dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
MORGEN: I learned that the starting point for the corruption was the assignment of Jews to the camps after the action of 1938. I made it a point to learn all the possible facts about this action, and in doing so I found that the majority of the prisoners who were suspected of knowing something about these cases of corruption, had died. This peculiar frequency of killings was noticeable; it struck me because other prisoners who were not in any key positions remained in Buchenwald for years in the best of health, and were still there, so that it was rather remarkable that it was just certain prisoners who might have been possible witnesses who had died. I thereupon examined the files concerning these deceased prisoners. The files themselves offered no clues to suspect illegal killings. The dates of the deaths were years apart and in each case different causes of death were given. But it struck me that the majority of these deceased, prisoners had been put into the camp hospital or in arrest shortly before their death. This aroused my suspicion for the first time that in these two places murders of prisoners might possibly have occurred. Thereupon I appointed a special official, whose sole task was to investigate the suspicious circumstances, and follow up the rumors which were circulating about the detention quarters, the so-called "Bunker," regarding this killing of prisoners. This very zealous and able detective had to report again and again that he had not found the faintest clue for my suspicions. After two weeks of completely unsuccessful activity, the detective refused further services and asked me ironically whether I myself believed that such rumors of illegal killing of prisoners could be true. Much later, and only by chance did I hit upon the first clue; it struck me that the names of certain prisoners were listed at the same time in the rolls of the camp prison as well as in those of the hospital.
MORGEN: In the prison rolls, for example, it said, "Date of release 9 May, 12 o'clock." In the hospital register, "Patient died 9 May, 9:15 a.m." I said to myself, this prisoner cannot be in the camp prison and at the same time a patient in the hospital. False entries must have been made here. I therefore concentrated my efforts on this and I succeeded in getting behind this system, for it was a system, under Commander Koch. The prisoners were taken to a secret place and were killed there, mostly in a cell of the camp prison, and sick reports and death certificates were prepared for the files. They were made out so cleverly that any unprejudiced reader of the documents would get the impression that the prisoner concerned had actually been treated and had died of the seri6us illness which was indicated.
HERR PELCKMANN: Then what did you do after learning of these facts?
MORGEN: I found out that the medical officer at Buchenwald, SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Dr. Hoven, was principally responsible and I had him arrested. I informed my investigating commission in the concentration camps, with which we had to deal, of these cunning forgeries and directed their particular attention to investigating systematically whether in other concentration camps such murders had also taken place. We satisfied ourselves at the time of the investigation-and I am speaking of the second half of 1943-that in the Concentration Camps Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, and Dachau to the best of our knowledge no such killings occurred. In the other concentration camps, however, such cases were found. The persons believed to be guilty were accused, arrested, and charged.
HERR PELCKMANN: Why was this not done earlier?
MORGEN: I have already said that these deceptive measures were so cunningly contrived that it was not possible to discover them earlier. Above all there was no possibility of clearing up the matter, and then those things-were always done without witnesses. These cases should at all events have been investigated by the SS courts and they were investigated, for every unnatural death of a prisoner had to be reported by teletype to the central offices. Besides that, the specially sworn-in court officer who was in the camp had to go immediately to the place of the occurrences to question the witnesses; sketches and photographs had to be made of the scene and it was a regulation that an autopsy had to take place in every such case of unnatural death. These reports of unnatural deaths, or of deaths suspected of being unnatural, were sent regularly to the SS and Police court; but as I have already said, these reports were so cunningly contrived and the files were in such good order, that even an expert could not have suspected an illegal killing. Of course, proceedings against members of the concentration camp personnel were frequently instituted, some followed by sentences, even death sentences. But these criminal acts seemed to be within range of the usual army rate of 0.5 percent to 3 percent. If nothing at all had been reported to the SS courts from the concentration camps, or if numerous reports had been made, then it would of course have seemed suspicious. But it was a normal average and nobody could suspect that the concentration camps were a hotbed of such dangerous crimes. It was only through my investigation, which as I said was caused by accident, that we received our first insight into the true state of affairs.
HERR PELCKMANN: How did you come onto the track of mass killings? You have just spoken of individual killings.
MORGEN: I found traces of mass destructions also by chance. At the end of 1943, 1 discovered two trails at the same time, one leading to Lublin and the other to Auschwitz.
HERR PELCKMANN: Please describe the Lublin trail first.
MORGEN: One day I received a report from the commander of the Security Police in Lublin. He reported that in a Jewish labor camp in his district a Jewish wedding had taken place. There had been 1,100 invited guests at this wedding
HERR PELCKMANN: Go on witness, a little faster.
MORGEN: As I said before, 1,100 guests participated in this Jewish wedding. What followed was described as quite extraordinary owing to the gluttonous consumption of food and alcoholic drinks. Among these Jews were members of the camp guard, that is to say some SS men, who joined in this revelry. This report only came into my hands in a roundabout way, some months later, due to the fact that the Commander of the Security Police suspected that the circumstances indicated that some criminal acts had occurred. This was my impression as well, and I thought that this report would give me a clue to another big case of criminal corruption. With this in mind, I went to Lublin and called at the Security/ Police there, but all they would tell me was that the events happened at a camp of the Deutsche Ausrustungswerke. But nothing was known there. I was told it might possibly be a rather odd and shrouded (this was the actual term used) camp in the vicinity of Lublin. I found out the camp and the commander, who was Kriminalkommissar Wirth. I asked Wirth whether this report was true or what it meant. To my great astonishment, Wirth admitted it. I asked him why he permitted members of his command to do such things and Wirth then revealed to me that on the Fuehrer's orders he had to carry out the destruction of Jews.
HEIRR PELCKMANN: Please go on, Witness, to describe your investigations.
MORGEN: I asked Wirth what this had to do with the Jewish wedding. Then, Wirth described the method by which he carried out the extermination of Jews, and he said something like this: "One has to fight the Jews with their own weapons, that is to say "pardon me for using this expression-"one has to cheat them." Wirth staged an enormous deceptive maneuver. He first selected Jews who would, he thought, serve as column leaders, then these Jews brought along other Jews, who worked under them. With that smaller or medium-sized detachment of Jews, he began to build up the extermination camps. He extended this staff of Jews, and with these Jews Wirth himself carried out the extermination of the Jews. Wirth said that he had four extermination camps and that about 5,000 Jews were working at the extermination of Jews and the seizure of Jewish property. In order to win Jews for this business of extermination and plundering of their brethren of race and creed, Wirth gave them every freedom and, so to speak, gave them a financial interest in the spoliation of the dead victims. As a result of this attitude, this sumptuous Jewish wedding had come about. Then I asked Wirth how he killed Jews with these Jewish agents of his. Wirth described the whole procedure that went off like a film every time. The extermination camps were in the east of the Government General, in big forests or uninhabited wastelands. They were built up like a Potemkin village. The people arriving there had the impression of entering a city or a township. The train drove into a dummy railroad station. After the escorts and the train personnel had left the area, the cars were opened and the Jews got out. They were surrounded by these Jewish labor detachments, and Kriminalkommissar Wirth or one of his representatives made a speech. He said, "Jews, you were brought here to be resettled, but before we organize this future Jewish State, you must of course learn how to work. You must learn a new trade. You will be taught that here.
MORGEN: Our routine here is, first, every one must take off his clothes so that your clothing can be disinfected, and you can have a bath so that no epidemics will be brought into the camp." After he had found such calming words for his victims, they started on the road to death. Men and women were separated. At the first place, one had to deliver the hat; at the next one, the coat, collar, shirt, down to the shoes and socks. These places were faked cloakrooms, and the person was given a check at each one so that the people believed that they would get their things back. The other Jews had to receive the things and hurry up the new arrivals so that they should not have time to think. The whole thing was like an assembly line. After the last stop they reached a big room, and were told that this was the bath. When the last one was in, the doors were shut and the gas was let into the room. As soon as death had set in, the ventilators were started. When the air could be breathed again, the doors were opened, and the Jewish workers removed the bodies. By means of a special procedure which Wirth had invented, they were burned in the open air without the use of fuel.
HERR PELCKMANN: Was Wirth a member of the SS?
MORGEN: No, he was a Kriminalkommissar in Stuttgart.
HERR PELCKMANN: Did you ask Wirth how he arrived at this devilish system?
MORGEN: When Wirth took over the extermination of the Jews, he was already a specialist in mass-destruction of human beings. He had previously carried out the task of getting rid of the incurably insane. By order of the Fuehrer himself, whose order was transmitted through the Chancellery of the Fuehrer, he had, at the beginning of the war, set up a detachment for this purpose, probably composed of a few officials of his, as I believe, the remainder being agents and spies of the Criminal Police. Wirth very vividly described how he went about carrying out this assignment. He received no aid, no instructions, but had to do it all by himself. He was only given an old empty building in Brandenburg. There he made his first experiments. After much consideration and many individual experiments, he evolved his later system, and then this system was used on a large scale to exterminate the insane. A commission of doctors previously investigated the files, and those insane who were listed by the asylums as incurable were put on a separate list. Then the asylum concerned was told one day to send these patients to another institution. From this asylum the patient was transferred again, often more than once. Finally he came to Wirth's institution, where he was killed by gas and cremated. This system, which deceived the asylums and made them unknowing accomplices, enabled him with very few assistants to exterminate large numbers of people, and this system Wirth now employed with a few alterations and improvements for the extermination of Jews. He was also given the assignment by the Fi1hrer's Chancellery to exterminate the Jews.
HERR PELCKMANN: The statements which Wirth made to you must have surpassed human imagination. Did you immediately believe Wirth?
MORGEN: At first Wirth's description seemed completely fantastic to me, but in Lublin I saw one of his camps. It was a camp which collected the property or part of the property of his victims. From the piles of things-there were an enormous number of watches piled up-I had to realize that something frightful was going on here. I was shown the valuables. I can say that I never saw so much money at one time, especially foreign money-all kinds of coins, from all over the world. In addition, there was a goldsmelting furnace and really prodigious bars of gold. I also saw that the headquarters from which Wirth directed his operations was very small and inconspicuous., He had only three or four people working there for him. I spoke to them too. I saw and watched his couriers arrive. They actually came from Berlin, Tiergartenstrasse, the Fi1hrer's Chancellery, and went back there. I investigated Wirth's mail and I found in it confirmation of all this. Of course, I could not do or see all this on this first visit. I was there frequently. I pursued Wirth up to his death.
HERR PELCKMANN: Did Wirth give you names of people who were connected with this operation?
MORGEN: Not many names were mentioned, for the simple reason that the number of those who participated could be counted, so to speak, on one's fingers. I remember one name: I think the name was Blankenburg, in Berlin.
HERR PELCKMANN: Blankenburg?
MORGEN: Blankenburg, of the Fi1hrer's Chancellery.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we had better adjourn now. We have already been 50 minutes. [The Tribunal adjourned until 8 August 1946 at 1000 hours.]
HERR PELCKMANN: Witness, I have two pictures to show to you. This has nothing to do with your examination concerning the concentration camps. [Turning to the President.] They are the same pictures, Your Lordship, which I showed to the witness Eizenberg yesterday. They have now received an exhibit number from me, Exhibit Number SS-2 and Exhibit Number SS-3. As I said yesterday, they are taken from the book, written in Polish, which the Prosecution submitted a few days ago, on Pages IX and XI. [Turning to the witness]: What is the rank of this SS man, Witness?
MORGEN: That cannot be an SS man. He is not wearing an SS uniform. I never saw such a uniform. On the left arm, the man wears the insignia of the Police and the Police shoulder patch.
HERR PELCKMANN: That is enough, Witness. I shall show you the second photograph. Please answer the question just as briefly.
MORGEN: That is not an SS uniform either, but a fancy uniform.
HERR PELCKMANN: Thank you, Witness. Yesterday you had already begun the description of the so-called extermination camps and the system of the extermination camps, but I should like to go back to conditions in the concentration camps which are to be distinguished from the so-called extermination camps. You had given a description of the outward impression given by these camps which was extraordinarily pleasing. In order not to give any false impression, will you please describe in general the negative observations which you made. . MORGEN: I was asked whether from my impressions of the concentration camps I gained the idea that they were extermination camps. I had to say that I could not get this impression. I did not mean to say that the concentration camps were sanatoria) or a paradise for the prisoners. If they had been that, my investigations would have been senseless. Through these investigations I gained insight into the extremely dark and dismal side of the concentration camps. The concentration camps were establishments which, to put it mildly, were bound to give rise to crimes as a result of the application of a false principle. When I say the principle was at fault, I mean the following: The prisoner was sent to the concentration camp through the Reich Security Main Office. A political agency decided about his freedom, and its decision was final. Thereby the prisoner was deprived of all legal rights. Once in the concentration camp, it was almost impossible to regain freedom, although at regular intervals the cases were reviewed. The procedure was so complicated that, aside from exceptional instances, the great majority could have no hope. The camp, the Reich Security Main Office, and the agency which had assigned the individual to the camp, had to agree to his release. Only if these three, agencies reached an agreement could a release be effected. Thereby, not only the reason for the arrest was taken into consideration, but through a monstrous order of SS Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl the production side was also important.
HERR PELCKMANN: If a prisoner was needed in the camp because he was a good man, even though all conditions for release existed, he could not be released. The concentration camps were surrounded by a sphere of secrecy. The, prisoner was not allowed any free contact with the public.
MR. DODD: Mr. President, we do not have the first responsibility, of course, for this defense. But I have discussed with Mr. Elwyn Jones my objection, he has it in here, and he finds no fault with it. It seems to me that what we are hearing here is a lecture on the Prosecution's case, and I do not see how it in any sense can be said to be a defense of the SS.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Pelckmann, the Tribunal thinks that the latter part of the evidence does not have much bearing on the case of the SS. They think it would be better that you should get on with the case for the SS.
HERR PELCKMANN: The charge against the SS is essentially based on the assertion that the SS as a whole is responsible for the concentration camps. I am endeavoring to explain to the Tribunal the concentration camp organization from the very beginning, including all those questions which have not yet been explained either by the Prosecution or the witnesses, in order to find out the absolute truth. And I believe that it is necessary for the Tribunal to know this truth in order to be able to judge whether the charge of the Prosecution that the SS as a whole is responsible for the atrocities and the mass exterminations in the concentration camps or in the extermination camps is justified. I assert ...
THE PRESIDENT: Kindly go on with your case, Dr. Pelckmann. Will you kindly go on and make it as short as you can upon these matters which seem to be rather remote.
HERR PELCKMANN: From all the testimony of witnesses which I submit here on this point, it will be shown that the concentration camp organization was an entity.
THE PRESIDENT: Go on with your case. You are to go on with your case, and not argue with me.
HERR PELCKMANN: Witness, what were the further negative observations which you made? Please be brief on this point as the Court wishes.
MORGEN: The prisoner could not contact the public freely, and so his observations were not made known to the public. By this isolation in the concentration camp he was practically under the sway of the camp. This meant that he had to fear that at any time crimes could be committed against him. I did not have the impression from these facts that their purpose was to produce a system of crimes; but, of necessity, individual crimes were bound to result from these conditions.
HERR PELCKMANN: Witness, the events and the atrocities and the mass exterminations in the concentration camps are precisely what was charged against the SS. Please describe how these crimes are to be classified in three categories, and what these crimes have to do with the total planning of the SS. According to your information, I distinguish between atrocities caused by conditions beyond control, atrocities caused by supreme orders, and atrocities caused by individual criminal acts.
MORGEN: To a great extent the horrible conditions at times prevailing in some concentration camps did not arise from deliberate planning, but developed from circumstances which in my opinion must be called force majeure, that is to say, evils for which the local camp leaders were not responsible. I am thinking of the outbreak of epidemics. At irregular intervals many concentration camps were visited by typhoid fever, typhus, and other sicknesses caused especially by the arrival of prisoners from the Eastern areas in the concentration camps. Although everything humanly possible was done to prevent these epidemics and to combat them, the death rate which resulted was extremely high. Another evil which may be considered as force majeure was the fluctuating numbers of new arrivals and the insufficient billets. Many camps were overcrowded. The prisoners arrived in a weakened condition because, due to air raids, the transports were under way longer than expected. Towards the end of the war, there was a general collapse of the transportation system. Supplies could not be carried Gut to the necessary extent; chemical and pharmaceutical factories had been systematically bombed, and all the necessary medicines we ' re lacking. To top all, the evacuations from the East further burdened the camps and crowded them in an unbearable manner.
HERR PELCKMA.NN: That is enough on this point. Will you go on to the second point, the supreme orders?
MORGEN: As supreme orders I consider the mass extermination of human beings which has already been described, not in the concentration camps but in separate extermination places. There were also execution orders of the Reich Security Main Office against individuals and groups of persons.,, The third point deals with the majority of individual crimes of which I said ...
THE PRESIDENT: Which is the witness talking about when he talks about extermination camps? Which are you talking about? Which do you call extermination camps?
HERR PELCKMANN: Please answer the question, Witness.
MORGEN: By extermination camps I mean those which were established exclusively for the extermination of human beings with the use of technical means, such as gas.
THE PRESIDENT: Which were they?
MORGEN: Yesterday I described the four camps of the Kriminalkommissar Wirth and referred to the Camp Auschwitz. By "Extermination Camp Auschwitz" I did not mean the concentration camp. It did not exist there. I meant a separate extermination camp near Auschwitz, called "Monowitz."
THE PRESIDENT: What were the other ones?
MORGEN: I do not know of any other extermination camps.
HERR PELCKMANN: You were speaking of atrocities on the basis of individual acts of a criminal nature. Please continue.
MORGEN: One must distinguish between the types of perpetrators. There were even killings of one prisoner by another, for example, because of revenge. If a prisoner had escaped, then during the search, because one did not know where the prisoner was hiding-perhaps in the camp itself-the whole camp had to line up on the parade grounds. That often lasted for hours and sometimes a whole day. The prisoners were tired and hungry, and the long wait, standing sometimes in the cold or rain, excited them very much, so that when the prisoner was recaptured, the other prisoners, out of revenge for his having brought this upon them, beat him to death when the opportunity presented itself. There were many cases in which prisoners who had the impression that one among them was a spy, attempted to kill this prisoner in self-defense. There were cases where individual prisoners, due to physical weakness, could not keep pace with the others as regards work and who, on top of it, aroused the disgust of the other prisoners by bad behavior, for instance, by stealing bread or similar acts. If one considers that a large part of the prisoners were professional criminals who had already been sentenced before, it seems plausible that these people killed such fellow prisoners. This was done in many ways.
HERR PELCKMANN: You need not explain that at the moment, we will come back to it later. But will you describe another type of perpetrator?