dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
MR. DODD: That's all I want you to say, that's your answer. Now, thousands of other articles of a personal nature, from wrist watches and fountain pens to ladies' bags, all kinds of jewelry and stones-an enormous part of these apparently, according to the testi-mony, was flowing through your Economic Ministry with the assist-ance of the Reichsbank, and you want the Tribunal to understand that you had very little knowledge if any, of all those transactions?
FUNK: I knew nothing about those things, nothing at all.
MR. DODD: And gold teeth, or gold dentures, were in the vaults of your bank, but you didn't know anything about that strange deposit; you knew nothing about that either? So you didn't know anything about all these great sums of foreign currency actually going through your Reichsbank and deposited there, did you?
FUNK: I knew nothing about the huge amounts which are being- mentioned here. I knew only that foreign currency was being deposited.
MR.DODD: Are you sure you were in the Reichsbank in those days?
FUNK: Yes.
MR.DODD: I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now. [A recess was taken until 1400 hours.] Afternoon Session [The Defendant Funk resumed the stand.]
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sauter, have you any questions you want to put?
DR. SAUTER: No.
MR. FRANCIS BIDDLE (Member of the Tribunal for the United States): Defendant, I am not quite clear about your conversation with Himmler. Was this the first time that a deposit of this sort had been opened by the SS?
FUNK: Yes.
MR. BIDDLE: You have never discussed this with any SS personalities before?
FUNK: No, with no one.
MR. BIDDLE: And of course it was not Himmler's business to see that gold and notes were brought into the bank under the German law, was it?,
FUNK: Himinler told me that large quantities of valuables had been confiscated by the SS and that they included valuables which interested the Reichsbank, such as gold, foreign currency, et cetera ...
MR. BIDDLE: I did not ask you that. Will you listen now? Was it any of Himmler's business or duties to see that gold and notes were turned into the bank? That did not come under his jurisdiction, did it?
FUNK: Yes, if these things, for example, had been taken from the innmates of concentration camps, he would have had to ...
MR. BIDDLE: That is exactly what I meant. So that you knew or suspected, since Himmler was dealing with you, that the gold and the notes had come from concentration camps which were under Himmler. Was that not the reason that you supposed that this material had come from camps? It was obvious, was it not?
FUNK: Not only from concentration camps. Himmler was also in charge of the customs police, and the SS also acted as police in the occupied territories. It did not necessarily follow that the material came from concentration camps alone, but ...
MR. BIDDLE: Not alone; but you suspected it did come from the concentration camps when Himmler talked to you, did you not?
FUNK: Yes.
MR. BIDDLE: Did you ask him where it came from?
FUNK: No, I did not ask him.
MR. BIDDLE: He said the gold and notes were part of other property; there was other property, too?
FUNK: No, he said they were confiscated valuables. The interview was very brief and took place in Lammers' field headquarters, as I recall it, when I met him there. It was a very short conver-sation. He told me: "We have confiscated a large amount of valu-ables, especially in the East, and we would like to deposit them in the Reichsbank." May I add something? Then when these things came to the bank, Puhl and, as I recall, Wilhelm were present at a discussion, and they said that I should ask Himmler whether these things which had been sent in by the SS as their deposit-strictly speaking we were not allowed to touch their deposit-whether they could be used by the Reichsbank. I did ask him and he said yes.
MR. BIDDLE: Well, now, let us see. By the "East" he meant the Government General, did he not?
FUNK: At that time vast Eastern territories were occupied.
MR. BIDDLE: But he did not mean Germany; he meant occupied territories, did he not?
FUNK: He spoke of "the East." Well, I had to suppose he did.
MR. BIDDLE: You had no idea what he meant when he said "the East," I suppose? FUNK No. I thought the occupied territories in the East. That is what I understood. The Occupied Eastern Territories.
MR. BIDDLE: This was not one of your regular deposits; I think it would be appropriate to say that-it was not one of your regular deposits, was it? It was unusual?
FUNK: Certainly.
MR. BIDDLE: You did not ask him any questions about it at all?
FUNK: No, I did not speak with him any more than what I have said here. Last night I racked my brains to reconstruct everything, but I cannot remember anything beyond what I have said.
MR. BIDDLE: You were not curious about this deposit at all? You were not curious about it? It did not interest you?
FUNK: No, once or twice I talked to Puhl-once Wilhelm was there too-quite briefly.
MR. BIDDLE: Thank you; that is all.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant may return to the dock.
DR. STAHMER: Mr. President, this morning you asked for information as to whether the questions for which I named the witness were dealt with previously. I have ascertained that in the session of 8 March 1946 the witness Milch was asked by me about one or two letters which Obergruppenfuehrer Wolff sent to him. The answer is by Milch. The letter is of May 1942. This is in the transcript (Volume IX, Pages 51/52). Then in cross-examination this question was brought up again by Mr. Justice Jackson (Volume IX, Page 88). Then General Rudenko, in cross-examination of the same witness Milch, produced another letter from Himmler-to Milch, I believe-of November 1942 (Volume IX, Pages 128/129), Up to now I have not been able to find anything more about it hi the short time which was available. I do not recall having asked Göring about it. I do not think I did so, for this is quite a small point. I considered it cleared tip sufficiently by the testimony of Milch. Milch was examined before Göring. In my opinion, this deals with other events. The question of making sea-water potable and the means to combat typhus were not discussed at all. Nor do I think that freezing experiments were mentioned, so that I think these are other subjects than the ones discussed by Milch.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you mean that the Defendant Göring did not discuss the subject of experiments on inmates of concentration camps at all? What you refer to is General Milch.
DR. STAHMER: Yes. As far as I recall the matter now-I was not able to investigate it as to Göring-as far as I recall, I asked only Milch about the subject. Then in the examination of Göring, which took place later, I did not come back to it because I assumed that this question had been cleared up by Milch. But I should like to examine the transcript carefully. At lunch-time I was not able to do so owing to the limited time. In this connection I should like to point out one more thing. Mr. President, in my written application I made an application in case the witness Schreiber, whose statement was referred to by the Russian Prosecution a few days ago, is brought here as a witness. If the witness Schreiber is really to be produced, I ask to be per-mitted to examine Göring after the examination of the witness Schreiber so that it will not be necessary to recall him to the witness stand a -third time.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will consider that, too. General Rudenko, can you inform the Tribunal whether Dr. Schreiber is going to be brought here, whether you are going to make use of the affidavit and have him brought here, or not?
GENERAL R. A. RUDENK0 (Chief Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): We have taken all necessary measures in order to bring the witness Schreiber here to this courtroom, but we as yet have no information as to whether the witness will be brought before the case of the Organizations is closed. He is in a prisoner-of-war camp near Moscow.  I presume that in the course of today or tomorrow we will be in a position to inform the Tribunal more exactly.
THE PRESIDENT: Now, Sir David, have you been able to find out whether the Defendant Göring did give any evidence upon this topic?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My staff are on that matter at the moment. They have not quite completed checking the transcript. I hope to be able to inform Your Lordship very shortly.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. The Tribunal will deal with the -question of documents on behalf of the Organizations, and I think that Dr. Servatius is going to deal with it first.
DR. ROBERT SERVATEUS (Counsel for the Corps of Political Leaders): Mr. President, first I shall present the contents of the document book, then I shall comment on the affidavits. I have already introduced the documents as such, following the taking of evidence; and the exhibit numbers were agreed on with the General Secretary. On Page 1 is Document Number 10. It deals with statistics of the Party. It is an excerpt from an issue of Der Hoheitsträger. Its .significance is that it indicates how many people are affected by the present proceedings. If you will look at Page 1 for the year 1935 the number of officials for Block, Zelle, Ortsgruppen, Kreise, and Gaue is given as approximately 600,000. If you will look at Page 2, in the lower half of the page, the above figure is increased by the leadership of the organizations for the year 1935. In order to give the figures, there are the Frauen-schaft and Frauenwerk (Women's Organizations), about 50,000; the Student's Associations, 1,600; the DAF (Labor Front) and so forth, 800,000; the Office of Public Welfare and NSV (Nazi Welfare), 300,000 -I am giving round figures-and the Reich Food Estate, about 100,000; the Welfare Office for War Victims, 84,000. Those special offices amount altogether to 1,475,000. If the 600,000 previously mentioned are added, one reaches a figure of over 2,000,000.
THE PRESIDENT: Do these figures refer to persons who were Political Leaders within the definition?
DR. SERVATIUS: Yes, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, either the Gauleiter or the Kreis-leiter ...
DR. SERVATIUS: May I explain it briefly? One must make the basic distinction between the real Political Leaders who directed the political machinery, from the Gauleiter down to the Blockleiter, and besides them, the large number of people who worked in the Labor Front, NSV, and such other organizations, who were also called "Political Leaders." This was clearly shown when the witness Hupfauer was examined here; he said that in his organization, which had 20,000,000 members, the leadership was carried out by "Political Leaders." Later, in my closing speech, I will explain exactly what this means, but to begin with they are all included under the term: "Corps of Political Leaders." It is evident that the Indictment really meant only those who actually directed political offices, from the Gau to the Block; but they are all included in the word. That is why I have given these figures to clear up the matter.
THE PRESIDENT: What have we got to do with anybody except those from Gauleiter to Blockleiter? The rest of them are rank and file so far as the Tribunal is concerned.
DR. SERVATIUS: Mr. President, they are, to begin with, included in the term "Corps of Political Leaders," which the Indictment did not limit; it should have done so at the time. It is of significance because from these organizations into the technical staffs of these political offices...
THE PRESIDENT: You mean that the Indictment does not specify "Gauleiter down to Blockleiter," it says simply the "Corps of Political Leaders"?
DR. SERVATIUS: That is defined later, but at first in the intro-duction the whole "Corps of Political Leaders" is mentioned. If the Prosecution would clarify that, the number would be considerably reduced. I now only wanted to point out this statistical material...
THE PRESIDENT: Well, where was it that the Indictment was confined to "Gauleiter to Blockleiter"?
DR. SERVATIUS: in the Trial Brief. The offices are listed in detail, but it is never said that the others are omitted.
THE PRESIDENT: As I understand what you say, the Indictment charges the Political Leaders-the "Corps of Political Leaders"?
DR. SERVATIUS: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: In that corps there are persons who were "Political Leaders" who are not included in the "Gauleiter down to the Blockleiter"?
DR. SERVATIUS: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Then at a later stage in the Trial Brief, the Prosecution limited, or purported at any rate to limit, their appli-cation for criminal declaration to the "Gauleiter down to the Blockleiter," the original scope of the Indictment.
DR. SERVATIUS: Mr. President, I understood this to mean that the staffs of the Ortsgruppenleiter and the Block and Zelle assistants were omitted. Then the bulk would still remain, so that the problem was approached from the negative angle.
THE PRESIDENT: The Block- and Zellenleiter were not omitted, you say?
DR. SERVATIUS: No, only the assistants of the Block- and Zellenleiter, that is, their so-called staffs, and the staffs of the Orts-gruppenleiter, and I believe that ...
THE PRESIDENT: That is what I said, that the original Indictment included the whole "Corps of Political Leaders," and these were limited to include only from the "Gauleiter down to the Block-leiter.11
DR. SERVATIUS: I believe certain groups were omitted, though no one has said that the remainder was to be charged. It may be a misunderstanding. Perhaps the Prosecution could clear it up.
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Griffith-Jones, could you tell us?
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Perhaps I can be of assistance. The Indictment included all Political Leiter. When the case was presented, the Prosecution excluded from that total figure the staff officers on the staff of the Ortsgruppenleiter. Your Lordship will remember that the Corps of Political Leaders had its Hoheitsträger, the bearers of sovereignty; the Gauleiter, Kreisleiter, Ortsgruppen-leiter, Zellenleiter, and Blockleiter. The Gauleiter, Kreisleiter, and Ortsgruppenleiter also had staffs, people working in their offices who are also Political Leaders but not Hoheitsträger; and the Pros-ecution excluded the staff officers and the Orts9ruppen staffs, leaving in all Hoheitsträger, from the Gauleiter down to the Blockleiter, and the staff of Political Leiter, or the Gau staff officers. That is, I think, how it stands at the moment.
THE PRESIDENT: You are agreed about that, Dr. Servatius? Are you?
DR. SERVATIUS: Yes, but then a formal statement must be made by the Prosecution. The Prosecution, as is well known, in-dicted the whole "Corps of Political Leaders." If they reserve the right to omit groups, and now wish to omit from the Indictment the Political Leaders in these organizations just mentioned, the NSV, Women's Organizations, and Labor Front, then they should make a formal application,
THE PRESIDENT: Well, now, Colonel Griffith-Jones, Dr. Servatius is submitting that you ought to make a formal declaration on behalf of the Prosecution that that is so.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: My Lord, as I understand the position, all these Political Leiter to which Dr. Servatius is referring, the ones set out here, the Women's Organizations and so on, they are all under the staff, they do work for the Political Leaders on the staffs of the various Hoheitstr5ger. I think it may be there is a possible exception in respect to the DAF, the German Labor Front. It had been suggested by the witnesses for the defense that there were other Political Leaders in the DAF who were not directly on the staffs of one of the ordinary Hoheitstr5ger; My Lord, if that is -so, they of course are included in the Indictment.
THE PRESIDENT: This document does not appear to show whether or not these are staff officers. It simply gives us numbers.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: It does not, but in fact that is the position that that was what made up the staffs of the various Hoheitsträger. The representatives of these various other organizations, the staff of each Hoheitstrager, the Gauleiter, Kreis-, and Ortsgruppenleiter, has very much the same form. It had its staff officer, its training officer, and so on; and it also had the representa-tives of these other organizations, such as the German Labor Front, the Welfare, the Women's Associations, the Student Associations, Teachers, and so on. It was the staff officers who made up the total ,staff. Perhaps I might just say that also this figure of 2,000,000 that -has been given-of course that includes all the staff officers and the Ortsgruppen staffs, the ones which the Prosecution excluded, and it is the staff officers and the Ortsgruppen staff which makes up the majority of that total. I can give the Tribunal the exact figures, or as near as we have been able to estimate them. I am afraid I have mot got them with me in Court at the moment. But the Tribunal will ,see that I think I might say there were about 600 Ortsgruppen and on each Ortsgruppe about 15 staff officers, so that the total is very considerable.
THE PRESIDENT: Those numbers would have to be deducted from the numbers that are here?
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Those numbers would have to be deducted. The Prosecution have not included the number that Dr. Servatius has given the Tribunal now. From that you have to deduct the complete staff of all the Ortsgruppen, which forms a very 'large part of that total given you. Speaking from memory, the total, -if you exclude that, was in the region of 600,000.
THE PRESIDENT: Perhaps you could give us the figures in writing, or perhaps you can state them now, because if there are 2,000,000 here, how many staff officers of the Ortsgruppenleiter are there, according to you?
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: My Lord, I will be able to tell the Tribunal within a quarter of an hour, if I might just send for the figures. I am afraid that I cannot carry them in memory. I win get them, and I will let the Tribunal know.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
DR. SERVATIUS: Mr. President, may I comment on that question? It is true that the staffs of the Ortsgruppenleiter were omitted. According to my calculations, they amount to about 1,000,000, but the number is increased by the fact that one and a half times, on an average, in the course of these years a turnover took place, so that one gets one and a half times the figures, and it is still a number amounting to millions. Another thing is that these Ortsgruppenleiter and these offices are not given according to the number of persons, but as offices, so that the deputies and successors are not included. Only a statistician can deal with this question in detail, but I do not believe that it is necessary to figure it out in detail to get a general impression that there are actually millions involved. Now I will go on to Page 4. This is also an excerpt from Der Hoheitsträger. Unfortunately, it cannot be seen from the document that this is another issue of the Hoheitsträger of the year 1937, Second Series. Here one can see the percentages of Blockleiter, Kreisleiter, and Gauleiter. The majority-over 50 percent-are Blockleiter and Zenenleiter. These are not excluded from the Indict-ment. Their assistants are excluded. The core of the Political Leaders is formed by the Kreis- and Gauleiter, who amount to :3 percent. The figures under (5) and (6) are also significant. The depart-mental offices amounted to 27.8 percent and the internal Party offices, the administration, to 16 percent. These departmental offices are important because they include the Political Leaders of the Organizations, of the professional unions, the DAF, the NSV. But by no means were all Political Leaders of these formations at the same time on the staffs of the Gau, Kreis, and Ortsgruppe. Only a very few of them in each Gau, perhaps one or two, in the Kreis a few; perhaps a few also with the Ortsgruppen, so that there is only a fairly small number. The majority of these 4experts are in their own formations, of course. Then I go on to Page 5. That is Document Number 12.
DR. SERVATIUS: It is signif-icant in regard to the term "Corps of Political Leaders." Whether such a corps exists or can now be formed is doubtful. Here it says that a political organization is forbidden and the term prohibited. It is an order by Hess issued in the year 1935, with the legal justi-fication that there can be no such special organization. Then I come to Document Number 13. This is important for the following reason: One does not become a Political Leader by being appointed to an office, but by special nomination. It is stated here that since this nomination as Hoheit*str5ger must be made by a special act of sovereignty, whoever is not nominated is not a Hoheitsträger and does not belong to the Corps of Political Leaders. It appears that quite a number are not nominated, especially during the war none of those who, as substitutes, held lower offices in an honorary capacity. Document Number 14 concerns the same question. Document Number 15 also emphasizes in a similar way that such nomination is for public service and that it is therefore not merely a private appointment to an office. In Document Number 16 on Page 9, we find the order that the Leiter in the DAF (Labor Front) are also Political Leaders of the Party. Thus, according to the concept of the indictment, they belong to the Corps of Political Leaders unless excluded. The next document, No. 17, gives the higher Fuehrer Corps, Hoheitsträger down to Kreisleiter, and shows that the Ortsgruppen-leiter and those below him are treated differently in regard to nomination. Hitler himself iiominated the Gauleiter and their adjutants, the Gauamtsleiter, and Kreisleiter. That is of significance when judging these persons.
DR. SERVATIUS: The next document, Number 18 on Page 11, shows the exaggera-tion of the concept of "Hoheitstr4ger" as opposed to the concept of the "Political Leader." It mentions the awarding of this title to motor ' vehicle drivers, telephone operators, caretakers of buildings, and orderlies, and it says that they should be made Political Leaders in the organizations rather than in the actual political department between Gau and Ortsgruppenleiter. Document Number 19, on Page 12, says that nominations as "Political Leader" are suspended until further notice. It dates from the year 1944. The inference would be that those who received an office after August 1944 were in no case made "Political Leaders." In practice, this was already so before this time. The word "Hoheitsträger" is of great importance. The Prose-cution has placed great weight on it, and the small functionaries, -the Zellenleiter and the Blockleiter-were not omitted from the proceedings because they were Hoheitsträger. In Document Number 20, Page 13, Hess orders, on 14 April 1934, that Hoheitstr4ger will comprise only Gauleiter, Kreisleiter, and Ortsgruppenleiter. This is not expressly stated, but it can be con-cluded from the text. The next document Number 2 on Page 14, is important because it also closes the circle of Hoheitsträger with the Ortsgruppenleiter, excluding therefore the small officials as far as this term is concerned. The next document is Number 21, on Page 15. It equally restricts the term to Gauleiter, Kreisleiter, and Ortsgruppenleiter. I In Document Number 1, on Page 16, the "Hoheitsgebiete" (areas of authority) are clearly determined. It is a book entitled: The Administration of the National Socialist German Labor Party, 1940, published by a Dr. Lingg.