dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
DR. GAWLIK: The regulations contained in this letter, referring to the application of third-degree methods, were addressed only to the Security Police in the Government General, as is clearly apparent from the text of the letter. The letter furthermore specifies that the matter and extent of third-degree interrogations is conferred on the Chiefs of Sections IV and V, the Stapo and the Criminal Police. The witness Hoeppner has testified that the SD never conducted any interrogations, so that it could not do so with regard to third-degree methods either. The affidavit by Kutter, Number SD-20, shows that all SD members had strict orders to refrain from any executive interrogations within the territory of the Reich. As for France, I draw attention to the minutes on the interrogation of the witness Knochen, who declared that the SD in France was not entitled to conduct interrogations or questionings. Schellenberg and Dittel, by their Affidavits Numbers SD-61 and 63, have also stated that Aemter VI and VII were not authorized to carry out interrogations. I have also submitted 76 collective affidavits covering the period from 1934 to 1945, showing that the SD did not conduct any interrogations, thus none involving third-degree methods either, within the entire territory of the Reich, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Russia.
THE PRESIDENT: Can you tell the Tribunal what, according to your contention, the SD did in the concentration camps?
DR. GAWLIK: The SD had nothing to do with concentration camps, My Lord. One must differentiate between two facts: assign- ment to concentration camps by means of a protective custody order; the protective custody order was always issued by the Gestapo. The SD was not competent for that. And, secondly, the administration of concentration camps: concentration camps were under the jurisdiction of the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office, Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl. This was an independent organization which operated alongside the RSHA. Thus, if the Gestapo issued a protective custody order, then the detainee came under the jurisdiction of the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office. The SS Economic and Administrative Main Office was directly under Himmler, just as was the RSHA.
THE PRESIDENT: So that you say that the RSHA and Pohl's organization and the Einsatzgruppen were all three entirely separate organizations under Himmler? Is that right?
DR. GAWLIK: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: What name was given to Pohl's organization?
DR. GAWLIK: Economic and Administrative Main Office.
THE PRESIDENT: Economic and what?
DR. GAWLIK: Economic and Administrative Main Office. The chain of command in the concentration camps, My Lord, was Himmler down to Pohl, and then to the commandants of the concentration camps.
THE PRESIDENT: And do you say that the Economic and Administrative Main Office employed no SS, or SD, or Gestapo, or Sipo?
DR. GAWLIK: No SD men were working in the Economic and Administrative Main Office, at least no SD men from Amt III; neither from Amt III nor from Amt VI. As far as I am informed, there were also a few Gestapo men..
THE PRESIDENT: Didn't any men work with the "SD" on their arms in concentration camps?
DR. GAWLIK: That I cannot say for certain, My Lord. I believe so; I cannot say.
THE PRESIDENT: You will recollect that there was a good deal of evidence which indicates that SD men were working in concentration camps; and the Tribunal would like to know what your explanation of that evidence is.
DR. GAWLIK: I can only recollect, My Lord, what the witness Milch said; as far as I can remember he said the commandant was an SD man; but that must be an error, because Aemter III and VI had nothing to do with this. It may be that these men in the concentration camps belonged to the SS special formation "SD," but I cannot answer that question with any certainty, Your Lordship. I can only...
THE PRESIDENT: What was this special formation of the SS which was called SD?
DR. GAWLIK: They were all members of the RSHA, of all seven offices, Amt I; Amt II; Amt III, SD Inland; Amt IV, Gestapo; Amt V, Kripo; Amt VI, Foreign Intelligence Service; and Amt VII. Those members who were members of the SS or candidates for membership in the SS were united under the SS formation SD, so that they did not need to do service in the local units of the SS.
THE PRESIDENT: As far as I can understand what you say, you are saying that in the branches of the RSHA all SS were called SD?
DR. GAWLIK: The members, as far as they were members of the SS -- for instance, if a Gestapo employee was a member of the SS, then he belonged to the SS special formation SD.
THE PRESIDENT: Go on, Dr. Gawlik.
DR. GAWLIK: Your Lordship, I should like to say the following with reference to this subject: it is something which refers to service abroad. In the eastern territories all members of the Security Police, even if they were not members of the SS, wore this SS uniform with the SD badge. And now I come to crimes against humanity, persecution of Jews. The prosecution of individuals for crimes against humanity was unknown in international law until now. It was merely admitted that if a state violated any principle of humanity, other states had a right to intervention. As an example I mention the intervention of Britain, France, and Russia against Turkey in 1827; against the Balkan States in 1878; and the intervention brought about by the atrocities committed in Armenia and Crete in 1891 and 1896 (Fenwick: International Law , 1924, Page 154 following). This right to intervention for crimes against humanity was not generally recognized. Oppenheim, International Law , Volume 1, Pages 229-237, for instance, considers an intervention to end religious persecution and continued cruelty in war, and peace in the interest of humanity, as questionable. According to Oppenheim it should be a rule that interventions in the interest of humanity be admissible; they must, however, be of a collective nature. In accordance with the general fundamental rule of international law that only the states are subject to international law, this intervention is directed only against the state in which crimes against humanity have been committed. The Charter introduces an entirely new element by decreeing the prosecution of individuals for crimes against humanity. That is probably why, according to Article 6(c) of the Charter, persecution for political, racial, or religious reasons is not in itself a crime. It is, on the contrary, necessary that this persecution be carried out in executing a crime or in connection with a crime for which this Tribunal is competent.
DR. GAWLIK: It is therefore not sufficient that the Prosecution alleges, on Page 53 of the trial brief against the Gestapo and SD, that it had been one of the tasks of the SD to keep the Gestapo informed about the Jews. On the contrary, it is necessary to prove for what purpose this information was rendered. The witnesses Wisliceny and Dr. Ehlich have been examined before the Commission on the work of the SD in Jewish affairs. Wisliceny declared that Amt III of the RSHA had no department for Jewish questions. From 1936 until 1939 there was in the SD, in Central Department II/1, a department for Jewish questions. This department for Jewish questions allegedly did not have the task of preparing the extermination of the Jews. Dr. Ehlich furthermore testified that in Amt III no department concerned itself with the Jewish question, and especially not Department III B 3. As a result of the regulations defining the tasks of Amt III and Amt IV, it had been determined that all Jewish questions were only to be dealt with by Amt IV. I refer further to Affidavits SD-27, SD-16, and SD-17. Schellenberg, SD-61, and Dittel, SD-63 have stated with regard to Aemter VI and VII that these offices had nothing to do with the persecution of the Jews either. Furthermore, there are 259 collective statements available from former SD members for the entire area of the Reich, and for the time from 1933 until 1945.
THE PRESIDENT: Have any of these affidavits to which you are referring been translated?
DR. GAWLIK: No, My Lord, only the summary affidavit has been translated.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, some of your affidavits have been translated, have they not?
DR. GAWLIK: Some of them, My Lord, yes, but not those 259; they have not been translated, My Lord. They are contained in my summary, SD-70. For their allegation that the SD had participated in the persecution of Jews in 1938 the Prosecution have submitted three teletypes dealing with anti-Semitic measures, of 10 November 1938, as Document 3051-PS. In this connection I draw attention to the affidavits I have submitted as Numbers SD-27, 16, and 53, according to which the SD took no part whatever in the pogrom of November 1938. 1 also refer to 107 affidavits for the entire territory of the Reich, stating that the SD had not participated in the pogrom. Although the affidavit Gestapo 14 mentions that members of the SD office Magdeburg were arrested, punished, and sent to a concentration camp for participation in the outrages, this only shows, firstly, that the SD had no orders to take part in the pogrom, and secondly, that wherever this did occur, the SD members involved were punished. The evidence has not shown that the SD Aemter III and VI of the RSHA participated in the extermination of the millions of Jews. All Jewish affairs were dealt with by Amt IV, by Eichmann's section. Eichmann belonged to Amt IV and was the head of Section IV B 4. This is shown by the organizational plans of the RSHA of I January 1941 and 1 October 1942, Document L-185, and Document L-219 submitted by the Prosecution. The chain of command for the mass murder of Jews was: Hitler, Himmler, Mueller, Eichmann. Not one of the witnesses has indicated that Aemter III, VI, and VII, or any of the local branches of these offices co-operated in the extermination of Jews. In this connection I refer in particular to the testimony of Wisliceny, according to which there was no connection between the department of Eichmann and Aemter III, VI, and VII, and further to the evidence of Dr. Hoffmann. Hoffmann stated that Amt IV was competent for deportations, and that Eichmann was responsible for the final solution of the Jewish question.
DR. GAWLIK: In the occupied territories all Jewish affairs were also handled by Amt IV, the Eichmann department. The initial "IV J" on Document RF-1210, submitted by the Prosecution, shows that a department of Amt IV dealt with the Jewish questions in France. This is confirmed by the testimony of the witness Knochen and by the Laube Affidavit, SD-54, which I submitted. They show that Hauptsturmfuehrer Dannecker, who was sent to France by Eichmann, also belonged to Amt IV and received his instructions directly from Eichmann himself. Thus, no connection existed between Aemter III and VI and Eichmann's department. Referring to Denmark and Holland, the witness Dr. Hoffmann testified that the deportation of Jews from these countries was carried out solely by the Eichmann agency. Moreover, on 3 January 1946, Wisliceny made an extensive statement on this subject before the Tribunal, saying that the deportation of Jews in the Balkan countries was also carried out by the Eichmann department. The Trial has in no way established that the SD Aemter III, VI, or VII in any way supported the Eichmann agency.
THE PRESIDENT: One moment. Then that is another organization which is directly responsible to Himmler, is it, the Eichmann department? You gave us the RSHA, the Pohl organization, and another organization which I forget for the moment -- oh, the Einsatzgruppen; that was three organizations which were entirely outside the SS or the SD or the SA, and now you have got another one. That is the Eichmann organization.
DR. GAWLIK: The legal position is not the same as in those three organizations which I cited. Eichmann was really in Amt IV, but probably it would be better if my colleague, Mr. Merkel, were to answer that question. I do not want to encroach on the material of my colleague Merkel, who represents the Gestapo. Eichmann had an office in Amt IV, the Gestapo.
THE PRESIDENT: Go on.
DR. GAWLIK: It is true, however, that Eichmann and a number of other persons who worked in his department in Amt IV were formerly employed in the SD. In this connection, Wisliceny has testified before the Tribunal that these persons were in part assigned to Amt IV, and in part transferred there. They received their orders exclusively from Amt IV. The witness Hoffmann has declared that Eichmann was transferred from the SD to the Gestapo. The fact that persons had worked in the SD before they worked in Eichmann's section is in no way sufficient to declare the SD a criminal organization. These persons were completely eliminated from the activity of the SD when they were taken over by Amt IV, or when they were assigned to Amt IV. The decisive question is whether the extermination of the Jews was one of the aims and duties of Aemter III, VI, or VII. The fact alone that these people resigned their activity in the SD and were taken over into Amt IV proves incontestably that this activity was not among the aims and duties of the SD. Moreover, the majority of the members of Aemter III, VI, and VII did not know that individual persons who had formerly been employed in the SD were now occupied in Amt IV with the final solution of the Jewish question. I now come to the persecution of the Churches. The Prosecution has asserted in this connection that the Gestapo and the SD had been the main departments for the persecution of the Churches; that the SD had pursued secret ends with deceptive maneuvers against the Church; that the SD had collaborated with the Gestapo, that the SD had dealt with the opposition of the Church against the Nazi State; that the persecution of the Church had been one of the fundamental purposes of the SD. I am of the opinion that these general allegations do not suffice to declare the SD as criminal for persecution of the Church. Article 6(c) of the Charter does not speak of persecution of the Churches but of persecution for religious reasons.
DR. GAWLIK: The documents submitted by the Prosecution, which merely contain the general allegation that the Churches had been persecuted, therefore do not suffice. On the contrary, it should have been shown that this persecution was carried out for religious reasons. The concept "persecution" will, moreover, need to be explained. Not every measure can be understood as "persecution," which was undertaken against members of denominations by the State. Here, rather, we have to start from the concept of human rights. The Charter does not define what is to be understood as violation of human rights from a religious viewpoint. A number of writers on international law, for instance, Bluntschli, Martens, Bonfils, and others, take this to be the right for existence; the right for protection of honor, of life, of health, of liberty, of property, and of religious freedom. I refer in this connection to Oppenheim's International Law , Volume I, Page 461. Only a violation of this right ...
THE PRESIDENT: Is it your contention that Germany had the right, outside the territory of the Reich, to treat the Church which existed there in any way they thought right? Take, for instance, in Russia; in the Soviet Union. Is it your contention that there Germany could treat the Church and Church property in any way they thought right, if that is not in accordance with international law?
DR. GAWLIK: You have to differentiate between conditions inside and conditions outside of Germany. Outside of Germany the general principles of international law applied. My statements deal with conditions in Germany. The SD has also been accused by the Prosecution, in Document 1815-PS, which is a document from Aachen, that it had persecuted the Churches inside Germany. There, in my opinion, you have to draw a distinct dividing line, and what I had been saying referred only to conditions inside Germany. Only a violation of this right for religious reasons will therefore fall under this penal code. The evidence on this point of the Indictment has established the following: The witness Roessner has testified that since the existence of Amt III, no Church questions, but only general questions of religious life, were dealt with in such a manner that the religious tendencies, wishes, and preoccupations of all sections of the population were registered, without assessing their confessional adherence in the sense of a persecution of the Church, or causing or supporting police measures. The witness has also stated, in particular, that the SD carried on no sham proceedings in order to persecute the Church. The witness Dr. Best (a witness for the Gestapo) has testified that any police intervention in individual Church cases was the task of the Stapo. According to the statements of the witness Roessner, the decree of 12 November 1941, which ordered that Amt IV should take over entirely all Church affairs from Amt III, was but the formal confirmation of an already existing state of affairs. For the period before 1939 I refer to the affidavit of Fromm (Affidavit SD-19), and particularly to SD-55, by Theo Gahmann. I draw your attention to the fact that the English Document Book H, which deals with the persecution of the Churches, contains no evidence against the SD. Documents D-75, D-101, D-145, 848-PS, 1164-PS, 1481-PS, and 1521-PS contained in this document book were purely police affairs.
THE PRESIDENT: Go on. Dr. Gawlik: The Prosecution have submitted Document 1815-PS. First of all it should be noted that this simply deals with a local occurrence from the area of the Stapo office in Aachen. All grounds are lacking for any assumption that these happenings can be generalized to apply to the entire Reich. All the facts contained in this letter emanate from the local Stapo office or from Amt IV in Berlin. The file contains no letter addressed to or by the SD. This fact in itself contradicts the theory of co-operation between the SD and the Gestapo, for in that case this large file would have had to have contained some documents showing orders or instructions for the SD. Individual cases are not referred to at all in the document. From the fact that certain SD members were transferred to Amt IV to deal with Church matters, the strict separation of tasks is clearly apparent. The decree of 12 March 1941, contained in Document 1815-PS, according to which, after the SD had transferred Church matters to the Gestapo, numerous Stapo offices were ordered to start on the organization of a suitable intelligence system, shows quite clearly that the SD, Amt III, was not permitted to deal with Church matters, that the intelligence service for police matters, as turned over from the SD to the Gestapo, was useless from the point of view of persecution of the Churches, and that neither before nor after this time did the SD ever give assistance to the Gestapo. I have also submitted 259 affidavits by SD members from the entire territory of the Reich and covering the period from 1935 to 1945, showing that the SD did not persecute any Churches. I believe I have shown that a collective sentencing of all members of Aemter III and VI, which is the intention of the Prosecution, would not do justice to the tasks and activities of Aemter III and VI. If, however, the Tribunal should pass sentence on the SD against my explanations, then the number of persons affected by this decision ought to be strictly limited, especially in view of Law Number 10.
THE PRESIDENT: The general designation "SD" should not suffice, because of the manifold meaning of this word. It will have to be clarified whether the decision affects: 1. Only members of Aemter III and VI, which were not founded until September 1939, or also members of Central Department II/I of the SD Main Office; 2. only the full-time members or also the honorary members; 3. from among the honorary members, only the collaborators, or also the Vertrauensmaenner (confidential agents); 4. from among the Vertrauensmaenner, only the permanent employees, or also those who furnished occasional reports; 5. also the technical personnel, secretaries, drivers, telephone operators, et cetera. High Tribunal, your decision will be a milestone in the history of law, but it could also be a milestone in the history of humanity. The striving of the people is toward peace. Influential politicians as well as representatives of legal science agree that this wish of humanity can only be fulfilled by an independent jurisdiction unbounded by state sovereignty. James Brown Scott, the President of the American Institute for International Law, established in a speech, delivered in the year 1926, that the history of mankind is but the history of the individual upon a larger scale. In the history of the individual the right to take justice into one's own hands has given way to an arbitration by the parties concerned ...
THE PRESIDENT: Go on.
DR. GAWLIK: ... and out of this developed the juridical procedure of nominating judges and ensuring the execution of their judgments. Violence is violence; whether between armed individuals or entire peoples, who in the case of war have at their disposal the last resources of their governments. Today the peoples in their development, as compared with the development of the individual, are in a state of transit from the arbitration system to a regular juridical system. Nature repeats herself from day to day, from generation to generation, whether in individuals or in such groups of individuals as we call state or nation. The international arbitration system will be the basis for the regular juridical system of the United Nations, which is unbounded by state sovereignty, just as among the peoples the regular juridical system has developed out of the arbitration system. We are at the dawn of this era in the history of peoples, an era which is the end of belligerent struggles and would thus fulfill the deep wish of all the peoples. The International Military Tribunal could fulfill this task in world history.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Gawlik, I have before me the English translation of your speech, and on Page 113 of the speech there appears to be a reference, in the paragraph which has Number 1, to the Main Office of the SD. I would like to know, for the benefit of the Tribunal, what you mean by the Main Office of the SD. Do your pages correspond?
DR. GAWLIK: Yes, My Lord. The SD Main Office existed until 1939. It. had the following departments: II-1 "Gegnerforschung" (Enemy Investigation), and when the RSHA was founded that department was transferred to the Gestapo.
THE PRESIDENT: The Main Office of the SD was transferred to the Gestapo?
DR. GAWLIK: No, not the entire main office, My Lord. Until 1939 there was an SD Main Office, and in September 1939 the RSHA was founded. The RSHA only existed since September 1939. Before that there was the SD Main Office, which had various subdepartments, and one department of that SD Main Office was transferred to the Gestapo when the RSHA was founded. That department was called II-1.
THE PRESIDENT: Did the Main Office of the SD cease to exist in September 1939?
DR. GAWLIK: Yes, it then ceased to exist. And Department 11-2 then became Amt III of the RSHA.
THE PRESIDENT: You are saying, are you not, that II-I, which was a branch of the Main Office of the SD, was transferred to the RSHA and became Amt II in the RSHA?
DR. GAWLIK: No, My Lord, Amt II-1 came into Department IV of the RSHA, that is, the Gestapo. Department II-2 became Amt III in the RSHA.
THE PRESIDENT: At any rate, the SD Main Office ceased to exist, and all passed into the various Aemter of the RSHA?
DR. GAWLIK: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.