dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
MAJOR JONES: 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 get the Reichsführer SS to issue an order that no investigating authorities may enter the camp for the time being and that people in the camp may not be interrogated for the present." Then there is a note: "The Chief Prosecutor, Munich, was instructed by a directive from the Minister to refrain for the time being from making an application for the opening of preliminary investigations." Then follows the next document, Document 13, a letter to the public prosecution on the death of these men Franz and Katz: "With regard to the above-mentioned matter I have, as in-structed, on 12 July 1934 requested the Bavarian Political Police to clear up the matter further in conjunction with the commander's office of the Concentration Camp Dachau, and to endeavor to find out the persons who are suspected of having been the culprits. In this request I mentioned also that I have not yet received the legally confiscated instruments of suicide (belt and braces) of the dead men. "The Political Police have apparently transmitted the files without any written direction to the political department of the Concentration Camp Dachau...." The first paragraph of this letter reads: "The latest application by the Public Prosecution, Munich II, for production of evidence shows what far-fetched means are employed in order to saddle the Concentration Camp Dachau with allegedly perpetrated crimes." In the second paragraph of the letter regret is expressed that the two dead men were able by their suicide to escape impending punishment for smuggling letters. The third paragraph refers to the confiscation' and reads: "After the two corpses had been dissected according to law and had been released, the commander's staff had no further interest in the preservation of the instruments with which the men had hanged themselves.
MAJOR JONES: THE PRESIDENT: Well, we had better adjourn now. We have already been 50 minutes. [The Tribunal adjourned until 8 August 1946 at 1000 hours.] Then there is a note: "The Chief Prosecutor, Munich, was instructed by a directive from the Minister to refrain for the time being from making an application for the opening of preliminary investigations." Then follows the next document, Document 13, a letter to the public prosecution on the death of these men Franz and Katz: "With regard to the above-mentioned matter I have, as in-structed, on 12 July 1934 requested the Bavarian Political Police to clear up the matter further in conjunction with the commander's office of the Concentration Camp Dachau, and to endeavor to find out the persons who are suspected of having been the culprits. In this request I mentioned also that I have not yet received the legally confiscated instruments of suicide (belt and braces) of the dead men. "The Political Police have apparently transmitted the files without any written direction to the political department of the Concentration Camp Dachau...." The first paragraph of this letter reads: "The latest application by the Public Prosecution, Munich II, for production of evidence shows what far-fetched means are employed in order to saddle the Concentration Camp Dachau with allegedly perpetrated crimes." In the second paragraph of the letter regret is expressed that the two dead men were able by their suicide to escape impending punishment for smuggling letters. The third paragraph refers to the confiscation' and reads: "After the two corpses had been dissected according to law and had been released, the commander's staff had no further interest in the preservation of the instruments with which the men had hanged themselves. The commander's staff do not belong to those, that loathsome type of cultured people, who preserve such articles as souvenirs, as was done in America in the Dillinger case." The letter is signed on behalf of the camp commandant by SS Obersturmbannführer Lippert.
MAJOR JONES: Then there is a request by the public prosecution for action. In the next letter there is a reference to this letter from the camp commandant of Dachau, which shows that the request of the Oberstaatsanwalt arose from the impartial observation of his official duty and then the file closes with this entry: "Munich, 27 Septem-ber 1934, Public Prosecution" It is a letter from -the Oberstaats-anwalt to the Generalstaatsanwalt at the Court of Appeals Munich: "Subject: Death of the prisoners in protective custody, Wil-helm Franz and Dr. Katz, in the Concentration Camp Dachau. "I have quashed the proceedings, as the investigations have not produced sufficient grounds for the assumption of outside guilt in the deaths of the two prisoners in protective custody." MAJOR JONES: Well now, Witness, I have taken some time to read that document. That is a characteristic Mustration of the fact that the SA and SS abominations in the camps were protected by the highest authorities of the Third Reich, is that not so? REINECKE: This document is from the year 1933, at a time when the Concentration Camp Dachau was not manned exclusively by SS men. The document indicates that the prosecution of the Provincial Court in Munich suspected, for given reasons, that some persons in protective custody had been murdered. MAJOR JONES: Are you suggesting that conditions improved after the SS men took complete charge of running the camps? REINECKE: I want to point out that this document contains in-dividual cases of the year 1933. But conclusions on the general con-ditions in concentration camps, particularly in the coming years, cannot be drawn from the document. MAJOR JONES: Did you know that the Waffen-SS was making quite a profitable business out of killing people in concentration camps? Did you know that? Did you know that? REINECKE: No. MAJOR JONES: I want you to look at the Document D-960, which will be Exhibit GB-569. It is a very short document, this one, it is from-it is headed: "Waffen-SS, Natzweiler Concentration Camp, Commander's office, 24 March 1943.
MAJOR JONES: "Bill to the Security Police and SD, Strasbourg. "For the 20 prisoners executed and cremated in this concentration camp, costs amounting to 127,05 Reichsmark arose. The Commander's office of the Natzweiler Concentration Camp requests the early payment of the above-mentioned sum." The tariff for killing was very low in Natzweiler, wasn't it- -- 6 marks 38 pfennigs for each dead man? Did you know that moneys were paid to the funds of SS for activities of that kind? REINECKE: No. And as I understand it, this document does not show that at all. The concentration camp command here uses the stamp "Waffen-SS," but in this connection I must refer to what I said yesterday, that the term "Waffen-SS" is misleading insofar as the concentration camp organization was an independent police institution. This document seems to support my statement, since it shows that this horrible bill here was sent to the Security Police, that is, again to an executive organ. The Waffen-SS ... MAJOR JONES: Just a moment. Assuming that the Security Police paid this bill, where would the money have gone to? It would have gone back to Natzweiler. What would have happened to it? Would it have been credited to the funds of the Waffen-SS or not? REINECKE: The commands of the concentration camps, includ-ing Natzweiler, settled their accounts with the Reich, not with the Waffen-SS. I cannot say how this money was used and for what purposes it was spent, because ... MAJOR JONES: Do you know-you have no knowledge of the financial arrangements of these camps vis à vis the Waffen-SS, have you? If you have not that suffices for me for the moment. REINECKE: No, no. From my activity in the head office "SS Courts" I happen to know a little about the economic control of the concentration camps, and as to this point here, I know that the commands of concentration camps settled their accounts directly with the agencies of the German Reich and had no connection at all with other treasuries or agencies of the Waffen-SS as such. MAJOR JONES: If you please.
MAJOR JONES: Now you said in your testimony that the guards in concentration camps had not committed crimes, that whoever else was responsible, Pohl and one or two others, certainly it was not the SS guards. Were you serious when you said that, Witness? REINECKE: In order to avoid misunderstanding, I should like to make it clear here that when I spoke of guards, I meant only those persons who guarded a concentration camp from the outside in contrast to the personnel of the concentration camp who were employed in the command and on the command staff; that is to say, people who had the control within the camp. MAJOR JONES: But both those categories of guards were SS men, were they not? REINECKE: As I have already said, they belonged to the so--called nominal Waffen-SS without having anything to do with it organically. MAJOR JONES: Well, I shall return to that point in a moment. First of all, I want you to look at Document D-924, which will give you a picture of the humanity and ethical attitude of SS guards. I am using a phrase which you used yourself vis à vis the SS. That is Exhibit GB-570, My Lord. It is a report this time from a Dutch source of the evacuation of the Rehmsdorff Camp to Theresienstadt. The first page is a statement by Peter Langhorst, who says: "I am an ex-political prisoner and I have been detained in various prisons and concentration camps, finally in the Rehms-dorff Camp. "At the approach of the Allied armies this camp was evac-uated and the prisoners, about 2,900 men, were put on transport from Rehmsdorff to Theresienstadt. "Mostly these prisoners were Czechs, Poles, Russians, and Hungarian Jews, while there were only a few Dutchmen among them.
MAJOR JONES: THE PRESIDENT: Well, we had better adjourn now. We have already been 50 minutes. [The Tribunal adjourned until 8 August 1946 at 1000 hours.] "The Chief Prosecutor, Munich, was instructed by a directive from the Minister to refrain for the time being from making an application for the opening of preliminary investigations." Then follows the next document, Document 13, a letter to the public prosecution on the death of these men Franz and Katz: "With regard to the above-mentioned matter I have, as in-structed, on 12 July 1934 requested the Bavarian Political Police to clear up the matter further in conjunction with the commander's office of the Concentration Camp Dachau, and to endeavor to find out the persons who are suspected of having been the culprits. In this request I mentioned also that I have not yet received the legally confiscated instruments of suicide (belt and braces) of the dead men. "The Political Police have apparently transmitted the files without any written direction to the political department of the Concentration Camp Dachau...." The first paragraph of this letter reads: "The latest application by the Public Prosecution, Munich II, for production of evidence shows what far-fetched means are employed in order to saddle the Concentration Camp Dachau with allegedly perpetrated crimes." In the second paragraph of the letter regret is expressed that the two dead men were able by their suicide to escape impending punishment for smuggling letters. The third paragraph refers to the confiscation' and reads: "After the two corpses had been dissected according to law and had been released, the commander's staff had no further interest in the preservation of the instruments with which the men had hanged themselves. The commander's staff do not belong to those, that loathsome type of cultured people, who preserve such articles as souvenirs, as was done in America in the Dillinger case." The letter is signed on behalf of the camp commandant by SS Obersturmbannführer Lippert.
MAJOR JONES: THE PRESIDENT: Well, we had better adjourn now. We have already been 50 minutes. [The Tribunal adjourned until 8 August 1946 at 1000 hours.] Then follows the next document, Document 13, a letter to the public prosecution on the death of these men Franz and Katz: "With regard to the above-mentioned matter I have, as in-structed, on 12 July 1934 requested the Bavarian Political Police to clear up the matter further in conjunction with the commander's office of the Concentration Camp Dachau, and to endeavor to find out the persons who are suspected of having been the culprits. In this request I mentioned also that I have not yet received the legally confiscated instruments of suicide (belt and braces) of the dead men. "The Political Police have apparently transmitted the files without any written direction to the political department of the Concentration Camp Dachau...." The first paragraph of this letter reads: "The latest application by the Public Prosecution, Munich II, for production of evidence shows what far-fetched means are employed in order to saddle the Concentration Camp Dachau with allegedly perpetrated crimes." In the second paragraph of the letter regret is expressed that the two dead men were able by their suicide to escape impending punishment for smuggling letters. The third paragraph refers to the confiscation' and reads: "After the two corpses had been dissected according to law and had been released, the commander's staff had no further interest in the preservation of the instruments with which the men had hanged themselves. The commander's staff do not belong to those, that loathsome type of cultured people, who preserve such articles as souvenirs, as was done in America in the Dillinger case." The letter is signed on behalf of the camp commandant by SS Obersturmbannführer Lippert. Then there is a request by the public prosecution for action.
MAJOR JONES: In the next letter there is a reference to this letter from the camp commandant of Dachau, which shows that the request of the Oberstaatsanwalt arose from the impartial observation of his official duty and then the file closes with this entry: "Munich, 27 Septem-ber 1934, Public Prosecution" It is a letter from -the Oberstaats-anwalt to the Generalstaatsanwalt at the Court of Appeals Munich: "Subject: Death of the prisoners in protective custody, Wil-helm Franz and Dr. Katz, in the Concentration Camp Dachau. "I have quashed the proceedings, as the investigations have not produced sufficient grounds for the assumption of outside guilt in the deaths of the two prisoners in protective custody." MAJOR JONES: Well now, Witness, I have taken some time to read that document. That is a characteristic Mustration of the fact that the SA and SS abominations in the camps were protected by the highest authorities of the Third Reich, is that not so? REINECKE: This document is from the year 1933, at a time when the Concentration Camp Dachau was not manned exclusively by SS men. The document indicates that the prosecution of the Provincial Court in Munich suspected, for given reasons, that some persons in protective custody had been murdered. MAJOR JONES: Are you suggesting that conditions improved after the SS men took complete charge of running the camps? REINECKE: I want to point out that this document contains in-dividual cases of the year 1933. But conclusions on the general con-ditions in concentration camps, particularly in the coming years, cannot be drawn from the document. MAJOR JONES: Did you know that the Waffen-SS was making quite a profitable business out of killing people in concentration camps? Did you know that? Did you know that? REINECKE: No. MAJOR JONES: I want you to look at the Document D-960, which will be Exhibit GB-569. It is a very short document, this one, it is from-it is headed: "Waffen-SS, Natzweiler Concentration Camp, Commander's office, 24 March 1943. "Bill to the Security Police and SD, Strasbourg.
MAJOR JONES: "For the 20 prisoners executed and cremated in this concentration camp, costs amounting to 127,05 Reichsmark arose. The Commander's office of the Natzweiler Concentration Camp requests the early payment of the above-mentioned sum." The tariff for killing was very low in Natzweiler, wasn't it- -- 6 marks 38 pfennigs for each dead man? Did you know that moneys were paid to the funds of SS for activities of that kind? REINECKE: No. And as I understand it, this document does not show that at all. The concentration camp command here uses the stamp "Waffen-SS," but in this connection I must refer to what I said yesterday, that the term "Waffen-SS" is misleading insofar as the concentration camp organization was an independent police institution. This document seems to support my statement, since it shows that this horrible bill here was sent to the Security Police, that is, again to an executive organ. The Waffen-SS ... MAJOR JONES: Just a moment. Assuming that the Security Police paid this bill, where would the money have gone to? It would have gone back to Natzweiler. What would have happened to it? Would it have been credited to the funds of the Waffen-SS or not? REINECKE: The commands of the concentration camps, includ-ing Natzweiler, settled their accounts with the Reich, not with the Waffen-SS. I cannot say how this money was used and for what purposes it was spent, because ... MAJOR JONES: Do you know-you have no knowledge of the financial arrangements of these camps vis à vis the Waffen-SS, have you? If you have not that suffices for me for the moment. REINECKE: No, no. From my activity in the head office "SS Courts" I happen to know a little about the economic control of the concentration camps, and as to this point here, I know that the commands of concentration camps settled their accounts directly with the agencies of the German Reich and had no connection at all with other treasuries or agencies of the Waffen-SS as such. MAJOR JONES: If you please.
MAJOR JONES: THE PRESIDENT: Well, we had better adjourn now. We have already been 50 minutes. [The Tribunal adjourned until 8 August 1946 at 1000 hours.] "With regard to the above-mentioned matter I have, as in-structed, on 12 July 1934 requested the Bavarian Political Police to clear up the matter further in conjunction with the commander's office of the Concentration Camp Dachau, and to endeavor to find out the persons who are suspected of having been the culprits. In this request I mentioned also that I have not yet received the legally confiscated instruments of suicide (belt and braces) of the dead men. "The Political Police have apparently transmitted the files without any written direction to the political department of the Concentration Camp Dachau...." The first paragraph of this letter reads: "The latest application by the Public Prosecution, Munich II, for production of evidence shows what far-fetched means are employed in order to saddle the Concentration Camp Dachau with allegedly perpetrated crimes." In the second paragraph of the letter regret is expressed that the two dead men were able by their suicide to escape impending punishment for smuggling letters. The third paragraph refers to the confiscation' and reads: "After the two corpses had been dissected according to law and had been released, the commander's staff had no further interest in the preservation of the instruments with which the men had hanged themselves. The commander's staff do not belong to those, that loathsome type of cultured people, who preserve such articles as souvenirs, as was done in America in the Dillinger case." The letter is signed on behalf of the camp commandant by SS Obersturmbannführer Lippert. Then there is a request by the public prosecution for action.
MAJOR JONES: THE PRESIDENT: Well, we had better adjourn now. We have already been 50 minutes. [The Tribunal adjourned until 8 August 1946 at 1000 hours.] "The Political Police have apparently transmitted the files without any written direction to the political department of the Concentration Camp Dachau...." The first paragraph of this letter reads: "The latest application by the Public Prosecution, Munich II, for production of evidence shows what far-fetched means are employed in order to saddle the Concentration Camp Dachau with allegedly perpetrated crimes." In the second paragraph of the letter regret is expressed that the two dead men were able by their suicide to escape impending punishment for smuggling letters. The third paragraph refers to the confiscation' and reads: "After the two corpses had been dissected according to law and had been released, the commander's staff had no further interest in the preservation of the instruments with which the men had hanged themselves. The commander's staff do not belong to those, that loathsome type of cultured people, who preserve such articles as souvenirs, as was done in America in the Dillinger case." The letter is signed on behalf of the camp commandant by SS Obersturmbannführer Lippert. Then there is a request by the public prosecution for action. In the next letter there is a reference to this letter from the camp commandant of Dachau, which shows that the request of the Oberstaatsanwalt arose from the impartial observation of his official duty and then the file closes with this entry: "Munich, 27 Septem-ber 1934, Public Prosecution" It is a letter from -the Oberstaats-anwalt to the Generalstaatsanwalt at the Court of Appeals Munich: "Subject: Death of the prisoners in protective custody, Wil-helm Franz and Dr. Katz, in the Concentration Camp Dachau.
MAJOR JONES: THE PRESIDENT: Well, we had better adjourn now. We have already been 50 minutes. [The Tribunal adjourned until 8 August 1946 at 1000 hours.] The first paragraph of this letter reads: "The latest application by the Public Prosecution, Munich II, for production of evidence shows what far-fetched means are employed in order to saddle the Concentration Camp Dachau with allegedly perpetrated crimes." In the second paragraph of the letter regret is expressed that the two dead men were able by their suicide to escape impending punishment for smuggling letters. The third paragraph refers to the confiscation' and reads: "After the two corpses had been dissected according to law and had been released, the commander's staff had no further interest in the preservation of the instruments with which the men had hanged themselves. The commander's staff do not belong to those, that loathsome type of cultured people, who preserve such articles as souvenirs, as was done in America in the Dillinger case." The letter is signed on behalf of the camp commandant by SS Obersturmbannführer Lippert. Then there is a request by the public prosecution for action. In the next letter there is a reference to this letter from the camp commandant of Dachau, which shows that the request of the Oberstaatsanwalt arose from the impartial observation of his official duty and then the file closes with this entry: "Munich, 27 Septem-ber 1934, Public Prosecution" It is a letter from -the Oberstaats-anwalt to the Generalstaatsanwalt at the Court of Appeals Munich: "Subject: Death of the prisoners in protective custody, Wil-helm Franz and Dr. Katz, in the Concentration Camp Dachau. "I have quashed the proceedings, as the investigations have not produced sufficient grounds for the assumption of outside guilt in the deaths of the two prisoners in protective custody." MAJOR JONES: Well now, Witness, I have taken some time to read that document.