dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
DR. KAUFFMANN: Therefore, for the sake of justice, I must show you that Kaltenbrunner is not the type of man repeatedly described by the Prosecution, namely, the "little Himmler," his "confidant," the "second Heydrich." I do not believe that he is the cold-hearted being which the witness Gisevius described in such unfavorable terms, although only from hearsay. The Defendant Jodl has testified before you that Kaltenbrunner was not among those of Hitler's confidants who always gathered around him after the daily situation conferences in the Fuehrer's headquarters. The witness Dr. Mildner, on the basis of direct observation, made the following statement, which was not shaken by the Prosecution: "From my own observation I can confirm this: I know the Defendant Kaltenbrunner personally. His private life was irreproachable. In my opinion he was promoted from Higher SS and Police Leader to Chief of the Security Police and of the SD because Himmler, after the death of his principal rival Heydrich in June 1942, did not want any man near him or under him who might have endangered his own position. The Defendant Kaltenbrunner was no doubt the least dangerous man for Himmler. Kaltenbrunner had no ambition to bring his influence to bear through special deeds and ultimately to push Himmler aside. He was not hungry for power. It is wrong to call him the 'little Himmler.' " The witnesses Von Eberstein, Wanneck, and Dr. Hoettl have expressed themselves in a similar manner. And yet this man took over the Reich Security Main Office; indeed, he took it over to the fullest extent, despite his agreement with Himmler. I know that today this man is suffering a great deal in thinking of the catastrophe that has overtaken his people and from the uneasiness of his conscience; nothing is more understandable than that Dr. Kaltenbrunner, knowingly, can no longer face the fact that he actually was in charge of an office under the burden of which the very stones would have cried out if that had been possible.
DR. KAUFFMANN: The personality and character of this man must be judged differently from the way the Prosecution has judged it. For the psychologist the question arises how a man, with, let us say, a normal citizen's virtues, could take under his control an office which became the very symbol of human enslavement in the twentieth century, as far as Germany is concerned. Yet there may have been two reasons for taking over this office, nevertheless. One is based on the fact that Dr. Kaltenbrunner, although closely connected with the political and cultural interests of his Austrian homeland, supported National Socialism in its larger sense. For before he turned into the side path with its secrets, he marched with thousands and hundreds of thousands of other Germans, who desired nothing else than delivery from the unstable conditions prevailing at that time, on that wide road into which the eyes of the entire world had insight. Therefore, for example, he was without a doubt a disciple of anti-Semitism, however, only in the sense of the necessity of putting an end to the flooding of the German race with alien elements; but he condemned just as emphatically the mad crime of the physical annihilation of the Jewish race, as Dr. Hoettl definitely assures us. Certainly Kaltenbrunner also admired Hitler's personality as long as it did not, little by little, give expression to its absolutely misanthropic and therefore un-German nature. Also, he approved in principle, as he himself admitted during his interrogation, of measures which implied more or less severe compulsion, for example, the organization of labor training camps. For this reason no sensible person will want to question the fact that he deemed the establishment of concentration camps fundamentally quite proper, at least as a provisional measure during the war, as had been the case for a long time beyond the German borders. Sine ira et studio.
DR. KAUFFMANN: The establishment of concentration camps, or whatever one wishes to call those places at the mention of which the listener involuntarily is reminded of the words of Dante, is unfortunately not unknown in many states. History knows of their existence in South Africa some decades ago, in Russia, England, and America during this war, for the admission, among others, of Persons who for reasons of conscience do not want to serve with arms. In Bavaria, in the land in which the Tribunal at present sits, this sort of camp is also known; also known is the so-called "automatic arrest" category for certain groups of Germans. Under the heading "Political Principles," in Point B-5 of the text of the mutual declaration of the three leading statesmen on the Potsdam Conference of 17 July 1945, the statement is contained that, among others, all persons who are a threat to the occupation or its aims shall be arrested or interned. The apparent necessity for camps of this sort is thereby recognized. I myself detest those institutions of human slavery; but I state openly that these institutions also lie on the road which, when followed to the end, can and does bring suffering to persons holding different views to those desired by the state. By this the crimes against humanity in the German concentration camps are not in the least to be minimized. As far as Kaltenbrunner is concerned, this man, in view of his character and attitude as apparent since 1943, according to my conviction and as can be affirmed by many witnesses, is basically a National Socialist leader who noted only with repugnance the general trend of the continually growing wave of terror and enslavement in Germany. For this reason I deem it important to point to the statement of the witness Eigruber to the effect that the claim of the Prosecution that Kaltenbrunner established Mauthausen is wrong. The second reason lies in the subject of the two conversations with Himmler, about which Kaltenbrunner testified.
DR. KAUFFMANN: According to that Kaltenbrunner was prepared to take over the offices of the Domestic and Foreign Intelligence Service in the Reich Security Main Office with the promise of Himmler that he would be allowed to expand this service into a central agency, with the aim of absorbing the Political Intelligence Service and joining it with the hitherto military one of Admiral Canaris. No doubt it is true, as the witnesses Wanneck, Dr. Hoettl, Dr. Mildner, and Ohlendorf, and also the defendant himself have testified, that Himmler, with Kaltenbrunner's wish in mind, after the murder of Heydrich, intervened in the executive realm so that nothing of any importance took place in any executive field in Germany without Himmler having the final word and thus issuing the decisive order. The witness Wanneck confirmed the subject of those two conversations of Kaltenbrunner with Himmler in the following words, which I shall quote because of their importance: "When material problems arose Kaltenbrunner frequently remarked that he had come to an understanding with Himmler to work rather in the field of the Foreign Political Intelligence Service and that Himmler himself wanted to exert more influence in executive functions. To my knowledge Himmler agreed to these adjustments all the more since he believed that he could depend on Kaltenbrunner's political instinct in foreign affairs, as was apparent from various remarks made by Himmler." Various witnesses have testified that Kaltenbrunner, predominantly and from inner conviction, did dedicate himself to the Domestic and Foreign Intelligence Service and more and more approached the influence on domestic and foreign politics he was hoping for. I call attention again to Wanneck and Dr. Hoettl, and then also to the Defendants Jodl, Seyss-Inquart, and Fritzsche. Dr.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Hoettl testified: "In my opinion Kaltenbrunner never was completely master of the large Reich Security Main Office and, from lack of interest in police and executive problems, occupied himself far more with the Intelligence Service and with exerting influence on politics as a whole. This he considered his real domain." From the testimony by General Jodl I stress the following sentences: "Before Kaltenbrunner took over the Intelligence Service from Canaris he already sent to me, from time to time, very good reports from the southeastern territory, through which I first noticed his experience in the Intelligence Service... I had the impression that this man knew his business; I now received constant reports from Kaltenbrunner, just as earlier from Canaris; not only the actual reports from agents, but from time to time he sent to me, I might almost say, a political survey on the basis of his individual reports from agents. I noticed these condensed reports on the entire political situation abroad especially, because they revealed, with a frankness and sobriety never possible under Canaris, the seriousness of our entire military position." The results therefore, which I must deduce from the evidence, are as follows: Kaltenbrunner, on the basis of the separation of the Intelligence Service from the executive police function in the Reich Security Main Office as desired by him, actually held a position, the main interest of which was the Intelligence Service and its continuous development. I should add that this Intelligence Service covered more than Europe; it went from the North Cape to Crete and Africa, from Stalingrad and Leningrad to the Pyrenees. Kaltenbrunner was the most zealous of all those in Germany who wished to feel the pulse of the enemy nations. That was the lifework of this man as he himself wished it to be for the duration of the war. Personally he lived in modest circumstances, and it is the truth when I say that he leaves the stage of political life just as poor as when he first entered it.
DR. KAUFFMANN: The witness Wanneck once quoted a statement by Kaltenbrunner which is characteristic of him: That he, Kaltenbrunner, would retire completely from office after the war and return to the land as a farmer. Only with deep regret will the spectator see that under the pressure of political and military events this man did not observe the limitations desired by himself. His obedience to Hitler, and therefore also Himmler, submitted to the apparent necessity, in the years 1943-45, of guaranteeing the stability of conditions inside Germany through police compulsion. Thereby he became involved in guilt; for it is clear that he might count on a milder judgment on his guilt before the conscience of the world only if he could produce evidence that he actually effected a sharp separation from the unholy Amt IV of the Secret Police, if he had in no way participated in the ideas and methods, which I believe, eventually led to the institution of this whole Trial. I cannot deny that he did not undertake this separation. Nothing is clearly proved in this direction; even his own testimony speaks against him. Thus his statement at the beginning of his examination before the Tribunal may be explained, which I should like to define as the thesis of his guilt: "Question: 'You realize that a very special accusation has been brought against you. The Prosecution accuses you of Crimes against Peace as well as of your role of an intellectual principal or of a participant in committing Crimes against Humanity and against the rules of war. Finally the Prosecution has connected your name with the terrorism of the Gestapo and with the cruelties in the concentration camps. I now ask you: Do you assume responsibility for these points of accusation, as they are outlined and familiar to you?"' And Kaltenbrunner answers: "First of all I should like to state to the Court that I am fully aware of the serious nature of the accusations brought against me.
DR. KAUFFMANN: I know that the hatred of the world is directed against me, since I am the only one here to answer to the world and to the Court, because a Himmler, a Muller, a Poll are no longer alive . . . I want to state at the very beginning that I assume responsibility for every wrong which from the time of my appointment as Chief of the Reich Security Main Office was committed within the jurisdiction of that office as far as it occurred under my actual command, and I thus knew or should have known of these occurrences." Thus the duty of the Defense. is automatically delineated by asking the questions: (1) What did Kaltenbrunner do, good and evil, after his appointment as Chief of the Reich Security Main Office on 1 February 1943? (2) To what extent is the statement justified that in the essential points he did not have sufficient knowledge of all the Crimes against Humanity and against the rules of war? (3) In how far can his guilt be established from the viewpoint that he should have known about the serious crimes against international law in which AmtIV of the Reich Security Main Office (Secret State Police) was directly or indirectly involved? What has Kaltenbrunner done? In this connection I am passing over the accusation brought against him by the Prosecution for his participation in the events surrounding the occupation of Austria and Czechoslovakia, for no matter with what energy he followed his goal of seeing his Austrian homeland incorporated into the German Reich and used the SS forces under his command for the realization of this end, this aim cannot have been a criminal one according to the world's conscience. Just as little could one reach a verdict of criminal guilt because of the forcible means employed at that time to accomplish the annexation of Austria, which was the outcome of history and desired by millions. Kaltenbrunner was still much too insignificant a man for that.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Economic distress-Anschluss movement-National Socialism: That was the path followed by the majority of the Austrian people, not the National Socialist ideology; for Hitler himself was, from the standpoint of Austrianism, a spiritual and political renegade. Yet the Austrian Anschluss movement was a people's movement before National Socialism had reached any importance in Germany. Austria wanted to protect herself against the Versailles and St. Germain ruling, which forbade the Anschluss, by holding a plebiscite in each province. After 90 percent had voted in Tyrol and Salzburg, the victorious powers threatened to discontinue the shipment of food supplies. Hitler's seizure of power paralyzed the desire for~Anschluss among those not sympathizing with the Party, but the distress in Austria became still more acute and isolated the Dollfuss-Schuschnigg regime. Incorporation into the economic sphere of Greater Germany, where the removal of mass unemployment seemed to be the source of hope, appeared to the greatly distressed Austrian people as the only way out. The wave of enthusiasm which on 12 and 13 March 1933 went through all Austria was real. To try to deny this today would be to falsify history. The Anschluss, not the Dollfuss-Schuschnigg Government, was based on democracy. Just as little can one, I believe, according to the reasons mentioned above, reach a verdict of guilt for Kaltenbrunner because of his alleged activity in the question of Czechoslovakia. In my opinion, the question of guilt and expiation arises only for the time after 1 February 1943. The indignation of the German people over one of the most infamous terroristic measures, the imposition of protective custody, had already become immense before this date. Is it correct to say that Kaltenbrunner himself, of whom many orders for protective custody bearing his signature are in evidence before the Court, inwardly abhorred this type of suppression of human liberties?
DR. KAUFFMANN: May I refer to just a few sentences from his interrogations: "Question: 'Did you know that protective custody was at all permissible and was used frequently?' "Answer: 'As I have stated, I discussed the idea of "protective custody" with Himmler already in 1942. But I believe that already before this time I had corresponded quite extensively on this subject with him, as well as once also with Thierack. I consider protective custody as applied in Germany only in a smaller number of cases to be a necessity of state, or better a measure such as is justified by war. For the rest I often voiced my opinion, well founded in legal history, against this conception and against the application of protective custody in principle. I had several discussions about it with Himmler and with Hitler also. I publicly took my stand against it at a meeting of public prosecutors, I think in 1944, because I have always been of the opinion that a man's freedom is one of his highest possessions and only the lawful sentence of a regular court of justice founded on the Constitution may limit or take away this freedom."' Here the same man expresses the right principles, the observance of which would have spared the German people and the world untold suffering, and the nonobservance of which constitutes the guilt of this man who in spite of his right views, suited his actions to the so-called necessity of state. He thereby, against his own will and knowledge, became subject to the principle of hatred, which sooner or later will always shake or shatter the foundations of the strongest state. "Right is what benefits the people," Hitler had proclaimed. I well know that Kaltenbrunner today deeply regrets having adhered too long to that false maxim without putting up sufficient resistance...
DR. KAUFFMANN: Although the Prosecution has not been able to produce even one single original signature of Kaltenbrunner in connection with orders for protective custody, and I do not think it incredible when Kaltenbrunner deposes that he himself never put into effect such an order for protective custody by his signature, nevertheless, in view of the tragic results due to so many of these orders, I do not need to say even one word as to whether he is entirely blameless or is much less to blame because these orders had perhaps been signed without his knowledge; although of course the question arises immediately how this was possible in an office however large. Be that as it may; in affairs of such depth and such tragic outcome one's feelings are inclined to make hardly any distinction between knowledge and ignorance due to negligence, because one wants to hold everyone occupying a post in an office responsible for what happens there. This recognition is also the meaning of Kaltenbrunner's statement, cited above, regarding his fundamental responsibility. Where the happiness and fate of living men are involved, it is impossible to retreat under the pretext of ignorance in order to avoid punishment; at best mitigation of sentence can be asked for. The defendant knows this too. Orders for protective custody were the ominous harbingers of the concentration camp. And I am not revealing a secret when I say that the responsibility for issuing orders for protective custody includes the beginning of responsibility for the fate of those held in the concentration camps. I could never admit that Dr. Kaltenbrunner may have known of the excesses suffered by the thousands who languished in the camps; for, as soon as the gates of the concentration camps were closed, there began the exclusive influence of that other office, the frequently mentioned Central Office for Economy and Administration. Instead of referring to many statements of witnesses regarding this point, I refer only to the one of the witness Dr.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Hoettl who, when asked about subordination in rank replied: "The concentration camps were exclusively under the command of the SS Central Office f or Economy and Administration, hence not under the Reich Security Main Office, and therefore not under Kaltenbrunner. In this sphere he had no authority of command and no competency." Other witnesses have said that of necessity Kaltenbrunner should have had knowledge of the sad conditions in the concentration camps, but there is no doubt that the commandants of the concentration camps themselves deliberately concealed criminal excesses of the guards even from their superiors. It is furthermore a fact that the conditions found by the Allies upon their arrival were almost exclusively the results of the catastrophic military and economic situation during the last weeks of the war, which the world mistakenly identified with general conditions in former times as well. The above statement is fully verified by the statements of the camp commandant of Auschwitz, Hoess, who because of his later activity in the Concentration Camp Department of the Central Office for Economy and Administration, had an accurate over-all picture. Hoess has no ulterior motive whatsoever to give false testimony. A person like him, who sent millions of men to their deaths, no longer comes under the authority of human judges and considerations. Hoess stated: "The so-called ill-treatment and tortures in the concentration camps were not, as assumed, a policy. They were rather excesses of individual leaders, subleaders, and men who laid violent hands upon the inmates." These people themselves were, according to the statement of Hoess, taken to task for that. I believe I need not go into any more details of how, according to various witnesses, visitors to concentration camps were impressed and surprised by the good condition, cleanliness, and order in the camps; and therefore no suspicion was aroused as to special sufferings of the inmates.
DR. KAUFFMANN: But it would be in the worst taste if I contested the fact that a chief of the Intelligence Service, if only on the basis of foreign news of atrocities, should not have felt a responsibility, in the interest of humanity, to clear up any doubts arising in that sphere. The lack of knowledge seems to be confirmed by the statement of Dr: Meyer of the International Red Cross, since the permission to allow the International Red Cross to visit the Jewish Camp at Theresienstadt and to allow food and medical supplies to be sent in, coming from Kaltenbrunner seems to be proof of the bad conditions in the camps during the last months of the war; nobody, however, would allow neutral or foreign observers to have insight into the camps if it had been known that crimes against humanity were, so to speak, scheduled daily in the camps, as is asserted by the Prosecution. In no case, therefore, do I come to the conclusion that Kaltenbrunner had full knowledge of the so-called "conditions" in the concentration camps, yet I do conclude that it was his duty to investigate the fate of those who were imprisoned. Kaltenbrunner might have found out then that a considerable number of the inmates were sent to the camps because they were criminals and that a much smaller portion was there because of their political or ideological viewpoints or because of their race but that he would then have found out about those primitive offenses against humanity, about those excesses and all the distress of these people-that I contest, in agreement with Kaltenbrunner. The way to arrive at the truth was immensely complicated in Germany, and even the Chief of the Reich Security Main Office found nearly insurmountable obstacles in the hierarchy of jurisdiction and authority of other offices and persons. The alleviation of the sad lot of the internees was, after 1943, a problem which could have been solved only through the dissolution of such camps. A Germany of the last 12 years without any concentration camps would, however, have been a utopia.