dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
SEVERING: Yes.
DR. SIEMERS: A declaration to that effect was made?
SEVERING: Yes, such a declaration was made.
DR. SIEMERS: Were important matters connected with these secret budgets or violations of the Treaty of Versailles?
SEVERING: I may state here and have to admit even that since I was used to violations of the Versailles Treaty, I was especially interested in the extent of the violations with regard to the sum. I wanted to know what I could do in my new capacity against secret arms-bearers and against illegal organizations; and I asked what was the total sum involved. I was thereupon told-and I believe that this was set down and confirmed in writing later- that perhaps 5 1/2 to 6 million marks was the amount involved in these secret budgets.
DR. SIEMERS: Herr Minister, you remember the budget figures of those days better than I do. What can we gather from these figures? Must we conclude that they were grave violations involving aggressive intentions or may we gather that in the final analysis they were just trifles?
SEVERING: I do not have the figures as they apply to the budget plans of the Navy and the Army. I cannot quote the figures from memory. But the impression I gained from the reports of the two Wehrmacht leaders was that only trifles were involved. It was this impression which caused me to assume a certain political responsibility for these things, and especially in view of the fact that we were assured that further concealment of budget items or other violations were not to occur in future.
DR. SIEMERS: Do you remember that Groener at this session declared that the small infringements of the Treaty dealt purely with defense measures, with antiaircraft guns, coastal fortifications, et cetera ?
SEVERING: I cannot give you the details today, but I might remind you that all the speeches which Groener made at the time when he was Defense Minister were along these general lines. In all of his speeches in the Reichstag, Herr Groener expressly declared that he was an advocate of sound pacifism. In answer to your question I reply that Groener's statements, and also my own, were based on defense and defensive measures.
DR. SIEMERS: In other words at the end of this session, the Reich Government expressly accepted the responsibility for these infringements and the small secret budget items?
SEVERING: To the extent that we have mentioned.
DR. SIEMERS: Did Raeder in the future adhere to the clear directives of the Reich Government?
SEVERING: I cannot answer that in a positive manner, but I can say that I did not observe any violations on the part of the Navy in respect to the agreements during my term of office as Minister of the Interior.
DR. SIEMERS: Are you personally of the opinion, since you know Raeder sufficiently well, that he kept the promise he made to you not to resort to secret violations?
SEVERING: Raeder gave me the impression that he was an honest man and I believed that he would keep his word.
DR. SIEMERS: Just one more question, Herr Minister. Of course, you cannot remember the details, but do you perhaps recall that on the occasion of the cabinet meeting of 18 October there was discussion about a Dutch firm which was designing U-boats?
SEVERING: No, I cannot give you details of the discussion; but I do know that at that period of time, there was much talk-either in another cabinet meeting or by a subcommittee of the Reichstag or by a different parliamentarian body-of experimental workshops which had been established for the Army and the Navy in Russia, Sweden, and Holland.
DR. SIEMERS: Purely experimental workshops?
SEVERING: I can say only that there was talk to this effect. Whether these experimental workshops had been established I cannot tell you from my own experience.
DR. SIEMERS: Herr Minister, could Germany, by reason of governmental discussions going on at the time, hope that some day, despite the Versailles Treaty, she would be permitted to build U-boats?
SEVERING: The leading statesmen...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Siemers, how can he answer that there was a hope that they would be allowed to build U-boats? That is what your question was, was it not; was there a hope?
DR. SIEMERS: I know, Mr. President, these questions were already dealt with by the governments which obtained through the years 1928 to 1932; and I believe that Stresemann carried on these discussions. Since Stresemann is no longer alive, I would like to ask Herr Severing on this point.
THE PRESIDENT: It seems to the Tribunal that it is mere political gossip.
DR. SIEMERS: Herr Minister, on whom did it depend what was brought up in the Reichstag? Raeder is accused of acting behind the back of the Reichstag. Who submitted this to the Reichstag? Did Raeder do that?
SEVERING: I do not quite follow you. Who submitted the budget, you mean?
DR. SIEMERS: Yes.
SEVERING: The budget went through the hands of the experts of the various Ministries and the entire Cabinet, and the budget was submitted to the Reichstag by the Cabinet.
DR. SIEMERS: The matter of dealing with the budget before the Reichstag was a matter for the Reich Government and not for the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, is that right?
SEVERING: Inasmuch as a budget item was submitted to the Reichstag, the competent Reich Minister took care of it in the main committee and the plenary session of the Reichstag, but the political responsibility was assumed by the entire Reich Cabinet.
THE PRESIDENT: It was never alleged as to the Defendant Raeder that he had submitted the budget to the Reichstag; it was never put to him.
DR. SIEMERS: Mr. President, yesterday it was asserted...
THE PRESIDENT: Don't argue! Go on with any other questions.
DR. SIEMERS: Do you recall whether at the end of 1929 you talked with a member of the government with regard to the various leading personalities in the Wehrmacht, and that you made a comment which subsequently became known concerning certain personalities?
SEVERING: Yes, it is correct that on one occasion I had been asked to give a personal estimate of certain military personalities. I named Groener and Raeder in this connection.
DR. SIEMERS: Herr Minister, how many concentration camps do you know of?
SEVERING: How many do I know of now?
DR. SIEMERS: I am sorry; not now. How many did you know of before the collapse of Germany?
SEVERING: Perhaps 6 to 8.
DR. SIEMERS: Herr Minister, did you know before the collapse of Germany or rather did you know in 1944 already about the mass murders which have been dealt with so frequently in this proceeding?
SEVERING: I gained knowledge of concentration camps when murder, if I may say so, became professional and when I heard of a few cases which affected me personally very deeply. First of all, I was told that the Police President of Altona, a member of the Reichstag and a Social Democrat of the right wing of the Party, had been murdered in the concentration camp at Papenburg. Another friend of mine, the chairman of the Miners Union, Fritz Husemann, is said to have been murdered shortly after his being committed to the same concentration camp. Another friend of mine, Ernst Heimann, was beaten to death in the Oranienburg Camp according to the reports received by his family. Dachau was known even in the north of Germany as a concentration camp. Some Jewish inmates returned from Buchenwald in the spring of 1939, and in that way I learned of this camp. Columbia House at Berlin I figured to be a concentration camp also. That was my only knowledge of camps and their horrors up until the time when the London radio started to report about concentration camps. I perhaps might mention another case. In 1944 a friend of mine, a member of the Reichstag, Stefan Meier, who had served 3 years in the penitentiary, was put into a concentration camp in or near Linz. After a brief stay there he was murdered, according to reports received by his family.
DR. SIEMERS: Herr Minister, you just heard of these and similar individual cases?
SEVERING: Yes.
DR. SIEMERS: You were not familiar with the fact that thousands were murdered every day in gas chambers or otherwise in the East?
SEVERING: I believed I should tell the High Tribunal only of those cases which were, so to say, authentically reported to me. Everything I learned of later through indirect reports, from my friend Seger or from the book of the now Generalintendant Langhoff, had been told me but I had no possibility of checking up on their accuracy.
DR. SIEMERS: Herr Minister, did you and your Party friends have the possibility...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Siemers, are you going to finish this examination, or are you going on? Do you see the clock?
DR. SIEMERS: Yes, I should like to leave the decision to the High Tribunal as to whether we shall have a recess now. I understand there will be a cross-interrogation so that.. .
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, but presumably you know what questions you are going to ask; I don't.
DR. SIEMERS: I cannot say exactly what answer the witness is going to give. It might take perhaps another 10 minutes, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. We will adjourn now till a quarter past 2 o'clock. [The Tribunal recessed until 1415 hours.]
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will not sit on Saturday morning. Now, Mr. Dodd, could you tell us what the position is with reference to the documents of the Defendants Von Schirach, Sauckel, and Jodl?
MR. DODD: As far as Von Schirach is concerned, we are waiting for a ruling on those documents concerning which we were heard on Saturday. I'm sorry, that was on Seyss-Inquart. I wasn't sure the documents were ready. These documents are all ready; they are all translated and in book form.
THE PRESIDENT: Will it be necessary to have any further discussion of them?
MR. DODD: I believe not, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, then, we can take it that we needn't have another argument about those documents.
MR. DODD: No, Sir, I comprehend no need for any further argument on Von Schirach's documents. With reference to Sauckel, I have asked our French colleagues what the situation is, since they have the primary responsibility. And so far as the Prosecution is concerned, I am told that Mr. Herzog of the French Prosecution staff is on his way here and he will be able to report more accurately.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we can mention that at a later stage then. Schirach at any rate then is ready to go on?
MR. DODD: He is ready to go on.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
MR. DODD: Sir David has the information about the Defendant Jodl.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Mr. Roberts.
MR. ROBERTS: My Lord, the position with regard to Jodl's documents is that Dr. Jahrreiss produced for me a draft book, just before Easter, which had a certain number of documents, all except four of which had already been exhibited, and therefore no objection could be taken to them. My Lord, the other four were all short. Two, I thought, were objectionable on the ground that they referred to alleged war crimes by one of the Allies. But, My Lord, they were so short that I thought the best course would be for them to be translated-they were only a page or so, each of them-so that when the books had been translated any objection could be taken, and then the Tribunal could shortly decide the matter.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, as there are only four of them and only two which might be objected to, that can be dealt with when we come to hear the case.
MR. ROBERTS: My Lord, there are only two.
THE PRESIDENT: We needn't have any special hearing for it.
MR. ROBERTS: No, My Lord, certainly not. It could be disposed of in a very few minutes.
PROFESSOR DR. FRANZ EXNER (Counsel for Defendant Jodl): Mr. President, I should like to say one more word about these Jodl documents. We are having difficulties over one document. It is the affidavit of Lohmann, which we submitted in German, but which was not translated into English for us on the grounds that only such documents could be translated which the Prosecution had already accepted; and the Prosecution had adopted the standpoint that it cannot express any opinion on that document as it has not been translated into English. I have mentioned this in a brief petition to the Tribunal, and I hope that the Tribunal will settle the matter.
MR. ROBERTS: My Lord, Lohmann's affidavit which is very short-it goes principally to character-and it is really not objectionable, but I had to point out that it hadn't actually been allowed by the Tribunal in their order. The Tribunal ordered it in regard to...
THE PRESIDENT: If it is accepted in the translation, that is al} that is necessary.
MR. ROBERTS: My Lord, I entirely agree, and it is all on one page.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, very well. Let it be translated.
MAJOR JONES: May it please the Tribunal, it may be convenient for me to indicate to the Tribunal at this stage of Raeder's case that with regard to the witness Lohmann, the Prosecution does not now desire to cross-examine that witness in view of the documents which are before the Court, and the fact that the matters his affidavit dealt with were dealt with yesterday by my learned friend Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, in his cross-examination of Raeder, and finally, in view of the passages of time.
THE PRESIDENT: Do any other members of the Prosecution want to cross-examine Lohmann?
MAJOR JONES: No, My Lord.
THE PRESIDENT: Do any of the defendants' counsel want to ask any questions of Lohmann? Very well, then I understand that the witness Lohmann is being kept here and perhaps a message could be given to the Marshal that he needn't remain.
M. JACQUES B. HERZOG (Assistant Prosecutor for the French Republic): Mr. President, in the name of the French Prosecution I should like to say a word about the documents presented by Sauckel's defense. I have no objection to the presentation of these documents with the reservation, of course, that a ruling on them be made after they are presented. We have no objection to the documents being translated or presented.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you think it is necessary or desirable for there to be a special hearing with reference to the admissibility, or can that be done in the course of the Defendant Sauckel's case? At the moment I apprehend that the documents have been looked at for the purpose of translation. They have now been translated. If you think it necessary that there should be any special hearing before the case begins, as to admissibility, we should like to know. Otherwise they would be dealt with in the course of the case, in the course of Sauckel's case.
M. HERZOG: I think, Mr. President, it will be sufficient if the Tribunal deals with these documents during the course of the defendant's case. I do not think we need a special hearing as far as these documents are concerned.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
DR. SIEMERS: Minister Severing, as far as I have been able to ascertain, you have inadvertently not yet answered one of my questions clearly. With reference to the concentration camps you said that you had heard of certain individual cases, and you named the individual cases. In order to avoid any misunderstanding, I just want to ask you in conclusion: did you hear of the mass murders which have been mentioned in this Trial, whereby at Auschwitz, for instance, an average of about 2,000 persons a day were exterminated in the gas chambers? Were you in possession of this knowledge before the collapse, or did you not know anything about that either?
SEVERING: I knew nothing whatsoever about these mass murders, which only became known in Germany after the collapse of the Hitler regime, partly through announcements in the press and partly through trials.
DR. SIEMERS: Minister Severing, what could you and your friends in the Party do during the National Socialist regime, against the National Socialist terror which you have partly mentioned, and did anyone abroad support you in any way in this respect?
SEVERING: If you will limit the question to asking what I and my political friends could do and did do after 30 January to combat the Hitler regime, then I can only say-but little. If there was any question of resistance against the Hitler regime, then that resistance was not a centrally organized one. It was restricted to the extent that in various cities the opponents of the Nazis met to consider how one might, at least by propaganda, overcome the mental terror. No open resistance was possible. But perhaps I should here draw your attention to the following: On 30 January I personally made a decisive attempt-or rather an attempt which, in my opinion, might have proved decisive-to oppose the Hitler regime. In the autumn of 1931 I had an interview with the Chief of the Army Command, Von Hammerstein, during which Von Hammerstein explained to me that the Reichswehr would not allow Hitler to usurp the seat of the President of the State. I remembered that conference, and on 30 January 1933 I inquired whether Von Hammerstein would be prepared to grant me an interview. I wanted to ask him, during that interview, whether he was still of the opinion that the Reichswehr would not only declare itself to be against the Hitler regime, but would oppose such a regime by force of arms. Herr Von Hammerstein replied to the effect that, in principle, he would be prepared to have such an interview with me, but that the moment was not a propitious one. The interview never took place. If you were to ask me whether in their efforts to fight the Hitler regime, at least by propaganda, my political friends had received any support from foreign personalities whom one might have called anti-Fascists, then I must say-unfortunately no. On the contrary, we quite often noticed, with much sorrow, that members of the English Labor Party, not officials but private individuals, were Hitler's guests and that they returned to England to praise the then Chancellor Hitler as a friend of peace. I mention Philipp Snowden in that connection and the doyen of the Labor Party, Lansbury.
SEVERING: In this connection I would like to draw your attention to the following facts: In the year...
THE PRESIDENT: The attitude of political parties in other countries has nothing to do with any question we have to decide, absolutely nothing.
DR. SIEMERS: I believe that this is sufficient. I have no further questions to ask, Herr Minister, and I thank you.
DR. LATERNSER: Minister Severing, during your term of office was the figure of 100,000 men, conceded by the Peace Treaty of Versailles for a normal army, ever exceeded?
SEVERING: I have no official knowledge of that. I would assume, however, that that was not the case.
DR. LATERNSER: Do you know at all whether, at the end of 1932, the League of Nations made a promise or held out prospects that this Army of 100,000 could be increased to 300,000 men?
SEVERING: Here too I am unable to give you any official information. I can, however, give the following explanation: In 1932 I received a letter from a party friend of mine, Dr. Rudolf Breitscheid, who was a member of the League of Nations Delegation and in which he mentioned rumors of that kind but he also added other information...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Laternser, we don't think that rumors are relevant in the Trial. He says he can't give us any official information. He then begins to give us rumors. Well, we don't want to hear rumors.
DR. LATERNSER: Mr. President, what the witness is now saying is rather more than a rumor and I think you will probably be able to judge for yourself when he has entirely answered the question.
THE PRESIDENT: He is speaking of rumors. If you have any fresh question to ask him, you can ask him.
DR. LATERNSER: Did the increase of the Army from 100,000 to 300,000 men ever assume any palpable shape in the sense that the question was discussed elsewhere, too?
SEVERING: I have just told you that Dr. Breitscheid was a member of the League of Nations Delegation and that his information to me was not a fabric of his own invention. That information stated that an extension of the Army had been envisioned but that this extension would probably be made at the expense of the police. Dr. Breitscheid informed me accordingly.
DR. LATERNSER: Thank you very much, I have no further questions to ask.
DR. HAENSEL: You have just told us that you had no knowledge of the Jewish mass murders in Auschwitz before the collapse. Did you have any knowledge of other measures or deeds perpetrated against Jews which you could define as criminal?
SEVERING: I experienced one such case personally. In 1944 a friend of mine in Bielefeld, Karl Henkel, was arrested and transferred to a labor camp near Emden, and he was shot on the third day.
DR. HAENSEL: Do you know who arrested him, what authority?
SEVERING: He was arrested by the Bielefeld Gestapo.
DR. HAENSEL: Did that occur in connection with some large-scale action or was it an individual case?
SEVERING: It appeared to me to be an individual case.
DR. HAENSEL: Did you hear of a number of such individual cases at that time, that is in 1944?
SEVERING: In 1944 I did not hear of any individual cases of murder, but I did hear of deportations from Westphalian towns to unknown destinations.
DR. HAENSEL: What authorities dealt with these deportations?
SEVERING: I cannot say for certain, but I assume that it was the Gestapo.
DR. HAENSEL: Are you of the opinion that considerable sections of the population knew of these occurrences?
SEVERING: You mean, of the deportations?
DR. HAENSEL: Yes.
SEVERING: They usually took place quite publicly. DR. HAENSEL Are you of the opinion that the people were generally just as well acquainted with these events as the members of the organizations as, for instance, the ordinary SS man, or would you say that the ordinary SS man knew more than other people?
SEVERING: Oh yes. He was informed of the places of destination of these transports.
DR. HAENSEL: But I understood you to say, that the convoys were not escorted by the SS; you said it was the Gestapo.
SEVERING: Yes, I have just stated that I assumed that the Gestapo had conducted the arrests and the lootings, but I did not receive any assurances that this was exclusively the work of the Gestapo.
DR. HAENSEL: And as to the other measures-apart from such deportations-which might be called a kind of local pogrom, have I understood you to say that you did not hear of them often?
SEVERING: Local pogroms occurred in November 1938.
DR. HAENSEL: Did you, during the execution of such measures, of which we have frequently heard, make your own observations or did you remain at home?
SEVERING: I remained at home. I only saw the results of these pogroms afterwards in the shape of destroyed Jewish firms, and in the remains of the synagogues.
DR. HAENSEL: And to which organizations or groups do you attribute these events of November 1938?
SEVERING: My own judgment would not have any decisive value, but I tell you quite frankly, it was the SA or the SS.
DR. HAENSEL: And what makes you think that it was precisely these two groups?
SEVERING: Because the members of these groups, in my home town of Bielefeld, were called the instigators of the synagogue fires.
DR. HAENSEL: By whom?
SEVERING: They were indicated by name by the population in general.
DR. HAENSEL: You knew about the concentration camps. Can you still remember when you heard about them for the first time? It is important at least to determine the year.
SEVERING: No. I cannot tell you that at the present moment. I can only reply to your question by referring to individual dates. The first murder in a concentration camp became known to me when I heard that, in the Papenburg Concentration Camp, the former member of the German Reichstag and Police President of Altona had been shot. That could have been either in 1935 or 1936, I am no longer sure when.
DR. HAENSEL: And later, did you hear of many other such cases, or did you have personal knowledge of them?
SEVERING: From personal knowledge which is so certain that I could give it with a clear conscience to the Tribunal only in the cases I mentioned this morning.