority was it possible at all to pass the gates of the concentration camps. Then in the middle of 1944, he suddenly issued an order to the contrary. As the highest legal authority, he ordered that the proceedings against Koch should mark the end of all judicial investigations in concentration camps. Koch had been sentenced to death and was to be hanged publicly before the assembled detainees. Pohl was to direct the execution personally and was to address the attending guards with appropriate words. The other perpetrators were to report their crimes voluntarily and in the event of such a voluntary report, he, Himmler, might possibly pardon or reprieve them. Any one who failed to report his crimes could only expect the court's sentence of death. The chief of the head office "SS Courts" protested against this order from Himmler. He did not, however, obtain a final decision from Himmler, though Himmler tolerated the future proceedings. The head office "SS Courts" at that time intentionally delayed the completion of the case against Koch so as to have an opportunity of extending the investigating activities to other camps, and that was actually achieved. The investigating commissions of the Reich Criminal Police Department, which had already been withdrawn as a result of Himmler's order, resumed their activities, and from the autumn of 1944 the investigations were continued on a broad basis. Authoritative powers, which were necessary in view of Pohl's lasting resistance, were issued by the special judge of the Reichs-führer, and could not be ignored even by Pohl.
HERR PELCKMANN: HERR PELCKMANN: The details of this dramatic exchange between Pohl, Himmler, and the SS legal authorities are also de-scribed in Dr. Morgen's affidavits Numbers 65 to 67. Did you, Witness, in the course of these investigations, learn of measures or orders from Himmler or Hitler for the biological exter-mination of Jewry? REINECKE: No. We neither saw such orders at any time, nor did we succeed, in the course of our investigations, in getting hold of them or in gaining knowledge of them in any other way. Such monstrous orders we could not imagine. Himmler had always shown us only an ideal face: cleanliness, decency, fight against crime at all costs. At the end of 1943, on the occasion of a con-ference, he confirmed these principles to me personally and in detail. That a system of mass extermination should exist was an idea which, under the circumstances, no one could possibly imagine. We found horrifying conditions in the concentration camps, and we learned many things which shocked us, but that idea was never in our minds. Names like Hoess and Eichmann did come up during our investigations and proceedings were, in fact, instituted against both, but at the end of the war they were still in their initial stages. Hoess and Eichmann were to us merely names like Brown or Jones. No one could possibly guess that behind these men the henchmen of a dreadful system of extermination were hiding. Even when, at the end of 1944 and the beginning of 1945, we came near to establishing the actual cause of the crimes committed in concen-tration camps, namely, that crimes were being carried out by order, this line of defense of Pohl, Miller, and Grawitz still appeared incredible, because if there really had been orders from above carried out by these three persons, then it should have been easy for them to go to Himmler and to demand the exclusion of the legal authorities from these matters.
REINECKE: Oh no, this man Pohl did not proceed as clumsily as that. Outwardly he pretended to welcome and support with all means the investigating work of the head office "SS Courts." And that was how he represented the matter to Himmler, after we had drawn Himmler's attention to Pohl's somewhat doubtful role. In reality, Pohl sabotaged with all the means of his tremendously powerful position the investigations we were making and worked hand in glove with the detainees and the criminal commanders, as we proved on the basis of evidence. In 1941, to mention one outstanding example, when our first investigation in the Buchenwald Concentration Camp failed, as I have described, Pohl wrote a letter to the camp commander Koch, which I have read myself, and which contained the following: "I shall use all the power of my position to protect you if some unemployed lawyer should again stretch out his greedy hangman's hands toward your clean, immaculate person." That is how Pohl always worked. He was not only caught in the death machinery of the concentration camps, but he became at the same time the most corrupt person in the whole Reich. Of that we found evidence toward the end of the war through the many proceedings against organizations which he headed in private busi-ness. As head of that criminal clique, he actually tried to under-mine the system of trustees among the detainees, which he knew might endanger his own person. He had one of our confidential agents in the camp of Sachsenhausen-his name was Rothe-locked up and was trying to elicit, under false pretenses, an order from the Reich Security Main Office, or rather the Reich Criminal Police Department, to have the man hanged publicly before all the detainees of the camp so as to intimidate them and at the same time make the investigation work of the legal authorities impos-sible. One of our investigating officers heard of this in time and was able to prevent it at the last moment. HERR PELCKMANN: More slowly please, Witness, much more slowly.
REINECKE: THE PRESIDENT: Well, we had better adjourn now. We have already been 50 minutes. [The Tribunal adjourned until 8 August 1946 at 1000 hours.] In 1941, to mention one outstanding example, when our first investigation in the Buchenwald Concentration Camp failed, as I have described, Pohl wrote a letter to the camp commander Koch, which I have read myself, and which contained the following: "I shall use all the power of my position to protect you if some unemployed lawyer should again stretch out his greedy hangman's hands toward your clean, immaculate person." That is how Pohl always worked. He was not only caught in the death machinery of the concentration camps, but he became at the same time the most corrupt person in the whole Reich. Of that we found evidence toward the end of the war through the many proceedings against organizations which he headed in private busi-ness. As head of that criminal clique, he actually tried to under-mine the system of trustees among the detainees, which he knew might endanger his own person. He had one of our confidential agents in the camp of Sachsenhausen-his name was Rothe-locked up and was trying to elicit, under false pretenses, an order from the Reich Security Main Office, or rather the Reich Criminal Police Department, to have the man hanged publicly before all the detainees of the camp so as to intimidate them and at the same time make the investigation work of the legal authorities impos-sible. One of our investigating officers heard of this in time and was able to prevent it at the last moment. HERR PELCKMANN: More slowly please, Witness, much more slowly. These are important statements, and the translation is not simple. REINECKE: That was how this criminal Pohl worked. The most important support in his fight against the legal authorities was the Führer Order Number 1, regarding secrecy, which was posted in every office of the SS and Police.
REINECKE: THE PRESIDENT: Well, we had better adjourn now. We have already been 50 minutes. [The Tribunal adjourned until 8 August 1946 at 1000 hours.] "I shall use all the power of my position to protect you if some unemployed lawyer should again stretch out his greedy hangman's hands toward your clean, immaculate person." That is how Pohl always worked. He was not only caught in the death machinery of the concentration camps, but he became at the same time the most corrupt person in the whole Reich. Of that we found evidence toward the end of the war through the many proceedings against organizations which he headed in private busi-ness. As head of that criminal clique, he actually tried to under-mine the system of trustees among the detainees, which he knew might endanger his own person. He had one of our confidential agents in the camp of Sachsenhausen-his name was Rothe-locked up and was trying to elicit, under false pretenses, an order from the Reich Security Main Office, or rather the Reich Criminal Police Department, to have the man hanged publicly before all the detainees of the camp so as to intimidate them and at the same time make the investigation work of the legal authorities impos-sible. One of our investigating officers heard of this in time and was able to prevent it at the last moment. HERR PELCKMANN: More slowly please, Witness, much more slowly. These are important statements, and the translation is not simple. REINECKE: That was how this criminal Pohl worked. The most important support in his fight against the legal authorities was the Führer Order Number 1, regarding secrecy, which was posted in every office of the SS and Police. According to that order, matters which had to be kept secret could only be communicated to the persons immediately concerned, and even those could be told only as much as they absolutely had to know, and even then, only for the period in which they were actively concerned with the partic-ular matters.
REINECKE: Everything in the concentration camps was secret; only with special passes and credentials was it possible to enter them. The work done by the detainees was secret, ostensibly because "V" weapons were being, produced. The other doings of the detainees were secret, ostensibly for reasons of counter intelligence. Corre-spondence on concentration camps was "secret," and for that reason could not be checked at all. For years Pohl deftly withdrew behind this screen of close secrecy, and he surrendered to the advancing investigation of the legal authorities only step by step whenever on the basis of individual facts he was systematically cornered. HERR PELCKMANN: Then, Witness, do you believe that with the results you have just described you came near to discovering the real extent of the crimes, as we have learned them from the pro-ceedings here? REINECKE: To the extent to which I know them today, certainly not. And the reason for that is that the legal authorities of the SS and Police dealt with all these crimes as individual crimes, and were unable for long years to detect the system of criminality as it can be recognized today. When toward the end of 1944 the legal authorities succeeded, on the strength of individual facts, in cornering the criminals Pohl and Grawitz, and also Müller from the Gestapo, who was covering up many of the crimes, it was for the first time that these men referred to orders from above. The investigations which the legal authorities then commenced along a new line collapsed together with the Ger-man war machine. HERR PELCKMANN: Did you then, toward the end of 1944, come near to discovering the actual extent of the crimes, the mass exterminations? REINECKE: It was clear at the end of 1944 that orders from above must exist, but it was not recognizable even then that they dealt with mass exterminations of a tremendous extent. HERR PELCKMANN: According to the result of the investiga-tions you have just described, who was responsible for the crimes which were revealed? .
REINECKE: REINECKE: Of the highest superiors, Pohl; next to him the former Reich medical officer of the SS and Police, Grawitz; and next to him the Chief of the Gestapo, Miller. Apart from these, the commanders of the concentration camps, members of the com-manders' staffs, medical officers in concentration camps, and to a considerable extent, criminal detainees in the concentration camps. HERR PELCKMANN: Would it therefore be correct to say that without distinction all members of the groups of persons which you have just mentioned participated in the crimes? REINECKE: No, that is not correct. The investigations which we carried out proved clearly that certain camps were perfectly in order, that not every commander was a criminal, and that many, members of the commanders' staffs and many medical officers knew nothing about the crimes. Above all the guards in the concentration camps had nothing whatever to do with the crimes, because they themselves were unable to gain knowledge of the real happenings within the concentration camps. HERR PELCKMANN: You have been speaking about the com-mander at the concentration camp of Buchenwald, Koch. His case has already been mentioned in the course of these proceedings, and the Prosecution at that time alleged, on the basis of testimony given by the detainee Blaha, that Koch had been sentenced for embezzle-ment and for the murder of three persons whose existence was in-convenient to him. The Prosecution described the case in a way which gave the impression that at that time the SS court had simply ignored the numerous other cases of killings. Is that correct, as far as you know? REINECKE: No, that is not correct. The proceedings against Koch were based on a charge of corruption, and on that charge he was sentenced to death. The actual contents of the findings against Koch, that is, the reason for the death sentence imposed on him was the system of murder, a system which Koch invented and applied in many cases.
REINECKE: This version of the findings had to be chosen because there was evidence of so many crimes which Koch had committed in the distant past and of which the traces had meanwhile been eliminated, that if it had been possible at all, it would have taken long months and years to clear up these individual cases. It was for that reason that, using the shortest possible means of proof to put a stop to Koch's activities at once, these three cases were taken up as being typical, but he was in fact sentenced for the system of murder in the Buchenwald Concentration. Camp. HERR PELCKMANN: The testimony of this witness on these events is supported by the affidavits SS-65, 64, 66, 67, 68, and 69. No, not 68, 1 listed that by mistake; not 68, but 64 through 67, and 69. These affidavits were deposed by the investigating judge, Dr. Morgen, who was to have appeared here as a witness. Un-fortunately, he only arrived at the beginning of July, just before the hearings before the Commission were completed, and I was not able to prepare him for his examination in time. I have submitted his affidavit, however, and the High Tribunal will be able to judge whether it might possibly be necessary to hear Dr. Morgen in person, since his testimony concerns the most important matters. [Turning to the witness.] What was Himmler's attitude with regard to these investigations? REINECKE: When the crimes were discovered at Buchenwald, at the end of 1943, Himmler was given a report on the matter at once, and he was throughout kept informed of the progress of the investigations. Himmler displayed very considerable activity, and he himself ordered that the investigations be strictly carried out. Only with his authority was it possible at all to pass the gates of the concentration camps. Then in the middle of 1944, he suddenly issued an order to the contrary. As the highest legal authority, he ordered that the proceedings against Koch should mark the end of all judicial investigations in concentration camps.
REINECKE: Koch had been sentenced to death and was to be hanged publicly before the assembled detainees. Pohl was to direct the execution personally and was to address the attending guards with appropriate words. The other perpetrators were to report their crimes voluntarily and in the event of such a voluntary report, he, Himmler, might possibly pardon or reprieve them. Any one who failed to report his crimes could only expect the court's sentence of death. The chief of the head office "SS Courts" protested against this order from Himmler. He did not, however, obtain a final decision from Himmler, though Himmler tolerated the future proceedings. The head office "SS Courts" at that time intentionally delayed the completion of the case against Koch so as to have an opportunity of extending the investigating activities to other camps, and that was actually achieved. The investigating commissions of the Reich Criminal Police Department, which had already been withdrawn as a result of Himmler's order, resumed their activities, and from the autumn of 1944 the investigations were continued on a broad basis. Authoritative powers, which were necessary in view of Pohl's lasting resistance, were issued by the special judge of the Reichs-führer, and could not be ignored even by Pohl. HERR PELCKMANN: The details of this dramatic exchange between Pohl, Himmler, and the SS legal authorities are also de-scribed in Dr. Morgen's affidavits Numbers 65 to 67. Did you, Witness, in the course of these investigations, learn of measures or orders from Himmler or Hitler for the biological exter-mination of Jewry? REINECKE: No. We neither saw such orders at any time, nor did we succeed, in the course of our investigations, in getting hold of them or in gaining knowledge of them in any other way. Such monstrous orders we could not imagine. Himmler had always shown us only an ideal face: cleanliness, decency, fight against crime at all costs. At the end of 1943, on the occasion of a con-ference, he confirmed these principles to me personally and in detail.
REINECKE: That a system of mass extermination should exist was an idea which, under the circumstances, no one could possibly imagine. We found horrifying conditions in the concentration camps, and we learned many things which shocked us, but that idea was never in our minds. Names like Hoess and Eichmann did come up during our investigations and proceedings were, in fact, instituted against both, but at the end of the war they were still in their initial stages. Hoess and Eichmann were to us merely names like Brown or Jones. No one could possibly guess that behind these men the henchmen of a dreadful system of extermination were hiding. Even when, at the end of 1944 and the beginning of 1945, we came near to establishing the actual cause of the crimes committed in concen-tration camps, namely, that crimes were being carried out by order, this line of defense of Pohl, Miller, and Grawitz still appeared incredible, because if there really had been orders from above carried out by these three persons, then it should have been easy for them to go to Himmler and to demand the exclusion of the legal authorities from these matters. And so we ourselves, in spite of these painstaking efforts of the investigations, had no clear judicial evidence that mass extermina-tions; on a large scale-not to mention the biological extermination of Jewry-had been carried out, and we continued, as before, to investigate the crimes from the point of view that they were indi-vidual crimes, although they had been carried out to an alarming extent and in alarmingly large numbers. HERR PELCKMANN: There exists a pamphlet called SS in Dachau, issued by the American CIC, by a Colonel Quinn. Unfor-tunately I cannot submit it to the Tribunal at this time, because I had to return it. But it is in the library and is generally known. It contains testimony given by an anonymous inmate and signed ... THE PRESIDENT: You should have taken a copy of the docu-ment. You cannot testify or tell us what the document is if you cannot produce it.
REINECKE: The fact that it had to go back to the library is no reason why you don't have it. There would have been no objection to your bringing a copy of it. HERR PELCICAANN: May I try to bring a copy after the recess, Mr. President? THE PRESIDENT: Yes, if you would like to. HERR PELCKMANN: It contains a statement by an anonymous ... THE PRESIDENT: Well, we do not want to know what it con-tains. We do not accept from you what it contains. HERR PELCKMANN: In that case, I shall postpone this question. Witness, evidence has been submitted to this Tribunal that in the gas chambers at Auschwitz and other places, millions of Jews were murdered. You, however, discovered in your investigations that individual persons and a small circle of persons committed the crimes which you described. Is it possible, as far as you know, that this comparatively small circle of persons is also responsible for the extermination of these millions? REINECKE: Investigations of the head office "SS Courts," particularly the final stages of the investigations just before the end of the war, show that individual persons and a small circle of -persons are also exclusively responsible for these things. Other-wise, these outrageous things could not possibly have escaped the attention of the legal authorities for so long. HERR PELCKMANN: Did you, in your conversations with Dr. Morgen, gather any further information which might support this assertion? REINECKE: Dr. Morgen was a judge before me, who during all the years was attached to the Reich Criminal Police Department in order to carry out investigations in the concentration camps from there. Dr. Morgen has extensive knowledge. I know today that he himself talked with those responsible for these mass exterminations, and he gained a clear insight into all these matters. He can prove ,that the origin of the extermination of the Jews is not to be found in the SS but in the Chancellery of the Führer. THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Pelckmann, I understood from you that you put-that you were putting in two affidavits from Dr. Morgen, is that right? HERR PELCKMANN: Three, Mr. President.
REINECKE: THE PRESIDENT: Well, three-five, if you like; but this witness cannot tell us what Dr. Morgen says. Dr. Morgen must speak for himself from his affidavits. HERR PELCKMANN: In that case, perhaps I may return to this when I submit the affidavits. [Turning to the witness.] It is alleged by the Prosecution that these acts could not have been deeds of individuals, but that the logical application of the Party Program regarding the Jewish ques-tion had to lead to these crimes at Auschwitz. What can you say to that from your own knowledge and experience of the fight against these crimes? REINECKE: I have already said that Himmler always showed the SS only his ideal face, and these ideals were considered by the SS as the expression of the Party Program. Hitler's order for the biological extermination of Jewry, as I know it today, is an absolute ... THE PRESIDENT: He said that over and over again about Himmler showing his ideal face to the SS. He said it before, you know. He should not have to say it more than once. HERR PELCKMANN: May I ask him, Mr. President, what his attitude is on the allegation of the Prosecution that the extermina-tion of Jews in Auschwitz was considered by members of the SS as a logical outcome of the principles which the SS had learned? THE PRESIDENT: How can he give evidence about that? He can tell us what he saw and what he did. He hasn't told us yet whether he has ever been in the concentration camps. HERR PELCKMANN: Witness, did you know anything about the activity of the Einsatzgruppen and Einsatzkommandos of the Security Police and the SD in the East, as they have been mentioned here in this Trial? REINECKE: I knew nothing about them. I only knew that the Security Police was stationed in the operational zone in the East, where it was carrying out security measures, and I believed that this was the task of the Security Police in that area. The legal authorities never knew of any other orders in that connection, and it was only here that we heard of these things for the first time.