dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
GISEVIUS: Canaris was the senior officer of the OKW. Formally he even had to represent Keitel when Keitel was absent. Keitel was only concerned that someone else should take his place at such times, usually his Party general, Reinecke; and Oster, as the representative, Chief of Staff for Canaris, was also in close association with Canaris. Keitel could not have wished for closer contact with reality and truth than through this connection with the Chief of his Wehrmacht Counterintelligence Service.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: So these reports which were sent to Keitel came from the highest men in his own organization under himself?
GISEVIUS: Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, what did they report to Keitel? Let me ask you if they reported to him that there was a systematic program of murder of the insane going on.
GISEVIUS: Yes, indeed. On these subjects, too, records were completed in detail including the despairing reports of the directors of the lunatic asylums. I recall this exactly because here, too, we had great difficulties in giving a reason for these reports, and we actually put them through as reports of foreign doctors who had heard of these things with indignation.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Did he report to him the persecution and murder of the Jews and the program of extermination of the Jews that was being carried out?
GISEVIUS: From the first Jewish pogroms in 1938 on Keitel was minutely informed of each new action against the Jews, particularly about the establishment of the first gas chamber, or rather, the establishment of the first mass graves in the East, up to the erection of the murder factories later.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Did these reports mention the atrocities that were committed in Poland against the Poles?
GISEVIUS: Yes, indeed, here I would say again that the atrocities in Poland, too, started with isolated murders which were so horrible that we were still able to report on single cases, and could add the names of the responsible SS leaders. Here, too, Keitel was spared nothing of the terrible truth.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And did that condition of informing Keitel also prevail as to the atrocities against nationals in other occupied countries?
GISEVIUS: Yes. First of all I must of course mention the atrocities in Russia, because I must emphasize that Keitel now certainly, on the basis of the Polish atrocities, had been warned sufficiently as to what was at hand in Russia. And I remember how the preparation of these orders, such as the order for the shooting of commissars and the Night and Fog Decree, was continued for weeks in the OKW, so that, as soon as the preparation of these orders was begun, we begged Canaris and Oster to present a petition to Keitel. But I would like to add that I do not doubt that other courageous men also presented a petition to Keitel in this connection. Since I belonged to a certain group, the impression might be created that only in this group were there persons who were interested in these problems, and I would be withholding vital information if I did not add that even in the High Command of the OKW and in the General Staff there were excellent men who did everything to reach Keitel through their separate channels, and that there were also brave men in many ministries who tried to reach every officer whom they saw in order to plead with him to order a stop to this injustice.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Did the reports to Keitel mention the forced enslavement of millions of foreign workers and their deportation or importation into Germany?
GISEVIUS: Yes, indeed.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And those enslaved laborers are the displaced persons, largely, of this day-that are plaguing Germany today, are they not?
GISEVIUS: Yes, indeed. In this connection I would also like to say that in our reports it was already mentioned just what responsibility the Wehrmacht would have to bear if these ill-treated people should be free some day. We had an idea of what was to come, and those who made the reports at that time can understand what has now taken place.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Did the reports to Keitel report the persecution of the churches in the occupied countries?
GISEVIUS: Yes, they did. I would like to cite as a special example how we even once sent leading churchmen to Norway in the guise of agents. They established contact with Bishop Bergraf, and brought back very detailed reports of what Bishop Bergraf thought about the persecution of the churches in Norway and other countries. I can still see this report before me because Keitel also wrote one of his well-known National Socialist Party phrases on this document.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, these reports consisted both of information furnished by Canaris and Oster and of the reports coming in from the field under this plan?
GISEVIUS: Yes, indeed.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I want to ask you a few questions about the SA and the SS organizations. In your book, which you have been asked about, I think you have characterized the SA as a private army of the Nazi organization. Is that a correct characterization?
GISEVIUS: Yes, indeed.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: During the early part of the struggle for power the SA constituted a private army for carrying out the orders of the Nazi Party, did it not?
GISEVIUS: Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: They took in a good many people in the SA, and it got pretty large, and there came a time when there was some danger it would get away from them; wasn't there?
GISEVIUS: Yes, that is correct. MR. JUSTICE JACKSON. And the murder of Roehm and his associates was a struggle for power, was it not, between Goering and Himmler and the Nazi crowd associated with them on one hand and Roehm and his associates on the other?
GISEVIUS: Yes, indeed.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: After the murder of Roehm, this SA organization, which was very big at the time, rather lost importance, didn't it?
GISEVIUS: Yes, completely.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And the SS, which was a smaller and more compact organization, came in to take its place as a private army, didn't it?
GISEVIUS: Yes, as the decisive private army.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, let's go back to the SA during the period before the struggle for power resulting in the Roehm purge. What part did the SA play in the battle for power, the seizure of power?
GISEVIUS: As is said in the song, "It cleared the streets for the Brown Battalions." and without a doubt the SA played a dominant role in the so-called seizure of power. Without the SA Hitler would undoubtedly never have come to power.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, let's take up their methods. Perhaps I can shorten this by quoting from your book. I think you say that: "Whoever had not entirely made up his mind, had it made up for him unequivocally by the SA. Their methods were primitive, therefore all the more effective. For instance, one learned the new Hitler salute very quickly when, on the sidewalks, beside every marching SA column-and where were there no parades in those days-a few stalwart SA men went along giving pedestrians a crack on the head right and left if they failed to perform the correct gesture at least three steps ahead of the SA flag. And these Storm Troopers acted the same way in all things." Is that a correct account of their activities and influence?
GISEVIUS: I hope so.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, you know so, don't you?
GISEVIUS: Yes, yes, of course, for it is my own description, I cannot criticize it.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Yes, but you saw these things yourself, did you not? You were in Germany at that time?
GISEVIUS: Yes, certainly.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: You see, it is very difficult for us, with all the documents we have, Doctor, to get the picture of the day to day events, and you were there and we were not. Now, let me make another question: "The chronicle of that private army is colorful and stirring. It teemed with beer hall brawls, street fights, knifings, shootings, and fist fights, altogether a mad rough and tumble affair, where naturally there was no question of crises of leadership or of mutinies. In this brotherhood of the wild men of German nationalism there was undoubtedly much idealism, but at the same time the SA was the repository for political derelicts. The failures of all classes found refuge there. The discontents, the disinherited, the desperados streamed to it wholesale. The core, the paid permanent group, and particularly the leaders, were recruited, as time went on, more and more from the riffraff of a period of political and social decay." Is that a correct statement of your observations of the SA at that time?
GISEVIUS: Yes, quite.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: May I call your attention to another question: "The SA organized huge raids. The SA searched houses. The SA confiscated property. The SA cross-examined people. The SA put people in jail. In short, the SA appointed themselves permanent auxiliary police and paid no attention to any of the principles of the so-called system period (Weimar Republic). The worst problem for the helpless authorities was that the SA never returned its booty at all. Woe unto anyone who gets into their clutches! "From this time dated the 'Bunker,' those dreaded private prisons of which every SA Storm Troop had to have at least one. 'Taking away' became the right of the SA. The efficiency of a Standartenfuehrer was measured by the number of arrests he had made, and the good reputation of an SA man was based on the effectiveness with which he 'educated' "-in quotation marks, the quotation marks being yours-"'educated' his prisoners. Brawls could no longer be staged in the fight for power, yet the 'fight' went on, only the blows were now struck in the full enjoyment of power." Is that a correct statement of your observations of the SA?
GISEVIUS: Yes, indeed.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I think you also used the term "Bunker," and it is a slightly technical term with which some of us are not familiar. Will you tell the Tribunal what this Bunker system of the SA was?
GISEVIUS: Bunkers were those cellars or other dungeons with thick walls in which the poor prisoners were locked up, where they were then beaten and in a large measure beaten to death. They were these private jails in which, during the first months, the leaders of the leftist parties and of the trade unions were systematically rendered harmless, which explains the phenomenon that the leftist groups did not act again for so long a time, for there, at the outset and most thoroughly, the entire leadership was done away with.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: You also use the expression "'taking away' became the inalienable right of the SA," and "taking away" is in quotation marks. Will you tell us about this "taking away," what it means?
GISEVIUS: That was the arbitrary arrest, whereby the relatives often for periods of weeks or months did not know where the poor victims had disappeared to, and could be glad if they ever returned home.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I think you also make this observation in your book: "Every excess, pardoned as 'overzealousness in the cause of the National Socialist Revolution,' was a demonstration of official sanction and necessarily drew in its wake a new excess. It was the bestiality tolerated during the first months that later encouraged the sadistic murderers in the concentration camps. The growth in brutality and insensibility of the general public, which toward the end of the revolution extended far beyond the domain of the Gestapo, was the unavoidable consequence of this first irresponsible attempt to give free rein to the Brown Shirts for their acts of violence." Does that, too, represent your observation of the SA?
GISEVIUS: Yes-not of the SA alone but also of general conditions in Germany.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, will you tell us about-as I understand you, after the Roehm Purge the SA was rather abandoned as the private army, and a more reliable and smaller and more compact private army was created under Himmler.
GISEVIUS: A guard which had been established by Himmler long before this time now actually came into action. I do not doubt that Himmler and his closest circle for years had worked toward this very objective so that one day, with their Schutztruppe (protective guard), they could establish the terror system in Germany. But until 30 June the SS had been a part of the SA, and Goering- excuse me, Roehm was also the chief of the SS. The road for Himmler to police chief in Germany, to police chief of evil, was only open after Roehm had been eliminated with his much larger SA. But the will to power of the SS and all the confused and unscrupulous ideas connected therewith must be assumed to have existed in the leadership of the SS already for many years previous to that.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, this SS organization selected its members with great care, did it not?
GISEVIUS: Yes, indeed.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Will you tell us something about the qualifications for membership? What was necessary?
GISEVIUS: The members had to be so-called Nordic types. Actually I always considered these questionnaires as a good subject for a humorous paper, and for that reason I am not in a position today to give you exact particulars, except that, if I am not mistaken, the distinguishing characteristics of men and women went so far as underarm perspiration. I recall that Heydrich and Himmler, in selecting SS men who were to do police duty, decided only after a picture had been submitted to them of the future victim who would be charged with carrying out their evil commands. I know that, for example, Nebe repeatedly saved officials in the criminal police force (Kripo) from being transferred to the ranks of the Gestapo by having poor photographs taken of these people so that, as far as possible, they did not look Nordic. In that case, of course, they were turned down immediately. But it would be going too far afield to relate more about these dismal things in this courtroom.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, was the membership of the SS recruited only from what we may call fanatical Nazis, reliable Nazis?
GISEVIUS: I believe we have to make a distinction. In the first years of the SS, many decent German people, especially farmers and people in the country, felt drawn to the SS, because they believed Himmler's assurance that the SS was to bring order to Germany and to be a counterbalance to the SA terror. In that way, to my knowledge, some people in the years before 1933, and even in 1933 and 1934, entered the SS, because they hoped that here would be a nucleus standing for order and right, and I believe it is my duty to point out the tragedy of these people. Each and every case should be examined before deciding whether, later on, a member was guilty or whether he remained decent. But from a certain period of time on-I believe I specified yesterday 1935-no one could have any doubts as to the real SS objectives. From then on-here I would like to take up your own expression-fanatical National Socialists, that is, "super" National Socialists, entered the SS.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And from 1935 on, was it, in your judgment as one who was on the ground, necessarily so, that the persons who entered it knew what its actual activities were?
GISEVIUS: Yes; what he was entering into and what orders he had to expect.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: The Tribunal wishes me to ask you in reference to yesterday's incident if you have anything to add. I know nothing further on that incident, in reference to the threat made. Is there anything that you wish to add about that incident in order to make it clear to the Tribunal, anything that has not been told about it?
GISEVIUS: I would like to make clear that Dr. Dix did not merely inform me about a discussion he had with Dr. Stahmer. That morning I arrived in the room of the attorneys, and I do not wish to state further particulars, but the atmosphere there was not exactly cordial to begin with. Then I went up to Dr. Dix to report something else. Dr. Stahmer approached, obviously very excited, and asked Dr. Dix for an immediate interview. Dr. Dix refused on the ground that he was talking to me. Dr. Stahmer said in a loud voice that he must speak to Dr. Dix immediately and urgently. Dr. Dix took only two steps aside and the conversation that followed was carried on by Dr. Stahmer in such a loud voice, that I was bound to hear most of it. I did hear it and said to attorney Dr. Kraus who was standing nearby, "Just listen how Dr. Stahmer is carrying on." Dr. Dix then came over to me, very excited, and after all this fuss, in response to my questions as to what precisely was the demand of the Defendant Goering, he told me what I had half heard anyway. I would like to underline that if I had had the opportunity to tell the story first in my own way, I would have emphasized that I was under the impression that Dr. Stahmer had merely transmitted a statement, or rather what I would call a threat, by the Defendant Goering.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, in this Nazi regime, after Hitler came to power, will you state whether there was, as far as you could see, a systematic practice of the Nazi ministers and Nazi officials enriching themselves by reasons of their confiscation of property of Jews and others?
GISEVIUS: Yes. This became more cynical from year to year and we kept lists as to which of the civil ministers and, above all, which of the generals and field marshals participated in this system. We planned to inquire of all the generals and ministers at a later date whether these donations had been put into a bank account or whether they had possibly used this money for their own personal interests.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And will you state to the Tribunal which of the defendants were engaged in self-enrichment in the manner that you have indicated?
GISEVIUS: I am sorry I am only able to give a negative reply since we repeatedly inquired from the Defendant Schacht...
THE PRESIDENT: Perhaps this will be a good time to adjourn for 10 minutes. [A recess was taken.]
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Dr. Gisevius, I have just a few more questions which I would like to put to you in reference to the war and the resistance movement of which you were a part.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Justice Jackson, there is just one question I should like to ask the witness. You said that you kept lists of the ministers and generals who participated in this system of spoils. What was your source of information?
GISEVIUS: We had information from the various ministries, from antechambers of ministries, and from the Finance Ministry. But I did not finish the answer before. I said that I could answer the question as to which of the defendants had enriched himself only in the negative. Concerning the Defendant Schacht, I wanted to continue saying that I personally did not look into these lists, and that I took part only in the questioning of the Defendant Schacht and that he personally had not enriched himself. I did not intend to say in any sense, therefore, that all the defendants, especially Defendants Von Papen or Von Neurath, to name only these two, had enriched themselves. I do not know. I wanted to say only that about Schacht we know, or rather I know, that he did not take part in that system.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, in addition to a system of spoils from confiscated property, there were also open gifts from Hitler to the generals and ministers, were there not, of large sums of property and money?
GISEVIUS: Yes. These were the famous donations with which, especially in the years after the outbreak of the war, the top generals were systematically corrupted.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And did that hold true with reference to many of the ministers?
GISEVIUS: I do not doubt it.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, as I understood your testimony, whatever doubts you may have had before 1938 when the affair Fritsch occurred, that event or series of events convinced even Schacht that Hitler was bent on aggressive warfare.
GISEVIUS: After the Fritsch crisis Schacht was convinced that now radicalism and the course toward war could no longer be stopped.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: There was never any doubt in the minds of all of you men who were in the resistance movement, was there, that the attack on Poland of September 1939 was aggression on Hitler's part?
GISEVIUS: No, no, there could be no doubt about that.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And that diplomatic means of righting whatever wrongs Germany felt she suffered in reference to the Corridor and Danzig had not been exhausted?
GISEVIUS: I can only point to the existing documents. There was no will for peace.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, in the German resistance movement, as I understand you, there was agreement that you wanted to obtain various modifications of the Treaty of Versailles, and you also wanted various economic betterments for Germany, just as other people wanted them. That was always agreed upon, was it not?
GISEVIUS: We were all agreed that a calm and a reasonable balance could be achieved again in Europe only when certain modifications of the Versailles Treaty were carried through by means of peaceful negotiations.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Your difference from the Nazi group was chiefly, in reference to that matter, one of method.
GISEVIUS: Yes. Mat, JUSTICE JACKSON: From the very beginning, as I understand you, it was the position of your group that a war would result disastrously for Germany as well as for the rest of the world.
GISEVIUS: Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And that the necessary modifications, given a little patience, could be brought about by peaceful means.
GISEVIUS: Absolutely.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, it was in the light of that difference of opinion, I suppose, that your resistance movement against the regime in power in Germany carried out these proposals for Putsche and assassinations which you have described.
GISEVIUS: Yes, but I would like to add that we were not only thinking of the great dangers outside, but we also realized what dangers lay in such a system of terror. From the very beginning there was a group of people in Germany who still did not even think of the possibility of war, and nevertheless protested against injustice, the deprivation of liberty, and the fight against religion. In the beginning, therefore, it was not a fight against war, but if I may say so, it was a fight for human rights. From the very first moment on, among all classes of people, in all professional circles, and in all age groups, there were people who were ready to fight, to suffer, and to die for that idea.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, the question may arise here as to what your motives and what your purposes in this resistance movement were with reference to the German people, and I shall ask you to state to the Tribunal your over-all purpose in resisting the Government in power in your country.
GISEVIUS: I should like to say that death has reaped such a rich harvest among the members of the resistance movement, that it is only for that reason I can sit here, and that otherwise more worthy and able men could give this answer. Having said this, I feel that I can answer that, whether Jew or Christian, there were people in Germany who believed in the freedom of religion, in justice, and human dignity, not only for Germany but also, in their profound responsibility as Germans, for the higher concept of Europe and the world.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: There was a group which composed this resistance, as I understand it.
GISEVIUS: It was not only just a group, but many individuals had to carry the secret of their resistance silently to their death rather than confide it to the Gestapo records; and only a very few persons have enjoyed the distinction of being referred to now as a group.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Most of the men who were associated with you in this movement are dead?
GISEVIUS: Almost all of them.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Is there anything you would like to add to clarify your position to the Tribunal, Dr. Gisevius?
GISEVIUS: Excuse me, I did not understand you.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Is there anything you would like to add in order that the Tribunal may understand your position in this, your feeling, your very strong feeling in this matter, to understand and appraise your own relation to this situation?
GISEVIUS: I do not like to talk of myself, but I want to thank you, Mr. Prosecutor, for giving me an opportunity to testify emphatically on behalf of the dead and the living.