dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
THE PRESIDENT: In order to win Jews for this business of extermination and plundering of their brethren of race and creed, Wirth gave them every freedom and, so to speak, gave them a financial interest in the spoliation of the dead victims. As a result of this attitude, this sumptuous Jewish wedding had come about. Then I asked Wirth how he killed Jews with these Jewish agents of his. Wirth described the whole procedure that went off like a film every time. The extermination camps were in the east of the Government General, in big forests or uninhabited wastelands. They were built up like a Potemkin village. The people arriving there had the impression of entering a city or a township. The train drove into a dummy railroad station. After the escorts and the train personnel had left the area, the cars were opened and the Jews got out. They were surrounded by these Jewish labor detachments, and Kriminalkommissar Wirth or one of his representatives made a speech. He said, "Jews, you were brought here to be resettled, but 493 7 Aug. 46 before we organize this future Jewish State, you must of course learn how to work. You must learn a new trade. You will be taught that here. Our routine here is, first, every one must take off his clothes so that your clothing can be disinfected, and you can have a bath so that no epidemics will be brought into the camp." After he had found such calming words for his victims, they started on the road to death. Men and women were separated. At the first place, one had to deliver the hat; at the next one, the coat, collar, shirt, down to the shoes and socks. These places were faked cloakrooms, and the person was given a check at each one so that the people believed that they would get their things back. The other Jews had to receive the things and hurry up the new arrivals so that they should not have time to think. The whole thing was like an assembly line. After the last stop they reached a big room, and were told that this was the bath. When the last one was in, the doors were shut and the gas was let into the room.
THE PRESIDENT: As soon as death had set in, the ventilators were started. When the air could be breathed again, the doors were opened, and the Jewish workers removed the bodies. By means of a special procedure which Wirth had invented, they were burned in the open air without the use of fuel. HERR PELCKMANN: Was Wirth a member of the SS? MORGEN: No, he was a Kriminalkommissar in Stuttgart. HERR PELCKMANN: Did you ask Wirth how he arrived at this devilish system? MORGEN: When Wirth took over the extermination of the Jews, he was already a specialist in mass-destruction of human beings. He had previously carried out the task of getting rid of the incurably insane. By order of the Fuehrer himself, whose order was transmitted through the Chancellery of the Fuehrer, he had, at the beginning of the war, set up a detachment for this purpose, probably composed of a few officials of his, as I believe, the remainder being agents and spies of the Criminal Police. Wirth very vividly described how he went about carrying out this assignment. He received no aid, no instructions, but had to do it all by himself. He was only given an old empty building in Brandenburg. There he made his first experiments. After much consideration and many individual experiments, he evolved his later system, and then this system was used on a large scale to exterminate the insane. A commission of doctors previously investigated the files, and those insane who were listed by the asylums as incurable were put on a separate list. Then the asylum concerned was told one day to send these patients to another institution. From this asylum 494 7 Aug. 46 the patient was transferred again, often more than once. Finally he came to Wirth's institution, where he was killed by gas and cremated. This system, which deceived the asylums and made them unknowing accomplices, enabled him with very few assistants to exterminate large numbers of people, and this system Wirth now employed with a few alterations and improvements for the extermination of Jews.
THE PRESIDENT: He was also given the assignment by the Fi1hrer's Chancellery to exterminate the Jews. HERR PELCKMANN: The statements which Wirth made to you must have surpassed human imagination. Did you immediately believe Wirth? MORGEN: At first Wirth's description seemed completely fantastic to me, but in Lublin I saw one of his camps. It was a camp which collected the property or part of the property of his victims. From the piles of things-there were an enormous number of watches piled up-I had to realize that something frightful was going on here. I was shown the valuables. I can say that I never saw so much money at one time, especially foreign money-all kinds of coins, from all over the world. In addition, there was a goldsmelting furnace and really prodigious bars of gold. I also saw that the headquarters from which Wirth directed his operations was very small and inconspicuous., He had only three or four people working there for him. I spoke to them too. I saw and watched his couriers arrive. They actually came from Berlin, Tiergartenstrasse, the Fi1hrer's Chancellery, and went back there. I investigated Wirth's mail and I found in it confirmation of all this. Of course, I could not do or see all this on this first visit. I was there frequently. I pursued Wirth up to his death. HERR PELCKMANN: Did Wirth give you names of people who were connected with this operation? MORGEN: Not many names were mentioned, for the simple reason that the number of those who participated could be counted, so to speak, on one's fingers. I remember one name: I think the name was Blankenburg, in Berlin. HERR PELCKMANN: Blankenburg? MORGEN: Blankenburg, of the Fi1hrer's Chancellery. THE PRESIDENT: Well, we had better adjourn now. We have already been 50 minutes. [The Tribunal adjourned until 8 August 1946 at 1000 hours.]
MAJOR JONES: It is a report of the Czechoslovak Ministry of the Interior itself; it is a report of the State Department. THE PRESIDENT: Report to whom? MAJOR JONES: Furthermore, My Lord, my learned friend, Mr. Griffith-Jones, draws my attention to Article 19 of the Charter: "The Tribunal shall not be bound by technical rules of evidence. It shall adopt and apply to the greatest possible extent expeditious and non-technical procedure, and shall admit any evidence that it deems to have probative value." I do submit that even if you were to find, and I find it hard to think that you would, that this is not a document within the meaning of Article 21, it is admissible under Article 19. THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Now, do you want to say anything, Dr. Pelckmann? BERR PELCKMANN: I believe, Your Lordship, the decision of the Tribunal on this document should be the same as that on the two documents which we attempted in vain to introduce yesterday. Whether this document falls under Article 21, 1 cannot judge;' the Tribunal will decide that. But I refer to the other point of view which Your Lordship has already mentioned. It is very late to submit these documents now. Article 21 can only be interpreted to mean that such documents can be submitted during the presenta-tion of the case by the Prosecution. The Prosecution case is now closed, and documents can only be introduced by submitting them to a witness; but since there may be hundreds, perhaps thousands of these cases, the Defense must be given an opportunity to com-ment on them. It is not a question of testing the credibility of the witness, but it is actually a question of new evidence being presented by the Prosecution, and the Defense must have an opportunity of answering it. I do not believe that this is the intention of Article 21, otherwise the Trial would be extended indefinitely. THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn and we will sit again at 2 o'clock. [The Tribunal recessed until 1400 hours.] Afternoon Session THE PRESIDENT: Mr.
MAJOR JONES: Elwyn Jones, the Tribunal will take judicial notice of the document which you were submitting under Article 21, But they do not think that you need deal with it at great length. MAJOR JONES: If Your Lordship pleases. The Document D-959 will be Exhibit GB-571. [The witness Reinecke resumed the stand.] Witness, have you any knowledge of the part played by SS units in the arrest and ill-treatment of the students of Prague on 17 November 1939? REINECKE: No. About that subject I cannot testify, as the fact of their participation is now becoming known to me for the first time. MAJOR JONES: You had no knowledge of the participation of the 6th SS Totenkopf Standarte in that matter, did you? I am referring to ... REINECKE: No. MAJOR JONES: I am referring, My Lord, to an entry in the previous Czechoslovak report, USSR-60. [Turning to the witness.] You say you had no knowledge of that? This report ... REINECKE: No, I had no knowledge. MAJOR JONES: This report refers further to reprisal measures against civilians suspected of contact with the partisans, in which the SS took part. Do you have any knowledge of SS troops taking part in reprisal measures against civilians? REINECKE: I can testify to that insofar as it is known to me in which manner the Waffen-SS was being employed. I know that the Waffen-SS-and in this case it can only be the Waffen-SS which is meant-was fighting at the front. MAJOR JONES: I just want you to look at the last paragraph but one in Paragraph 2, Page 4 of Document D-959, Page 4, the paragraph-it is the fourth paragraph down in the English text. "On 5 May 1945, after having plundered the village of Javorisko in the district of Litovel, the SS burned it down. During this execution the SS troops shot in the nape of the neck or killed in the burning houses all the male inhabitants of the village from the age of 15 to 70 years. Women with children, after having been ill-treated, were driven away.
MAJOR JONES: The execution, at which 38 men lost their lives, took place because the inhabitants of the village were suspected of hiding partisans." Have you any knowledge of that action or of actions of that kind that the SS took part in? REINECKE: No. Such actions never became known to me. Obviously, we are here concerned with the last fight for Prague. MAJOR JONES: I want you to turn to some further evidence about the ill-treatment by SS guards of transports of prisoners from concentration camps. The fifth paragraph on Page 5 of the report refers to 312 persons being beaten to death or shot, and their bodies buried in a coal pit. And you see it stated there that the beatings and killings were done by SS guards. It is very much like the Dutch report, is it not? And then there follows in the last section, crimes committed during the Prague revolution in May 1945, further accounts of SS atrocities. Now, Witness, I want you to look at a new Document, D-878, which will be GB-572, which is a r1eport from the Statistical-the Scientific Statistical Institute of the Reichsführer SS on the com-position of the SS. I want you to look, if you will, at the third page of the account, that is a page marked "Page L" That sets out the-I am sorry, My Lord, I have not a translation of this, but I think the entries will speak for themselves. They are' quite clear. That is headed "Total strength of the SS as on 30 June 1944." You will see it shows "Allgemeine SS" excluding-and the translation, I think, is, excluding those members who, at the moment, are serving as reserves of the Waffen-SS, "Nicht einberufen." Total called up 66,614. THE PRESIDENT: 64,000. MAJOR JONES: 64,000. Called up in the Wehrmacht, 115,908. Called up to the labor front, 722. In miscellaneous duties, 19,254, a total of 200,498 of the Allgemeine SS. Now, can you tell the Tribunal whether those "not called up" among the 64,000 odd were performing police duties, or were some of those performing police duties?
MAJOR JONES: REINECKE: In my view the figures which are contained in the document refer to members of the General SS who were neither called up nor were carrying out any other type of activity -- in other words, who were following their civilian occupations at home, that is to say, who were used in economic life. MAJOR JONES: The last category of 19,254 "on miscellaneous duties," were those people who were forming the personnel of the Einsatzkommandos? REINECKE: That is absolutely out of the question, because the personnel of the Einsatzkommandos only consisted of a few hundred men. The conception of the "sonstiger Einsatz" (on miscellaneous duties) must refer to some other function which I cannot define at the moment. MAJOR JONES: Well, now, you see that that page shows the total in the Waffen-SS of 594,443. Now I want you to turn to Page 24 of this report. THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Elwyn Jones, what is the final total described as? MAJOR JONES: The total SS total 794,941. THE PRESIDENT: Yes, but what does the second German word there mean? MAJOR JONES: "Insgesamt"-"altogether," My Lord. THE PRESIDENT: "Altogether." I see. MAJOR JONES: You turn to Page 24 and. you will see that the-that total of members of the Waffen-SS of 594,443 is divided up into various categories: There are first, the Feldtruppenteile, which are field units, 368,654. Then the next is, I understand, the recruiting staff, 21,365. The next category, training and reserve, 127,643. The schools, 10,822. Then other units and offices directly subordinate to the SS leadership head office, 26,544. And then in the head offices, 39,415, making the grand total of 594,443. Now, those-that entry of 26,544, other units and offices directly sub-ordinate to SS leadership head office, who were those men? Were they the personnel of the Einsatzkommandos? REINECIKE: I beg to repeat the answer I have just given you.
MAJOR JONES: That number cannot refer in any way to the personnel of these Einsatzkommandos; because the personnel of the Einsatzkommandos had nothing to do with the SS itself, but came from various depart-ments of the executive, in particular from the Police. This figure of 26,544 members of the SS must refer to members of offices and units who were not employed at the head offices, but who, on the other hand, were not fighting at the front either, but who were in the Reich territory with some.. MAJOR JONES: Witness, will you next turn to Page 28 of this document, which- shows how the 39,415 described on Page 24 as being members of the head offices of the Waffen-SS are employed. It starts: SS Main Office, 9,349; Waffen-SS men engaged in the SS Eco-nomic and Administrative Main Office-I beg your pardon, the second line-Waffen-SS men engaged in the Race and Resettlement Main Office of the SS, 2,689. That was the office headed by Himm-ler which yesterday you said-you said had nothing to do with the SS, the Waffen-SS, at all. And then: Third, the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office, WVHA that is, is it not-24,091 Waffen-SS men. Personal Staff of the Reichsführer SS, 673. SS Personnel Main Office, 170; Main Office SS Courts, 599; Office of the SS Obergruppenführer Heissmeyer, 553; Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of German Folkdom, 304; Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of German Folkdom, Die Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle Office, 987. Making a total of 39,415. 4 That makes it clear, does it not, that Waffen-SS, men were engaged in all this hideous network of Himmler's machinery of terror, was it not? REINECKE: I do not believe that that is shown by this docu-ment. Yesterday I described in detail that the various head offices did not have a unified supreme command.
MAJOR JONES: If, for instance in this case, members of the Waffen-SS appear in the various head offices, then this is due to the fact that the employees were drafted into the Waffen-SS during the war because in that way it became unnecessary to claim them as indispensable, and they could thus be kept out of the clutches of the Armed Forces. MAJOR JONES: All those men were carried on the strength of the Waffen-SS; they were members of the Waffen-SS; they wore Waffen-SS uniforms, and they were paid by the, Waffen-SS. That is so, is it not? REINECKE'- That may well be, but that has a different sig-nificance, insofar as that did not make them members of the original organization but, as was often the case in wartime, they merely donned the uniform and were paid accordingly. If I pick out, for instance, on Page 28 of this document, the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office, with 24,091 alleged members of the Waffen-SS, I have to say that this can only refer to guards in con-centration camps, and it shows that these men, as so-called nominal members of the Waffen-SS, were merely detailed to the Economic and Administrative Main Office, but, had in reality nothing to do with the Waffen-SS. MAJOR JONES: If Your Lordship pleases, I submit that the document speaks for itself, and I have no further questions. THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal would like to have translations of the documents, of these two documents that you have referred to. MAJOR JONES: If Your Lordship pleases, they will be put in. MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: My Lord, I do not wish to subject the witness to a detailed examination; I would like merely to be allowed to put one single question to him -upon a matter which he dealt with yesterday and in connection with a very short docu-ment which was mentioned yesterday. THE PRESIDENT: Yes. You may do so. MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Witness, did I understand you yesterday to say that there were honorary members of the SS? REINECKE: Yes. MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: You asserted that this quality was only conferred in order to allow them to wear a uniform?
MAJOR JONES: Did I understand you correctly? REINECKE: Yes. MR. COUNSELLOR ST~IIRNOV: I would7like to show you a let-ter to Himmler from one of those people whom you named yester-day as honorary members of the SS. I would like to read this very short document into the record. I quote: "22 July 1940. Berlin W-8, Wilhelmstrasse 73." THE PRESIDENT: Is it 1944 or 1940? MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: 1940, My Lord. It is a new docu-ment which bears the Number USSR-512. It was found by the Red Army in the Berlin archives. It will be submitted now to the Tribunal. I quote: "My dear Himmler: I was highly pleased to learn of my promotion by the Führer to the rank of Obdrgruppenführer of the SS. You know my attitude to your SS and how greatly I admire their development, which was the fruit of your own work. I shall always consider it a special honor to belong to this proud corps of the Führer, which is of decisive importance for the future of our Great German Reich. I remain your faithful friend, Joachim Ribbentrop." MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Tell me, Witness, does not the first sentence of the document testify to the fact that the members of the SS whom you ' called honorary members were actually promoted by Himmler according to his estimation of their activity? REINECKE: This document, in my opinion, proves something which I tried to describe yesterday. I said that it is typical for the honorary leaders that they did not actually come from the SS as such; that is to say, they had not performed any duty in the SS for many years like all the other men, but who at some stage and quite suddenly were awarded a high rank and given SS uniforms, without in ... MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: No, Witness, I am asking you something quite different. You are not answering my question. I asked you if it was not a fact that Himmler promoted the so-called honorary members according to his estimation of their activity? From the SS point of view, naturally.
MAJOR JONES: REINECKE: Yes, that is correct, insofar as it was typical of Himmler's policy that personalities who were holding certain posi-tions of power were granted the right to wear the SS uniform, and those are the honorary leaders. MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I have no further questions to, put to the witness, Mr. President. DR. ALFRED SEIDL (Counsel for Defendant Frank): Mr. Pres-ident, this morning the, Prosecution submitted a Document D-926, also numbered GB-568. The subject of that document is files of the Bavarian Ministry of Justice which deal with the death of prisoners of war in the concentration camp at Dachau. I ask for permission to read into the record Figure 12 of that document now, which was not read out by the Prosecution. As reason for my application, I should like to explain that this is the same document which I applied for 6 months ago and which could not be found. The portions of this document read by the Prosecution may create the impression that the statement by the Defendant Frank in the witness box with reference to this question may not be correct. Figure 12, however shows ... THE PRESIDENT: Whom are you applying on behalf of-Frank? DR. SEIDL: I make the application on behalf of the Defendant Frank. THE PRESIDENT: I think on Page 10 of the English copy, and. with the Heading 12, the two top paragraphs were read this. morning. DR. SEIDL: Only the two first sentences of Paragraph 2 were read. The remaining sentences were not read. Paragraph 3 was not read either. THE PRESIDENT: Very well, Dr. Seidl, you may read what you want to read. DR. SEIDL: I shall then quote under Figure 12 a note for the files: "Concerning: Dachau Concentration Camp. "I. Memorandum. The proposal of the State Minister of the Interior to quash the inquiry now pending at the public prosecution office at the Provincial Court, Munich II, into the death of the prisoners Handschuch, Franz, and Katz, who were in protective custody, was the subject of a discussion during the meeting of the Council of Ministers on 5 Decem-ber 1933.
MAJOR JONES: As a result, the State Minister of Justice communi-cated the following to the undersigned official: "The criminal proceedings regarding the happenings in the Dachau Concentration Camp are to be continued with all determination. The facts are to be cleared up with the utmost speed. If necessary the Landespolizei are to be brought in to assist. Any attempts to hush up the case must be opposed by all available means. "The Oberstaatsanwalt (public prosecutor) at the Provincial Court, Munich II, was instructed, in accordance with the decision of the Council of Ministers, to continue the proceed-ings immediately with all energy, and try to clear up the incidents as soon as possible. He will apply for preliminary court investigations and see to their being completed rapidly -in the case of Franz and Katz immediately, and in the case of Handschuch after the arrival of the documents from the Political Police, who have been requested to return them. He has been instructed to keep the State Ministry of Justice informed about the course of the proceedings and to produce the files with an attached report about the result after the closing of the preliminary investigation, stating also what further action is intended. The public prosecutor at the Oberlandesgericht (Court of Appeal) in Munich has been notified and instructed that he also for his part is to pay particular attention to the proceedings. The preliminary in-vestigations will probably be conducted by Landgerichtsrat (Provincial Court Counsellor) Kissner, competent for the district of Dachau. "The liaison officer with the Political Police, I. Staatsanwalt (first public prosecutor) Dr. Stepp, was instructed, according to orders, to communicate the decision of the Council of Ministers to the Chief of the Political Police, Himmler, and to the Chief of the Bavarian Political Police." DR. SEIDL: Thank you, Mr. President. HERR PELCKMANN: Witness, once again, I shall come back to the document which has just been read out by my colleague Seidl.