dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
BRILL: The Waffen-SS originated from the SS Veruegungtruppe (emergency troops). The skeleton of the SS Verfuegungs-truppe was formed by several hundred men of the Leibstandarte.  This had been set up in 1933 as a guard and representative body for the Reich Chancellery. Owing to the expansion of these repre-sentative tasks and guard duties, the Verfuegungstruppe in the years 1934 to 1939 was increased by volunteers from all classes of the Germa n population. At the beginning of the war the Verfuegungstruppe had about 18,000 men. The service in the Verfuegungstruppe was a military service. In addition to that, there was on 1 Septem-ber 1939 the Death's-Head Unit which had about 8,000 men. To these two units were added about another 36,000 men between the fall of 1939 and the spring of 1940. These men had been drafted as an additional force for the Police by virtue of emergency service measures. These 36,000 men together with the Verfuegungstruppe and the Death's-Head Unit made up the Waffen-SS. A directive of the High Command of the Armed Forces in the spring of 1940, which was published later in December 1940 as an Army service regulation, dealt with the military supervision, com-position, and recruiting of the Waffen-SS. At the beginning of 1940 we had 100,000 men in the Waffen-SS. There were 36,000 who had been drafted and 64,000 volunteers.
THE PRESEIDENT: We will recess now. [The Tribunal recessed until 1400 hours.] Aftemoon Session [The witness Brill resumed the stand.]
HERR PELCKMANN: Witness, you had just said that at the beginning of 1940 the Waffen-SS had 100,000 men of which 64,000 were volunteers and 36,000 draftees. Will you continue about the development?
BRILL: In the same year, 1940, we had 50,000 more recruits for the Waffen-SS; 2,000 to 3,000 were drafted'and the others were volunteers. In 1941 we received 70,000 men; 3,000 drafted, the rest volunteers. In 1942, 30,000 men were drafted.
THE PRESIDENT: Wouldn7t it be quicker and just as accurate to take all these figures as they have been given before the Com-mission? Presumably they are all in writing in the evidence given before the Commission. It is not necessary to repeat a series of figures of this sort for us. You could pass on to something which would be less statistical.
HERR PELCKMANN: Very well. [Turning to the witness.] From the comparative figures of the draftees and the volunteers, one could say on the basis of your testimony that 40 to 50 percent of those called to the Waffen-SS were drafted forcibly. In your opinion, was this percentage the same at the end of the war?
BRILL: No, by no means. At the end of the war we had about 550,000 men in the Waffen-SS. Up to October 1944 there were 320,000 known casualties including dead, missing, and seriously wounded. Considering that the majority of the dead were our volunteers-I know this from carefully compiled reports on casualties-it results from this that at the end of the war there were more draftees than volunteers in the Waffen-SS.
HERR PELCKMANN: The Court will be interested in knowing where you have received such accurate knowledge.
BRILL: For 4 years I worked on this material. I prepared statistics and made reports so that I have retained these figures in mind very accurately. In my office in Berlin I handled card indexes, et cetera. They were there when I left in January 1945.
HERR PELCKALA-NN: Particularly for the years 1943 and 1944 you have made it clear how many men were drafted into the Waffen-SS. Statistics for the earlier years, 1940, 1941, and 1942, have not been compiled by the Commission. Perhaps you could give us examples of how nonvolunteers were taken into the Waffen-SS at such an early period.
BRILL: Yes. I have already mentioned the 36,000 men who were drafted by emergency decrees. In addition, in 1940 we drafted men from the Police to set up our field Gendarmerie. We drafted men from the Reichspost to secure our Army mail. We drafted the civilian employees of the SS Verfuegungstruppe. In 1941 we fre-quently drafted personnel from the Army for our cavalry units. I recall further that about 800 Army men were drafted into the Waffen-SS in the summer of 1941. Doctors and technicians also were drafted in 1940 and 1941; in addition, resettled persons who had become subject to military duty. Even for the resettlement details we drafted men who, did not report voluntarily. In 1942 we deviated considerably from the volunteer basis. About 15,000 racial Germans were drafted into our Prinz Eugen Division, about 10,000 men were drafted from the Police and the Army for the Police division, and 2,000 men of the Reichspost who were with the Army as so-called front auxiliaries were drafted into the Waffen-SS. They were civilian post office employees with the Army.
HERR PELCKMANN: Can you recall the transfer, on Hitler's order, of whole formations of the Air Force?
BRILL: Yes, that was particularly in 1944. Also in 1943 units of the Air Force were taken over. I recall, for example, an agree-ment of Reich Marshal Göring with our commander, Sepp Dietrich, of March 1943, when 3,000 men of the Air Force were transferred. In 1944 many men were transferred from the Army as well.
HERR PELCKMANN: And now, to go back to the volunteers, can you tell us anything about the motives for volunteering?
BRILL: Yes. In my office I read thousands upon thousands of applications for admission. I can say that up to 1939 the enthusiasm for the SS, for its decent and proper conduct, was the main reason for volunteering. Besides these, many volunteered for professional reasons.
HERR PELCKMANN: Did that change after the beginning of the war?
BRILL: After the beginning of the war, the main reason for volunteering was that the men wanted to do their military service in a clean, modern, elite formation. Professional reasons also played a part in volunteering. After the beginning of the war very few came to tnzungsamt.
HERR PELCKMANN: Letters from whom?
BRILL: Letters from the parents of these men.
HERR PELCKMANN: How old were these boys?
BRILL: They were mostly 17. They had Volunteered and their parents did not want them to, or, prompted by the speech of a recruiter of the Hitler Youth they had reported and their parents did not agree.
HERR PELCKMANN: Could a volunteer have recalled his appli-cation? Could he have left the Waffen-SS? Could he have left, say, because he learned of some crimes such as are alleged by the Prosecution?
BRILL: No, that would not have been possible. If the man once volunteered, there was no way out since he was drafted by an order from the Armed Forces which said that he had to answer the can if he wanted to avoid punishment. Once he had reported to the troops he was under military law and could not leave the Waffen-SS. HERR PELCKh1ANN: Did you receive complaints in this con-nection? Were there complaints that these volunteers were used for any sort of crimes?
BRILL: Yes, we did receive complaints, but they were primarily complaints from draftees who thought that the Waffen-SS was given especially arduous duties and had exceptionally heavy casualties. For this reason, they wanted to go back again. It also happened that parents were afraid for their boys and also sent letters to us complaining that the boys were drafted at 17 by virtue of a Fuehrer order without the approval of their parents and asking that they should come back. We paid no attention to these complaints.
HERR PELCKMANN: As a member of the Erguenzungsamt, no doubt you know something about the process of selection for the Waffen-SS; for example, whether purely political reasons were decisive for the acceptance of a volunteer or of a draftee.
BRILL: I took part in inspections in the Leibstandarte and later directed them myself. I can say that we were interested only in healthy young men. We did not ask in inspections whether a man's father had Communist leanings or whether he and his parents were deeply religious. We were interested only in young spirited men of firm character. We accepted a young man who had not been in the SA or the General SS much more readily into the Waffen-SS than an older Party member who had a physical disability. We wanted young, upright, clean soldiers. Of course, later, in the case of those who were drafted and transferred, the selection was less rigid.
HERR PELCKMANN: For these inspections did you have any secret instructions concerning the selection?
BRILL: No. Our inductions always took place in public places. I remember that even before the war we held public inductions for the Waffen-SS in Danzig, which was still under Polish sover-eignty. The manner of making our selections was not kept secret either. Anyone could see it in the recruiting pamphlets, which were published by the millions.
HERR PELCKMANN: Besides Reich German soldiers did mem-bers from foreign countries serve in the Waffen-SS?
BRILL: Yes. Our honest racial Germans should be especially mentioned. They formed the majority of these alien soldiers. The Reich had reached agreements and state treaties with the countries that these people were to do their military service in the Waffen--SS. From the Germanic countries we took almost exclusively volunteers for our Viking Division and for the other Germanic units. In 1943 and still more in 1944 we also set up alien units. Most of these people were volunteers, but many of them were drafted on the basis of the laws of their own countries. With these people, people of completely different racial, religious, and psychological backgrounds came into the ranks of the Waffen-SS, the more so as they were allowed to retain their own characteristics.
HERR PELCKMANN: Please give a brief survey of how great the number of such foreigners was, since it is important for the accusation that supposedly a unified ideological unit had been set up here.
BRILL: I can give this set-up from the end of 1933 to the end of 1934.
HERR PELCKMANN: You mean 1944, do you not?
BRILL: Certainly, 1944. I beg your pardon. Up to the end of 1944 we had drafted 410,000 Reich Germans, 300,000 racial Germans, 150,000 foreigners, and about 50,000 German soldiers into the Waffen-SS.
HERR PELCKMANN: I touch upon a question of the President to the previous witness, Von Eberstein. You surely know the rela-tionship of the General SS to the inductions into the Waffen-SS. For example, did a Fi1hrer of the General SS who was transferred into the Waffen-SS retain his rank?
BRILL: One cannot speak of a transfer in a military sense. The General SS was a voluntary organization. The Waffen-SS was a military body. It was certainly the case that up to 1942 a member of the General SS who wanted to join the Waffen-SS, first of all had to volunteer. Only after 1942 could we take the men without their volunteering; that is to say, the difficulty of getting replace-ments led us to do so. I would emphasize that it was quite possible for a man of the General SS to have volunteered prior to 1942 and to have been rejected because of physical disability. After 1942, of course, we no longer rejected members of the General SS. There was, of course, a possibility for a member of the General SS to do his military service in other branches of the Armed Forces and I estimate that the majority of the General SS was drafted into the Armed Forces at the beginning of the war. A Fuehrer of the General SS, unless he already had military rank in the Armed Forces, was taken into the Waffen-SS as a common soldier. On the other hand, officers of the Armed Forces were taken into the Waffen-SS with equivalent rank.
HERR PELCKMANN: Then would you conclude, Witness, that activity in the General SS was in no way evaluated as premilitary training, since a member of the General SS had to do, military ser-vice in the Waffen-SS or the Armed Forces from the beginning just as a nonmember did?
BRILL: Yes, of course. That is how it was.
HERR PELCKMANN: Is it true that in Germany the Waffen-SS was considered as the fourth branch of the Armed Forces and not, as the Prosecution says, the picked troop of the Nazis?
BRILL: Yes. I believe I can affirm this, at least for my field of duty. Only the selection was carried out according to SS directives, while acceptance for the Waffen-SS depended on the approval of the Wehrbezirkskommando. For the induction into the Waffen-SS the induction order of the Armed Forces was used. The volunteer con-tingents of the Waffen-SS were prescribed by the High Command of the Armed Forces, and forcible inductions always followed on the basis of the orders of the High Command of the Armed Forces. We can also say that we had no connection whatever with the Party, for the Party gave us no orders. The few Party members who were in the Waffen-SS paid no Party dues for the period of their service. They did not receive awards of the Party. The whole replacement and supervision of the Waffen-SS was effected according to regulations of the High Com-mand of the Armed Forces, as specified in Army Service Regulation 8115. Since service in the Waffen-SS and in the Army were practically on the same footing we finally carried out in the fall of 1944 the long-sought merger of the SS replacement offices with the Army recruiting offices.
HERR PELCKMANN: Touching upon the question of the Pres-ident to the witness Von Eberstein, I should like to ask you something about the composition of the guard personnel of the concentration camps. Is it true, as the Prosecution asserts, that the General SS during the war took over the guard duty at the con-centration camps?
BRILL: In no way can that be said. The 8,000 men of the Death's--Head formation, of which I spoke previously, at the beginning of the war consisted only in part of members of the General SS. In October 1939, when the SS Death's-Head Division was set up, these men were transferred to this front unit. These men were replaced by emergency service draftees. They included, I should perhaps say, 3,000 men of the General SS. But these men were taken from the General SS by the Emergency Service Regulation, which could equally have been applied to the induction of other men, which was the case in part, for example with men of the Reichskriegerbund and of the Kyffhäuserbund. During the whole war the General SS did not replace the guards for concentration camps unless one or another SS man who was incapable of emergency service at the front was transferred there.
HERR PELCKMANN: Please tell us briefly what the purpose of the so-called Emergency Service Regulation was and to whom it could be applied.
BRILL: The Emergency Service Regulation was, in my opinion, and as far as I am informed, a regulation of the Reich according to which, in times of emergency, any member of the German Reich could be inducted for special services to the Reich. I have already mentioned this morning that 36,000 men were taken from the General SS on the basis of this regulation by the Reich Ministry of the Interior. The Reich Ministry of the Interior increased its contingent, as far as I know, to I million men for Police reinforce-ments and reserves, including these 36,000 men of the General SS.
HERR PELCKMANN: The Emergency Service Regulation and its effects are made clear by Document Number SS-26. Can you tell us who mainly took over the guarding of concentration camps during the war?
BRILL: During the war mostly racial Germans and members of the German Wehrmacht guarded the concentration camps. Let me explain this briefly. In 1940 and 1941 the guard personnel of the concentration camps were only replaced to a small extent. For the most part, there were members of the Kyffhäuserbund and the Reichskriegerbund, who in part were enrolled as inductees and in part as draftees by virtue of the emergency regulations. In 1942 racial Germans and volunteers from the Reich who did not, however, volunteer as guards for concentration camps, but for the Waffen-SS, and who, because of unsuitability for service at the front, could not be put in the Waffen-SS, were made guards. In 1943 the replacements were done similarly. That year, too, another con-tingent of veterans was drawn in, and in 1944 the last young men among the concentration camp guards were to be se nt to the front. In this year the great majority of the guards in the concentration camps were members of the Armed Forces. I know that the OKH reached an agreement with the Inspectorate of the Concentration Camps that the Army would take over the guarding. I myself saw the order which mentioned 10,000 men.
HERR PELCKMANN: Can you give us figures on the concentra-tion camp guards?
BRILL: Yes, since the SS Main Office was also entrusted with the supervision of the guards at the concentration camps.
HERR PELCKMANN: What does "Wehrueberwachung" mean?
BRILL: That means that every man was included in a card index so that in case of reclamation by his employer the office concerned would know exactly where the man was and when he would be available again. As I was saying, the record of these men was kept at the SS Main Office. Therefore, I know that about 7,000 such men were racial Germans, that about 7,000 were from the Army, and some were from the Air Force, and that there were 10,000 men who had volunteered for the Waffen-SS, but as a result of unsuitability for front service they were simply detailed to the guard personnel of concentration camps. This included the Kyffhäuser members whom' I have already mentioned, also SA members, non-Party people, and so forth. There might have been about 6,000 men at the end of 1944 composed of Emergency Service draftees (Notdienstverord-neten), old veterans' organizations (Frontkämpferverbänden), and a few invalid members of the Waffen-SS.
HERR PELCKMANN: What do you mean, invalids?
BRILL: That means people who had been wounded at the front and were no longer fit for front service but were still able to per-form guard duty.
HERR PELCKMANN: Now can you tell us whether the majority of these concentration camp guards no matter where they came from, were volunteers or whether they were drafted?
BRILL: No one ever volunteered for guard duty at concentra-tion camps. The racial Germans as well as the Reich Germans who were used as guards were assigned there. The members of the Armed Forces also, as far as I know, did * not volunteer for this service but were sent there by order.
HERR PELCKMANN: Witness, what do you know about the administration of concentration camps?
BRILL: The highest administrative authority for concentration camps was the Inspectorate KL. This Inspectorate KL was in 1939 or at the beginning of 1940 in the hands of the Inspector General of the Death's-Head units. In 1942 the Inspectorate KL was transferred as Amtsgruppe D in the Economics and Administrative Main Office. I had no insight into the internal affairs of this Amtsgruppe such as I had with many other SS agencies owing to my position. In the first place, this Amtsgruppe D, that is the Inspectorate KL, was not in the same building, with our Berlin office, and besides this we had no personal contact with the exception of the assignment of a few men, which was effected mainly by telephone.
HERR PELCKMANN: Can you, on the basis of your long service in the Waffen-SS and your position, give any information as to whether members of the Waffen-SS generally had the opportunity to learn anything about the crimes which are now charged against the SS as a whole, or whether you yourself could learn anything of them?
BRILL: Hundreds of thousands of people, mostly young men, were inducted into the Waffen-SS. These people were 13, 14-per-haps 16 years old at the beginning of the war. When they came into the Waffen-SS, they were only used at the front. And when they went home for a few days on leave, they did not worry about politics or enemy propaganda, but thought only of seeing their families. The tens of thousands of wounded men in hospitals had only one desire-to regain their health. They did not listen to the enemy radio either so that they could not have learned anything. I talked to many of these men, and I know they were interested only in their military service. Only one percent of those inducted into the Waffen-SS were employed in the offices and agencies of the Waffen-SS. Very few of these were in a position to learn anything. However, these men did not and would not tell us anything about the nature of their duties since there was -in every office of the Waffen-SS and the SS generally posted an order of the Fi1hrer saying "You must know only as much as belongs to your official duties, and concerning what you learn, you must be silent."
HERR PELCKMANN: Was the reason for this order of Hitler a military one?
BRILL: I believe this order of the Fuehrer was in effect for the whole of the Reich. It applied as well to the troops as to the various offices.
HERR PELCKMANN: The troops-do you mean the Armed Forces?
BRILL: Yes, the Armed Forces.
HERR PELCKMANN: Perhaps you know something about an-other point of the Indictment. When you were still with the staff of the Leibstandarte, did you learn anything, for example, about the proposed invasion of Austria?
BRILL: It was always the case with the Army that the ordinary soldier was the least informed. The Leibstandarte was no exception. I recall the entry into Austria very well. Although the Leibstandarte, as I believe, was one of the first formations to march into Austria, we made no preparations for this entry. I know definitely, since I was secretary with the staff, that neither the adjutant nor the Hauptsturmfuehrer in the staff knew anything half an hour before we left as to where we were going. When the Leibstandarte was in Austria, there was such enthusiasm that none of us gained the impression that a crime had been committed. The fact that we, as Leibstandarte - moved into Austria, was a matter of course to us because the Fuehrer was there and we, as his bodyguard, went to Austria, too.
HERR PELCKMANN: Witness, in view of the evidence which has been presented here, do you want to deny that millions of killings have taken place which are now being charged against the SS men?
BRILL: I have talked to many members from various intern-ment camps on this subject. I can only repeat what we told each other. The Allies have presented us a big puzzle with the discovery of this crime. We were always trained in honor, discipline, and decency. For 5 years we fought in faithful duty for our fatherland, and now we sit behind barbed wire and everywhere we are called murderers and criminals. I can only say and I say it for my comrades to whom I have spoken, too-we did not murder. We have nothing to do with, and have known nothing of the abominable atrocities of Himmler who betrayed and deceived us, too, by pre-ferring death to responsibility. By committing suicide, he placed himself outside the ranks of the former SS and that small circle of men who, perhaps through a false sense of obedience, became his assistants and knew how to keep silent. For until today we knew nothing about it.
HERR PELCKMANN: Thank you. I have no more questions.
MAJOR JONES: Witness, you have said that the SS and Waffen--SS in particular, was always trained in honor and decency. Himmler used to come and lecture to your division, the Leibstandarte, you know, did he not?
BRILL: I was not present at any speech which Himmler made to the Leibstandarte.
MAJOR JONES: Did you know that he made speeches to the -officers of the Leibstandarte? BRILL- Yes. As far as I recall, there was a speech at Metz when I was already at the Erguenzungsamt. My comrades told me about it.
MAJOR JONES: Do you know what Himmler said?
BRILL: No.
MAJOR JONES: Did you not think it was right to ask them?