dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
GISEVIUS: Yes, as I said, the group was not formed until 1937, 1938; but Schacht had already introduced me to Goerdeler in 1936, and Schacht and Oster had known each other since 1936. And naturally Schacht had also known a large number of other members of the group for a long time.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Schacht did not become convinced, as I understand your statement to us, until after 1937-until the Putsch affair-that he wouldn't be able to handle Hitler in some peaceful way; is that not correct?
GISEVIUS: In what manner? In a peaceful manner or...
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: In a peaceful manner.
GISEVIUS: Yes, until the end of 1937 Schacht believed that it ought to be possible to remove Hitler legally.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: But by the end of 1937, as you now say, the possibility of a peaceful removal of Hitler had become impossible in fact?
GISEVIUS: Yes, that is what we thought.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Yes; now, there was, as I understand your view in going to the general-there was no power in Germany that could stop or deal with the Gestapo, except the Army.
GISEVIUS: Yes. I would answer that question in the affirmative.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: That is, in addition to the Gestapo, this Nazi regime also had a private army in the SS, did they not? And, for a period, in the SA?
GISEVIUS: Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And if you were to combat successfully the Nazi regime, you had to have manpower which only the Army had; is that right?
GISEVIUS: Yes, only people who could be found in the Army; but at the same time we also attempted to influence certain people in the Police, and we needed all the decent officials in the ministries, and the broad masses of the people altogether.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: But the Wehrmacht was the source of power capable of dealing with the SS and the Gestapo if the generals had been willing?
GISEVIUS: That was our conviction.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And that is the reason you kept seeking the help of the generals and felt let down when they wouldn't give you their assistance finally?
GISEVIUS: Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, there came a time when everybody connected with your group knew that the war was lost.
GISEVIUS: Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And that was before these plots on Hitler's life, and it was apparent before the Schlaberndorff plot and before the July 20th plot, that the war was lost, was it not?
GISEVIUS: I should like to make it quite clear that there was no one in our group who did not already know, even when the war started, that Hitler would never win this war.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: But it became very much more apparent as time went on, not only that the war could not be won by Germany, but that Germany was going to be physically destroyed as a result of the war; is that not true?
GISEVIUS: Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Yet, under the system which the Nazi regime had installed, you had no way of changing the course of events in Germany except by assassination or a revolt; is that true?
GISEVIUS: Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And so you resorted to those extreme measures, knowing that Hitler could never make peace with the Allies; is that true?
GISEVIUS: Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And your purpose in this was to save Germany the last destroying blows, which unfortunately she received, from the point of view of the Germans; is that not a fact?
GISEVIUS: I should like to say that actually since the beginning of the war, we no longer thought only of Germany. I think that I may say that we bore a heavy share of responsibility towards Germany and towards the world.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, what you were endeavoring to do was to get the war to an end, since you had not been able to stop its commencement, were you not?
GISEVIUS: Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And that was impossible as long as Hitler was at the head of the government and this group of men behind him?
GISEVIUS: Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, there was another plot on Hitler's life that you haven't mentioned. Was there not a bomb that was later found to have been a communist bomb?
GISEVIUS: This happened on 9 November 1939, in the Buergerbraeukeller, in Munich. It was a brave Communist who acted independently.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, at none of these times when Hitler's life was endangered, by a strange coincidence, was Goering or Himmler ever present; is that not true?
GISEVIUS: Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Did you attach any importance to that fact?
GISEVIUS: We sometimes regretted it. For instance, the attempt at assassination would perhaps have succeeded, if Goering and Himmler had been with Hitler on 17 July. But as the years went by, the members of this clique separated to such an extent, and protected themselves so much that they could hardly be found together anywhere. Goering, too, was gradually so absorbed in his transactions and art collections at Karinhall that he was hardly ever to be found at a serious conference.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, the assassination of Hitler would have accomplished nothing from your point of view if the Number 2 man had stepped into Hitler's place, would it?
GISEVIUS: That was a debatable problem for a long time, because Brauchitsch, for instance, imagined that we could create a transitional regime with Goering. Our group always refused to come together with that man even for an hour.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: How did you plan-if you were successful-to deal with the other defendants here, with the exception of the Defendant Schacht, all of whom, I understand, you regard as a part of the Nazi government?
GISEVIUS: These gentlemen would have been behind lock and key in an extremely short time, and I think they would not have had to wait long for their sentences.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, does that apply to every man in this dock with the exception of Schacht?
GISEVIUS: Yes, every man.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: That is, you recognized them, your group recognized them all as parts and important parts of the Nazi regime-a Nazi conspiracy. Is that a fact?
GISEVIUS: I should not like to commit myself to the words "Nazi conspiracy." We considered them the men responsible for all the unspeakable misery which that government had brought to Germany and the world.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I should like to ask you a few questions about the Gestapo. You had testified generally in reference to the crimes which were committed by that organization and I ask you to state whether that included the torturing and burning to death of a large number of persons?
GISEVIUS: The question does not seem to have come through correctly.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I am asking you as to the crimes committed by the Gestapo, and I am asking if it included the torturing and burning to death of thousands of persons?
GISEVIUS: Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Did it involve the unlawful detention of thousands of innocent people?
GISEVIUS: Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: The throwing of them into concentration camps where they were tortured and beaten and killed?
GISEVIUS: Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Did the Gestapo engage in wholesale confiscation of property?
GISEVIUS: Yes, to a very large extent; they called it "property of persons hostile to the State."
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And did it practice extortion against Jews and against others?
GISEVIUS: In masses and by the million.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Did the Gestapo hinder and molest the public officials, who were too prominent to be murdered, until they resigned or were driven from office?
GISEVIUS: The Gestapo used every means, from murder to the extortion which has just been described.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, the question arises here as to whether the members of the Gestapo knew what the Gestapo was doing; and will you please tell the Tribunal what the situation was as to the membership in that organization and its knowledge of its program?
GISEVIUS: I have already stated at the beginning of my testimony that from the first or second day every member of the Gestapo really could not help seeing and knowing what took place in that institution.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, there were some people who were taken into the Gestapo at the beginning, who were transferred from other branches of the civil service, were they not; who were in a sense involuntary members of the Gestapo?
GISEVIUS: Yes; these members were eliminated in the course of the first year as being politically unreliable.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And the transfer took place at the time Goering set up the Gestapo, did it not?
THE PRESIDENT: What did the witness mean by "eliminated"?
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I think eliminated from the Gestapo.
GISEVIUS: Gradually they were released from the service of the Gestapo.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, after the purge of the 30th of June 1934, were special pains taken to see that no one was permitted in the organization who was not in sympathy with its program?
GISEVIUS: These attempts started after 1 April 1934, when Himmler and Heydrich took over affairs. Actually, from that date, no official was allowed into the Gestapo any longer unless Himmler and Heydrich considered that he held the opinions which they desired. It may be that during the first months some officials, who had not yet been screened by the SS, may have got in. The Gestapo was, of course, a large organization and it naturally took quite a time until the SS had educated and trained their own criminal officials.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: However, did there come a time, and if so, will you fix it as nearly as possible, after which every member of the Gestapo must have known the criminal program of that organization?
GISEVIUS: For many years I have considered that question myself and discussed it with Nebe and my friends. The reply entails very great responsibility, and in the knowledge of that responsibility I would say that from the beginning of 1935, at the latest, everyone must have known what sort of organization he was joining and the type of orders he might have to expect.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: You have testified as to the investigations which you made when you were connected with the police administration and you mentioned the Reichstag fire but you did not tell us what your findings were when you investigated that. Will you please tell us?
GISEVIUS: To speak briefly and to begin with the facts, we ascertained that Hitler in a general way had expressed a wish for a large-scale propaganda campaign. Goebbels undertook to prepare the necessary proposals and it was Goebbels who first thought of setting the Reichstag on fire. Goebbels discussed this with the leader of the Berlin SA Brigade, Karl Ernst, and he suggested in detail how it should be done. A certain chemical, known to every maker of fireworks, was chosen. After spraying it, it ignites after a certain time-hours or minutes. In order to get inside the Reichstag, one had to go through the corridor leading from the palace of the Reichstag President to the Reichstag itself. Ten reliable SA men were provided, and then Goering was informed of all the details of the plan, so that by chance he did not make an election speech on that particular evening, but at such a late hour would still be sitting at his desk in the Ministry of the Interior in Berlin. Goering-and he gave assurances that he would do so-was to put the police on wrong trails in the first confusion. From the very beginning it was intended that the Communists should be accused of this crime, and the 10 SA men who had to carry out the crime were instructed accordingly. That is, in a few words, the story of the events. To tell you how we got hold of the details, I have only to add that one of these 10 who had to spray the chemical was a notorious criminal. Six months later he was dismissed from the SA, and when he did not receive the reward which he had been promised he decided to tell what he knew to the Reich Court sitting in Leipzig at the time. He was taken before an examining magistrate who made a record of his statement, but the Gestapo heard of it and the letter to the Reich Court was intercepted and destroyed. The SA man, named Rall, who betrayed the plan, was murdered in a vile manner with the knowledge of the Defendant Goering, by order of Gestapo chief Diels. Through the finding of the body, we picked up the threads of the whole story.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: What happened to the 10 SA men who carried out the Reichstag fire? Are any of them alive now?
GISEVIUS: As far as we are aware none of them are still alive. Most of them were murdered on 30 June under the pretext of the Roehm revolt. Only one, a certain Heini Gewaehr, was taken over by the police as a police officer, and we tracked him down as well. He was killed in the war, while a police officer on the Eastern Front.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I think you testified that you also investigated, with the entire affair of Roehm, the murders that followed the Roehm affair. Didn't you so testify?
GISEVIUS: I cannot actually say that we carried out the investigation, as we, of the Ministry of the Interior, had really been excluded from the entire affair. However, matters were such that after 30 June, all the appeals for help, and all the complaints of the people who were affected reached us in the Ministry of the Interior, and during 30 June, through the continual radio messages, incidental visits to Goering's palace, and the information received from Nebe, we discovered all the details.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, about how many people were killed in that purge?
GISEVIUS: We have never been able to establish the number exactly, but I estimate that no more than 150 to 200 persons lost their lives, which, at that time, was an enormous figure. I myself with Minister of Justice Guertner checked the list of the number of the dead which had been given him by Hitler and Goering, and we ascertained that the list which contained the names of' 77 dead, who had allegedly been justly killed, was exceeded by nearly double that number only by those names which we had received through the prosecuting authorities, or through the appeals for help coming from relatives to the Ministry of the Interior.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, did you ascertain who selected the men who were killed in that purge?
GISEVIUS: To begin with we ascertained that Himmler, Heydrich, and Goering had compiled exact lists of those to be murdered; for I myself heard in Goering's palace-and it was confirmed by Daluege who was present, and also by Nebe who was present from the very first second-that not one of those who were killed was mentioned by name; instead they just said: "Number so and so is now gone," or, "Number so and so is still missing," and "It will soon be Number so and so's turn." There is, however, no doubt that Heydrich and Himmler also had a special list. On that special list there were several Catholics, Klausner, and others. I cannot, for instance, say here under oath whether Schleicher was murdered by order of Goering, or whether he was a man who was on Heydrich's and Himmler's special list.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, was the Defendant Frick fully informed as to the facts which you knew about the illegal conduct of the Gestapo?
GISEVIUS: Yes. I had to submit to him all the material that arrived which was important, and I have already described that we reported all these matters to the Secret State Police or to the Ministries of the Interior of the Laender. Naturally I could submit only the most important of these things to Frick personally. I estimate that I received several hundred such complaints daily, but the most important had to be submitted to Frick, because he had to sign them personally; for Goering always complained as soon as he saw that such a young official signed reports and appeals to the Ministry and to himself.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, was Frick informed of your conclusions about the Roehm purge?
GISEVIUS: Yes, because on the Sunday, while the murders were continuing, I spoke to Frick about the murder of Strasser, Klausner, Schleicher and the many other murders; and Frick was particularly disgusted at the murder of Strasser, because he considered that an act of personal revenge by Goering and Himmler. Likewise, Frick was extremely indignant about the murders of Klausner, Bose, Edgar Jung, and the many other innocent men who were murdered.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: But when Frick signed the decree, along with Hitler, declaring these murders legitimate and ordering no prosecutions on account of those murders, Frick knew exactly what had happened from you; is that the fact?
GISEVIUS: He knew it from me, and he had seen it for himself. The story of the 30th of June was undoubtedly known to Frick.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, did Frick ever talk with you about Himmler and Heydrich as being bad and dangerous, cruel persons?
GISEVIUS: On that Sunday, the 1st of July, Frick said to me "If Hitler does not very soon do to the SS and Himmler what he has done to the SA today, he will experience far worse things with the SS than he has experienced now with the SA." I was greatly struck by that prediction at the time, and by the fact that Frick should speak so openly to me.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: But notwithstanding the estimate he made of those men as dangerous persons, did he not thereafter appoint them both in his Ministry of Interior?
GISEVIUS: Well, of course, they were actually appointed by Hitler. However, I can only say that when I took leave of Frick, at the time I left the Ministry of the Interior in May 1935, Frick told me literally that the constant difficulties he had had because of me had taught him from now on to take Party members only in his Ministry, and as far as possible those who had the Golden Party Emblem. He said that it was possible that in the course of events he might even be forced to allow Himmler into his Ministry, but in no case would he accept the murderer Heydrich. Those were the last words I exchanged with Frick.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Both were put in charge of matters that were under his legal control, were they not?
GISEVIUS: Yes, they became members of the Reich Ministry of the Interior and Frick remained their superior.
THE PRESIDENT: Did you say that those were the last words which you exchanged with the Defendant Frick?
GISEVIUS: Yes. That was in 1935 and I have not met him or talked to him since.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, after 1934 Frick was the Minister in charge of the running and controlling of concentration camps, was he not, Dr. Gisevius?
GISEVIUS: In my opinion the Reich Minister of the Interior was responsible from the beginning for all police matters in the Reich and therefore also for the concentration camps, and I do not believe that one can say he had that responsibility only since 1934.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, I am willing to accept your amendment to my question. I ask that you be shown Document Number 3751-PS of the United States, which has not yet been offered in evidence. [The document was submitted to the witness.] Now, this purports to be a communication from Dr. Guertner, the Minister of Justice, to the Reich and Prussian Minister of the Interior. That would be from your friend Dr. Guertner to Frick, would it not?
GISEVIUS: I believe I heard you say "friend." During the time he acted as Minister, Guertner did not conduct himself in such a way that I could consider him my friend.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well then, tell us about Guertner. Tell us about Guertner's position in this situation because we have a communication here apparently from him.
GISEVIUS: Guertner?
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Yes.
GISEVIUS: At that time Guertner without doubt made many attempts to expose the cruelty in the camps and to initiate criminal proceedings. In individual cases Guertner did make many attempts; but after the 30th of June he signed that law which legalized all those dreadful things, and also in other respects Guertner never acted consistently with his views. But this document which you submit to me was just such an attempt by Guertner and the many decent officials in the Ministry of Justice to bring the question of the Gestapo terror to discussion. As far as I recollect this is one of those letters which we discussed unofficially beforehand in order to provoke an answer, so to say.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I now desire to read some parts of this into the record. It becomes Exhibit USA-828. I will offer it as such. Will you kindly follow the German text and see if I correctly quote: "My dear Reich Minister! "Enclosed you will find a copy of a report of the Inspector of the Secret State Police, dated 28 March 1935. "This report gives me an occasion to state my fundamental attitude towards the question of corporal punishment for internees. The numerous instances of ill-treatment which have come to the knowledge of the authorities of justice point to three different reasons for such ill-treatment of prisoners: "1. Beating as a disciplinary punishment in concentration camps. "2. Ill-treatment, mostly of political internees, in order to make them talk. "3. Ill-treatment of internees arising out of sheer wantonness or for sadistic motives." I think I will not take the Tribunal's time to read his comment on Number 1 or Number 2. About Number 3, you will find in the German text: "The experience of the first revolutionary years has shown that the persons who are charged to administer the beatings generally lose all sense of the purpose and meaning of their action after a short time, and permit themselves to be governed by personal feelings of revenge, or sadistic tendencies. Thus members of the guard detail of the former concentration camp at Bredow, near Stettin, completely stripped a prostitute who had an argument with one of them and beat her with whips and cowhides in such a fashion that the woman 2 months later still showed two open and infected wounds." I shall not go into the dimensions; they are not important. "In the concentration camp at Kemna near Wuppertal, prisoners were locked up in a narrow clothing locker and were then tortured by blowing in cigarette smoke, upsetting the locker, et cetera . In some cases the prisoners were first given salt herring to eat, in order to produce an especially strong and torturing thirst.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: "In the Hohnstein Concentration Camp in Saxony, prisoners had to stand under a dripping apparatus especially constructed for this purpose, until the drops of water, which fell down at even intervals, caused seriously infected wounds on their scalps. "In a concentration camp in Hamburg four prisoners were lashed in the form of a cross to a grating for days, once without interruption for 3 days and nights, once for 5 days and nights and fed so meagerly with dry bread that they almost died of hunger. "These few examples show a degree of cruelty which is such an insult to every German feeling, that it is impossible to consider any extenuating circumstances. "In conclusion, I should like to present my opinion about these three points to you, my dear Herr Reich Minister, in your capacity as departmental minister competent for the establishment of protective custody, and the camps for protective custody." And he goes on to make certain recommendations for action by the Minister. I do not know whether the Tribunal cares to have more of this read. Was any improvement in conditions noted after the receipt of that communication by Frick?