dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
HERR PELCKMANN: MAJOR JONES: I want you to look at the document dated September 1939, which shows the tolerance of murder in the SS by the highest judicial authorities and the German Army. It is Document D-421, which will be Exhibit GB-567. The first page of the memorandum: "The Chief of the Army Judiciary announces by telephone. The Field Court Martial of the Kempf Armored Division has sentenced an SS man of an SS artillery regiment to 3 years' imprisonment, and a military police sergeant major to 9 years' penal servitude for manslaughter. After about 50 Jews, who had been used during the day to repair a bridge, had finished their work in the evening, these two men drove them all into a synagogue and shot them all without any reason. The sentence is submitted to the Commander of the 3rd Army for confirmation. The proposal of the representative of the prosecution is capital punishment for murder." Then there follow initials. Then there is a marginal note: "General Halder requests information on the decision of the Com-mander of the 3rd Army." Then purple pencil notes: "To the Adjutant of the Commander of Army III." And on the next page you will see the course of this history: "Telegram ... to the Oberstkriegsgerichtsrat (military judge of the fourth rank) attached to the Quartermaster General in Berlin .... SS Sturmmann Ernst is granted extenuating cir-cumstances because he was induced to participate in the shooting by a corporal handing him a rifle. He was in a state of exasperation owing to numerous atrocities committed by Poles against persons of German race. As an SS man, he felt at the sight of the Jews the anti-German attitude of Jewry very deeply and therefore acted rashly as a hot-blooded youth. An excellent soldier not punished before." And that is signed by Oberkriegsgerichtsrat (military judge of the third rank) Lipski. And then there are purple pencil notes on the document: "To the Adjutant of the Commander-in-Chief of Army III," and a lead pencil note: "Telephone call from Oberkriegsgerichtsrat Dr.
HERR PELCKMANN: Satt-mann to the effect that so far as has been ascertained the Chief of the Army High Conunand will not confirm either sentence." Then added, in lead pencil- "The sentences have been dropped under the amnesty. Punishment was announced before the amnesty. Nine years penal servitude for the police sergeant major changed to 3 years' imprisonment. Three years' imprisonment for SS man, unchanged. Confirmed by Army headquarters." Now, that was a clear countenancing of mass murder by the judicial authorities of the German Army, was it not? REINECKE: In my opinion this document represents, in the second part where it gives an explanation for the mild sentences on the two SS men, a personal opinion of Kriegsgerichtsrat Lipski, who as the presiding judge passed the sentences. Therefore, since I do not know other details of the case, I am not in a position to say whether the reasons which the presiding judge gives deviate from the facts or not. MAJOR JONES: But just for a moment: Do you appreciate that for the murder of 50 Jews-and if the facts as reported in this German document are true it could have been nothing but murder -there was, first of all, a finding of manslaughter? You as a lawyer will appreciate what I am implying. And secondly that this Army judge passed a sentence of 3 years' penal servitude for the murder of 50? He was one of your legal colleagues of the Army and I suggest to you that this is typical of the attitude of you-particularly the SS' and the Army's judicial authorities, to the murder of what you pleased to call subhumans. REINECKE: May I say the following: A question of law as to whether the verdict is based on manslaughter or on murder is undoubtedly at issue here. The actual grounds which caused the judge to convict the men of manslaughter instead of murder are not indicated in the document. For that reason I cannot take a stand on the question put to me. MAJOR JONES: But, you know, it is indicated perfectly clearly.
HERR PELCKMANN: The reason why it was reduced to manslaughter was that this man Ernst, being an SS man, was particularly sensitive at the sight of Jews, and therefore it was just a youthful adventure, that is the that was operating in the judge's mind. You know it is perfectly clear. You ... REINECKE: I should like to say that as the document states, the prosecution in this case obviously asked for a verdict of murder and for the death sentence. The presiding judge did not, in his verdict, convict the men of murder but of manslaughter. According to the German penal law, the difference between manslaughter and murder is that murder is an action carried out after previous deliberation with the aim of killing a person, while manslaughter is an act of impulse, resulting in the death of a person. The judge, after con-sidering the circumstances described here, based his verdict on this latter legal qualification. MAJOR JONES: Witness, I am obliged to you for your disserta-tion on the difference between manslaughter and murder. I think the Tribunal is familiar with it. But, at any rate, the end of this story was that the Army commander-in-chief crossed the whole thing? REINECKE: That is correct. MAJOR JONES: The sentences were dropped under the amnesty That is the end of this suit of murder by the Army judicial authorities-amnesty and pardoning of the whole thing. I want you now to turn to, another document so the Tribunal can judge how zealous the German authorities were in the pursuit of the SS crimes. It is Document D-926, to be Exhibit GB-568. This comes from an earlier period, not from the days when the Poles or the others who you said were responsible were operating. These were the pioneer days of the SS, 1933, when you joined them. 'this is a file relating to the deaths of prisoners in protective custody at the concentration camp of Dachau. It starts with a letter dated 2 June 1933, from the provincial court public prosecutor to the State Ministry of Justice.
HERR PELCKMANN: It is headed: "Deaths of prisoners in protective custody at the concentration camp of Dachau." It relates to the Schloss, Hausmann, Strauss, and Netzger cases: "In accordance with my instructions, I had a lengthy discus-sion on 1 June 1933, with Police Commander Himmler in his office at the Police headquarters, Munich, about the incidents at the concentration camp of Dachau, which I have already reported to the Ministry of Justice separately. I particularly reported to him briefly, by showing the photographs from the investigation files, about the Schloss, Hausmann, Strauss, and Netzger cases, of which he appeared to have been informed already. I pointed out that particularly the four above-men-tioned cases, in view of the result of the findings to date, offer good reason for strongly suspecting serious punishable actions on the part of the individual members of the camp guard and of camp officials, and that both the public prose-cution and the Police authorities to whose knowledge these incidents have come, are under the obligation, under the threat of heavy punishment, to carry out the criminal in-vestigation of the above-mentioned incidents without con-sideration for any persons whatsoever...." I don't think I need trouble you with the rest of that document. Document 2 is a letter from the provincial court public prosecutor to the State Ministry of Justice again. It is 11 August 1933. So you see, Witness, no action had apparently been taken from 2 June until 11 August. And then the provincial court public prosecutor, in the last sentence of that letter, after referring to the dossiers relating to Schloss, Hausmann, Strauss, and Netzger, says: "Should the dossiers not be required at present, I would request the return of these files for the purpose of examining whether the decree of 2 August 1933 regarding the granting of immunity, from punishment has to be applied." I need not trouble you with the third document, or the fourth.
HERR PELCKMANN: If the Tribunal turns to Page 5 of its copy, and if you, Witness, turn to Document 8, which is the next I wish to refer to-that is a report again, from the provincial public prosecutor to the State Ministry of Justice: "Death of the prisoner in protective custody, Hugo Handschuch, in Dachau Camp." Have you found that, Witness? REINECKE: Yes, I have found it. MAJOR JONES: I am reading from Page 5 of the English text: "Subject: Death of the prisoner in protective custody, Hugo Handschuch, in Dachau Camp. "The judicial autopsy ordered by me took place in Dachau on 23 September 1933."I am reading from Page 5 of the English text now. --"It showed that death was due to a brain injury owing to hemorrhage in the soft membrane and that this hemorrhage was caused by blows with a blunt instrument, which hit the skull particularly in the region of the left temple and the back of the head. In addition, profuse bleeding was established on the corpse round the left cheek, in the right shoulder and left upper arm regions, on the buttocks and the upper thigh and of the lower part of the left thigh -the results of blows on the body of the deceased with a blunt object, while alive. On the findings based on the post mortem, the preliminary medical opinion gave grounds for assuming outside responsibility. "I intend to continue the further necessary search for the per-petrators in collaboration with the Political Police." And it is brought to the attention, as you see, of the Prime Minister with a request to take note and forward to the Reich Governor in Bavaria. And then there is a notice given to the State Minister of the Interior. Then Document 11, Page 9 of the English text-proposal made by the Minister of the Interior to quash the inquiry into the deaths of the protective custody prisoners, Handschuch, Franz, and Katz. Handschuch, you'll remember, Witness, was the subject of the autopsy which indicated outside responsibility. This is a letter from Adolf Wagner to the Defendant Dr. Frank, the representative Nazi jurist.
HERR PELCKMANN: The letter, which has been in Court, is dated 29 November 1933. THE PRESIDENT: What Dr. Frank do you refer to? MAJOR JONES: That is the Defendant Frank, My Lord. THE PRESIDENT: Yes, go ahead. MAJOR JONES: "The Commander of the Political Police in the Ministry of the Interior presented to you, on 18 November 1933, a proposal according to which the inquiry into the cases of the prisoners in protective custody, Hugo Handschuch, Wilhelm Franz, and Delvin Katz, should be quashed for State political reasons. In connection with this case you sent to me the liaison man of the State Ministry of Justice with the Bavarian Political Police, Public Prosecutor Dr. Stepp. Meanwhile, in a dis-cussion with the Commander of the Political Police, Reichsführer SS Himmler, I have ascertained once more that by the pursuance of this inquiry the reputation of the National Socialist State would greatly suffer, because this inquiry would be directed against members of the SA and SS, and thus the SA and the SS, as the main pillars of the National Socialist State, would be directly affected. For these reasons, I support the proposal of the Commander of the Political Police in the State Ministry of the Interior for quashing the inquiry presented to you on 18 November." I don't think I need trouble with the rest of that letter. It states that the inhabitants of the concentration camp are almost exclusively criminal types. The next document, Document 10 of the German pile ... THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Elwyn Jones, the document you have just been reading from, which is on Page 9 of the English text, is dated 29 November 1933. Is that a misprint? MAJOR JONES: No, My Lord, that ' is correct. THE PRESIDENT: The document on Page 5, which you read before, from the public prosecution, is dated 26 September 1936. Is that correct? MAJOR JONES: No, My Lord, that is a misprint and I should have called Your Lordship's attention to it. That should be 1933, My Lord, and I am much obliged. THE PRESIDENT: That is Page 5.
HERR PELCKMANN: In referring to the document, you should state that the pages which you did not refer to, Pages 3 and 4, show that the other dossiers, in connection with the public prosecutor, Provincial Court, Munich, were apparently lost and were not forthcoming and that inquiries were going on about them until 1935. MAJOR JONES: Yes, My Lord. Much obliged. I was trying to deal with the essential contents of the file. THE PRESIDENT: Go on then. MAJOR JONES: I want you, Witness, to look at Page 6 of the English text and Document 10 of your file. That is a memo from Dr. H. Frank, the defendant, dated 2 December 1933, to the Prime Minister, and the subject is "Quashing of criminal proceedings": "A merchant's wife, Sophie Handschuch, of Munich, in a writ- ten accusation received by the public prosecution at the Provincial Court Munich II, on 18 September 1933, stated that her son, Hugo Handschuch, taken into protective custody on 23 August 1923"-that should be 1933-"died of heart failure in Dachau Camp on 2 September 1933. In the inquest certificate, heart failure following on a concussion of the brain was given as the cause of death. The body was not shown to the relatives and was released only after great difficulties on condition that the coffin would not be reopened. The lid of the coffin was so firmly nailed down that it was impossible to reopen it. The writer asked that the coffin be opened and a judicial post mortem held, as she wanted the body identi-fied and the cause of death established. "In order to clear up the matter, the public prosecutor at the Provincial Court, Munich II, at first personally questioned the plaintiff, Sophie Handschuch, and the flanc6e of the deceased, Thea Kink.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Pelckmann, didn't you understand that we don't wish to have-can't you hear? HERR PELCKMANN: Yes. THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal has indicated to the Prosecution they don't want to hear these documents read which have already been put in evidence, and there you are reading every word of this document. HERR PELCKMANN: I understand, Mr. President. THE PRESIDENT: Surely you can summarize it-if you have question to put upon it, that must be possible. HERR PELCKMANN: Do you know, Witness, whether such in-structions were actually carried out in the concentration camps? REIN`ECKE: The investigating commissions of the head office "SS Courts" have repeatedly confirmed to me in personal reports that such instructions were in fact put into practice in the concen-tration camps. They reported to me that accommodation, hygienic conditions, medical care, feeding, and also the treatment and the physical appearance of the detainees were for the most part good. They also confirmed that the strict prohibition of ill-treatment of detainees was repeatedly made known in the camps, and was, in fact, observed. The picture of the concentration camps under normal conditions is, therefore, quite a different one. To the outsider, the cleanliness and the smooth functioning of the working program was noticeable. If crimes have been committed in concentration camps, then they occurred in a way in which they remained hidden from the outside world and even from the inmates of the camp unless they partic-ipated in them. THE PRESIDENT: Are you saying that you personally received this letter or that you had these facts before you? REINECKE: I received reports from these investigating com-missions, which were submitted to me personally, and from these reports I was able to gather the facts which I have just related. THE PRESIDENT: Well then, you knew in December 1942 that 70,000 arrivals in concentration camps out of 136,000 had died, did you? REINECKE: No, that I did not know.
THE PRESIDENT: I shall, have to supplement my testimony by giving now an answer which I was to have given in connection with a later question, namely, that the head office "SS Courts" instituted these investigating commissions for the disclosure of crimes committed in concentration camps only as from the second half of 1943. THE PRESIDENT: I thought you said in answer to my question, "These facts were known to me." Go on, Dr. Pelckmann. HERR PELCKMANN: In this connection, I draw the attention of the Tribunal to my affidavit Number SS-65 to 67 which was translated in its entirety at my request. It was deposed by a judge who conducted the investigations and it contains numerous additional details. [Turning to the witness.] To what extent were the legal authorities of the SS responsible for the administration of the law in con-centration camps? REINECKE: The SS jurisdiction did not apply to the detainees in concentration camps. Only the regular German courts had responsibility for them. To a certain extent the SS legal authorities also had to administer justice to the political prisoners in the con-centration camps, but with the proviso that the Reich Security Main Office, in this case, had the preference in making investigations. Guards and members of the commander's staff in concentration -camps came under the jurisdiction of the SS legal authorities to the full extent laid down by military courts. HERR PELCKMANN: You have already mentioned, Witness, that the legal authorities began prosecuting crimes committed in concentration camps in 1943. When in 1943? REINECKE: In the second half of 1943 the legal authorities, while following up a case of corruption in which the former camp commander Koch was involved, came upon clues to crimes leading to other camps. It was from that moment that the legal authorities became active. HERR PELCKMANN: How was it that the legal authorities became active so late? REINECKE: So-called legal officers were attached to concentra-tion camps for purposes of supervision.
THE PRESIDENT: These legal officers, who were the instruments of the appointing authority concerned, had the duty of writing so-called reports of evidence, if crimes of any sort occurred, and of submitting such reports to the courts so that they might take over the prosecution of the crimes. HERR PELCKMANN: One intermediate question ... THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Pelckmann, I don't think he gave an an-swer to your question at all. Your question was: How was it that it was so late as the second half of 1943 that these investigating commissions began to become active? He did not answer that ques-tion at all. HERR PELCKMANN: Your Lordship, the witness has not yet finished. I was just going to put an intermediate question, and in his further explanations the matter will become quite clear. [Turning to the witness.] I want to pat an intermediate question, Witness. Were these legal officers subordinated to you, to the head office "SS Courts", or to the SS legal authorities, or to whom were they subordinated? Can you give names? REINECKE: The legal officers were not subordinates of the legal authorities, but they were officials of the chief justice making the investigations. HERR PELCKMANN: Who was that in the case of the concentration camps? REINECKE: In the case of concentration camps it was Oswald Pohl, who was already mentioned yesterday. HERR PELCKMANN: Now, will you please continue with the answer to the question, why did the legal authorities learn of these atrocities at so late a stage? REINECKE: The reason was that earlier the legal authorities had not had any suspicions, owing to the fact that these legal officers, during the years until 1943, were continuously handing in such reports of evidence to the courts. These reports of evidence were very detailed. In cases of unnatural death of detainees, they con-tained photographs of the place of the crime, medical reports, evidence by detainees and guards. These reports were so detailed that the suspicion that other crimes could be committed behind the backs of the legal officers could not arise.
THE PRESIDENT: These reports of evidence which were submitted led in every case to the trial and sentencing of the criminal, and such sentences were pronounced throughout all the years. HERR PELCKMANN: Might not the reports of evidence have been forged, and might not the actual facts have been covered up in that way? REINECKE: In part this was the case. I just said that during the second half of 1943 we began investigations in the camp at Buchenwald. Already in 1941 we had carried out such an investiga-tion in Buchenwald, which, however, had no result. During the later investigation, in 1943, it was in fact discovered that in 1941 the commander, Koch, had used forged reports, coached witnesses, and forged medical reports which had deceived the investigating judges. We then conducted investigations in other camps, where we found that these reports of evidence had been in order. HERR PELCKMANN: Now, will you please describe briefly what further steps the SS legal authorities took with regard to these crimes in concentration camps? REINECKE: The clues in the camp at Buchenwald were mani-fold and they led to many camps. The matter became more complex from month to month. It was evident that the investigating organs of the legal authorities had been utterly unsuitable for the task of conducting a purely criminal investigation of this sort, because the legal authorities, in view of their character as a military legal instrument, lacked- a fundamental basis, namely, an authority capable of carrying out criminal prosecutions. For that reason, judges were quickly given short training courses in criminal proceedings, and at the same time, in collaboration with the Reich Security Main Office, experts from the Reich Criminal Police Department were made available for the investigation of these crimes. Such commissions were detailed to many camps and they worked continuously until the collapse. The head office "SS Courts" created a special court which had almost exclusively the task of trying these cases involving crimes committed in concentration camps.
THE PRESIDENT: In the head office "SS, Courts," which was the leading office of the legal authorities, a special head department was created which carried out the over-all direction of the investigations in concentration camps and which was to take over the task ordinarily discharged by the public prosecutor. HERR PELCKMANN: Now, briefly summarized, what was the outcome of the fight of the SS jurisdiction against crime in con-centration camps? REINECKE: Altogether, approximately 800 cases were investi-gated; 400 of these 800 cases were brought to trial, and 200 out of those 400 ended with sentences by the court. Among the cases investigated were proceedings against five commanders of concentra-tion camps; proceedings against two commanders were completed and ended with a sentence of death by shooting., HERR PELCKMANN: Were any difficulties put in the way of your commissions conducting these investigations? REINECKE: Very considerable difficulties were put in the way of these commissions. These difficulties originated with Pohl, who was using every means in his power to prevent the investigating commissions from penetrating to the real sources of these crimes. In that way, the legal authorities, being unable to make rapid progress and being compelled to break up piecemeal the secrecy surrounding the evidence, were forced to work together with detainees. In almost every camp in which such a commission was at work, confidential agents were recruited from among the detainees who submitted material to the investigating judges. But it was very difficult to persuade these detainees to co-operate, because they' feared that they would be killed if their activities were discovered. HERR PELCKMANN: But could you not easily have removed these obstacles by reporting, for instance, to Himmler? Pohl, as far as I know, was directly subordinate to Himmler, so that Himmler could have given him the necessary orders? REINECKE: Oh no, this man Pohl did not proceed as clumsily as that.