dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
REINECKE: 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 492 7 Aug. 46 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.
REINECKE: 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.
REINECKE: 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 493 7 Aug. 46 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. 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.
REINECKE: 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 494 7 Aug. 46 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.
REINECKE: 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.]
MAJOR JONES: Then let me show you-let me show you another document, the Document D-959-it will. be Exhibit GB-571-which is a report to the Ministry of the Interior of the Czechoslovak Republic. I want to turn to Page 3 of the report: "Crimes committed by the members of the Allgemeine SS and the Waffen-SS. "The crimes committed by the members of the SS troops against the Czechoslovak and foreign citizens on the territory of the Czechoslovak Republic ... THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Elwyn Jones, isn't it rather late to put in documents of this sort, which are general reports by the govern-ments of Allied countries? The case has been already fully made by the Prosecution and to put in a new document of this sort, which is only a report of an Allied country, seems to the Tribunal to be .an unusual course to take. MAJOR-JONES: With great respect, My Lord, I submit that the Prosecution is entitled to put in documents of this kind in rebuttal of the sort of testimony that this witness is giving. The conception that a witness should solemnly say that SS guards com-mitted no atrocities was one which certainly did not occur even to the Prosecution, and in face of testimony of that kind I submit that the Prosecution is well entitled to put in documents which do mot deal with individual cases, which might possibly be objectionable to the Tribunal, but with the whole mass of testimony. I submit that until the very last moment the Prosecution is entitled to put in such documents, regrettable though it is, perhaps, that they, have not been put in before, but I do submit that the Prosecution is entitled to put them in. If Your Lordship pleases, if I might add a further comment to Your Lordship's inquiry: the Defense have, after all, produced over 100,000 affidavits and I do submit that in these circumstances, in view of that mountain of evidence, it is only right that there should rest upon the record the authority of state-ments submitted on behalf of the Prosecution.
MAJOR JONES: THE PRESIDENT: Well, we had better adjourn now. We have already been 50 minutes. [The Tribunal adjourned until 8 August 1946 at 1000 hours.] "Crimes committed by the members of the Allgemeine SS and the Waffen-SS. "The crimes committed by the members of the SS troops against the Czechoslovak and foreign citizens on the territory of the Czechoslovak Republic ... THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Elwyn Jones, isn't it rather late to put in documents of this sort, which are general reports by the govern-ments of Allied countries? The case has been already fully made by the Prosecution and to put in a new document of this sort, which is only a report of an Allied country, seems to the Tribunal to be .an unusual course to take. MAJOR-JONES: With great respect, My Lord, I submit that the Prosecution is entitled to put in documents of this kind in rebuttal of the sort of testimony that this witness is giving. The conception that a witness should solemnly say that SS guards com-mitted no atrocities was one which certainly did not occur even to the Prosecution, and in face of testimony of that kind I submit that the Prosecution is well entitled to put in documents which do mot deal with individual cases, which might possibly be objectionable to the Tribunal, but with the whole mass of testimony. I submit that until the very last moment the Prosecution is entitled to put in such documents, regrettable though it is, perhaps, that they, have not been put in before, but I do submit that the Prosecution is entitled to put them in. If Your Lordship pleases, if I might add a further comment to Your Lordship's inquiry: the Defense have, after all, produced over 100,000 affidavits and I do submit that in these circumstances, in view of that mountain of evidence, it is only right that there should rest upon the record the authority of state-ments submitted on behalf of the Prosecution. THE PRESIDENT: What is your submission, with reference to the construction of Article 21, with reference to this document?
MAJOR JONES: THE PRESIDENT: Well, we had better adjourn now. We have already been 50 minutes. [The Tribunal adjourned until 8 August 1946 at 1000 hours.] "The crimes committed by the members of the SS troops against the Czechoslovak and foreign citizens on the territory of the Czechoslovak Republic ... THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Elwyn Jones, isn't it rather late to put in documents of this sort, which are general reports by the govern-ments of Allied countries? The case has been already fully made by the Prosecution and to put in a new document of this sort, which is only a report of an Allied country, seems to the Tribunal to be .an unusual course to take. MAJOR-JONES: With great respect, My Lord, I submit that the Prosecution is entitled to put in documents of this kind in rebuttal of the sort of testimony that this witness is giving. The conception that a witness should solemnly say that SS guards com-mitted no atrocities was one which certainly did not occur even to the Prosecution, and in face of testimony of that kind I submit that the Prosecution is well entitled to put in documents which do mot deal with individual cases, which might possibly be objectionable to the Tribunal, but with the whole mass of testimony. I submit that until the very last moment the Prosecution is entitled to put in such documents, regrettable though it is, perhaps, that they, have not been put in before, but I do submit that the Prosecution is entitled to put them in. If Your Lordship pleases, if I might add a further comment to Your Lordship's inquiry: the Defense have, after all, produced over 100,000 affidavits and I do submit that in these circumstances, in view of that mountain of evidence, it is only right that there should rest upon the record the authority of state-ments submitted on behalf of the Prosecution. THE PRESIDENT: What is your submission, with reference to the construction of Article 21, with reference to this document?
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Elwyn Jones, isn't it rather late to put in documents of this sort, which are general reports by the govern-ments of Allied countries? The case has been already fully made by the Prosecution and to put in a new document of this sort, which is only a report of an Allied country, seems to the Tribunal to be .an unusual course to take. MAJOR-JONES: With great respect, My Lord, I submit that the Prosecution is entitled to put in documents of this kind in rebuttal of the sort of testimony that this witness is giving. The conception that a witness should solemnly say that SS guards com-mitted no atrocities was one which certainly did not occur even to the Prosecution, and in face of testimony of that kind I submit that the Prosecution is well entitled to put in documents which do mot deal with individual cases, which might possibly be objectionable to the Tribunal, but with the whole mass of testimony. I submit that until the very last moment the Prosecution is entitled to put in such documents, regrettable though it is, perhaps, that they, have not been put in before, but I do submit that the Prosecution is entitled to put them in. If Your Lordship pleases, if I might add a further comment to Your Lordship's inquiry: the Defense have, after all, produced over 100,000 affidavits and I do submit that in these circumstances, in view of that mountain of evidence, it is only right that there should rest upon the record the authority of state-ments submitted on behalf of the Prosecution. THE PRESIDENT: What is your submission, with reference to the construction of Article 21, with reference to this document? MAJOR JONES: If Your Lordship pleases, I submit that the terms of Article 21 make it mandatory upon the Tribunal to accept reports of this kind by governments which are submitted by the Prosecution. THE PRESIDENT: Which are the special words to which you refer? MAJOR JONES: The second sentence: "The Tribunal...
MAJOR-JONES: With great respect, My Lord, I submit that the Prosecution is entitled to put in documents of this kind in rebuttal of the sort of testimony that this witness is giving. The conception that a witness should solemnly say that SS guards com-mitted no atrocities was one which certainly did not occur even to the Prosecution, and in face of testimony of that kind I submit that the Prosecution is well entitled to put in documents which do mot deal with individual cases, which might possibly be objectionable to the Tribunal, but with the whole mass of testimony. I submit that until the very last moment the Prosecution is entitled to put in such documents, regrettable though it is, perhaps, that they, have not been put in before, but I do submit that the Prosecution is entitled to put them in. If Your Lordship pleases, if I might add a further comment to Your Lordship's inquiry: the Defense have, after all, produced over 100,000 affidavits and I do submit that in these circumstances, in view of that mountain of evidence, it is only right that there should rest upon the record the authority of state-ments submitted on behalf of the Prosecution. THE PRESIDENT: What is your submission, with reference to the construction of Article 21, with reference to this document? MAJOR JONES: If Your Lordship pleases, I submit that the terms of Article 21 make it mandatory upon the Tribunal to accept reports of this kind by governments which are submitted by the Prosecution. THE PRESIDENT: Which are the special words to which you refer? MAJOR JONES: The second sentence: "The Tribunal...
MAJOR-JONES: shall also take judicial notice of official governmental documents and reports of the United Nations, including the acts and documents of the committees set up in the various Allied countries for the investigation of war crimes, and the records and findings of military or other tribunals of any United Nations." Now this document, My Lord, is-it has a certificate from the Czechoslovak Minister of the Interior on the face of it, certifying that it is a, state document within the meaning of Article 21, and it bears the signature of the Minister of the Interior himself, so that I submit that quite clearly within the terms of Article 21 it is properly admissible and that in that respect the Tribunal should accept it. THE PRESIDENT: Was there any committee or commission which drew up this document? MAJOR JONES: It is a report of the Czechoslovak Ministry of the Interior itself; it is a report of the State Department. THE PRESIDENT: Report to whom? MAJOR JONES: Furthermore, My Lord, my learned friend, Mr. Griffith-Jones, draws my attention to Article 19 of the Charter: "The Tribunal shall not be bound by technical rules of evidence. It shall adopt and apply to the greatest possible extent expeditious and non-technical procedure, and shall admit any evidence that it deems to have probative value." I do submit that even if you were to find, and I find it hard to think that you would, that this is not a document within the meaning of Article 21, it is admissible under Article 19. THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Now, do you want to say anything, Dr. Pelckmann? BERR PELCKMANN: I believe, Your Lordship, the decision of the Tribunal on this document should be the same as that on the two documents which we attempted in vain to introduce yesterday. Whether this document falls under Article 21, 1 cannot judge;' the Tribunal will decide that. But I refer to the other point of view which Your Lordship has already mentioned. It is very late to submit these documents now.
MAJOR-JONES: Article 21 can only be interpreted to mean that such documents can be submitted during the presenta-tion of the case by the Prosecution. The Prosecution case is now closed, and documents can only be introduced by submitting them to a witness; but since there may be hundreds, perhaps thousands of these cases, the Defense must be given an opportunity to com-ment on them. It is not a question of testing the credibility of the witness, but it is actually a question of new evidence being presented by the Prosecution, and the Defense must have an opportunity of answering it. I do not believe that this is the intention of Article 21, otherwise the Trial would be extended indefinitely. THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn and we will sit again at 2 o'clock. [The Tribunal recessed until 1400 hours.] Afternoon Session THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Elwyn Jones, the Tribunal will take judicial notice of the document which you were submitting under Article 21, But they do not think that you need deal with it at great length. MAJOR JONES: If Your Lordship pleases. The Document D-959 will be Exhibit GB-571. [The witness Reinecke resumed the stand.] Witness, have you any knowledge of the part played by SS units in the arrest and ill-treatment of the students of Prague on 17 November 1939? REINECKE: No. About that subject I cannot testify, as the fact of their participation is now becoming known to me for the first time. MAJOR JONES: You had no knowledge of the participation of the 6th SS Totenkopf Standarte in that matter, did you? I am referring to ... REINECKE: No. MAJOR JONES: I am referring, My Lord, to an entry in the previous Czechoslovak report, USSR-60. [Turning to the witness.] You say you had no knowledge of that? This report ... REINECKE: No, I had no knowledge. MAJOR JONES: This report refers further to reprisal measures against civilians suspected of contact with the partisans, in which the SS took part. Do you have any knowledge of SS troops taking part in reprisal measures against civilians?