Before me, Major Luke P. Rogers, being authorized to administer oaths, personally appeared Karl Kaleske, who, being duly sworn, through the interpreter, made and subscribed the following statement: :
My name is Karl Kaleske. I was Adjutant to Doctor von Sam-mern-Frankenegg from November 1942 until April 1943, while he was SS and Polizeifuehrer of Warsaw. I then was Adjutant to SS and Polizeifuehrer Stroop until August 1943. The action against the Warsaw ghetto was planned while von Sammern-Frankenegg
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was SS and Polizeifuehrer. General Stroop took over the command on the day of the commencement of the action. The function of the Security Police during the action against the Warsaw ghetto was to accompany the SS troops. A certain number of SS troops were assigned the task to clear a certain street. With every SS group there were from four to six Security policemen, because they knew the ghetto very well. These Security policemen were under Doctor Hahn, Commander of the Security Police for Warsaw. Hahn received his orders not from the SS and Polizeifuehrer of Warsaw, but directly from Kaltenbrunner in Berlin. This pertains not only to the ghetto action but to all matters. Frequently Doctor Hahn came to our office and told the SS and Polizeifuehrer that he had received such and such an order from Kaltenbrunner about the contents of which he wanted to inform the SS and Polizeifuehrer. He would not do this with every order, but only with certain ones.
I remember the case of three hundred foreign Jews who had been collected in the Polski Hotel by the Security Police. At the end of the ghetto action, Kaltenbrunner ordered the Security Police to transport these people away.
During my time in Warsaw the Security Police had been in charge of matters concerning the underground. The Security Police handled these matters independently of the SS and Polizeifuehrer, and received its orders from Kaltenbrunner in Berlin. When the leader of the underground in Warsaw was captured in June or July 1943, he was flown directly to Kaltenbrunner in Berlin.
I have read the statement over and I have understood it completely. I have made the statement freely and without compulsion. I swear before God that this statement is in accordance with the full truth.
[Signed] Karl Kaleske
Subscribed and sworn to before me at Wiesbaden, Germany, on this 24th day of February 1946.
[Signed] Luke P. Rogers Major CMP Investigating officer
Affidavit concerning Kaltenbrunner's orders to security police officers in Warsaw in 1943, including the transfer of foreign Jews and the capture of a resistance leader
Authors
Karl Kaleske (adjutant to SS police chiefs in Warsaw (1942-43))
Karl Kaleske
- Additional details not yet available.
Date: 24 February 1946
Defendant: Ernst Kaltenbrunner
Total Pages: 2
Language of Text: English
Source of Text: Nazi conspiracy and aggression (Office of United States Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality. Washington, D.C. : U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946.)
Evidence Code: PS-3840
HLSL Item No.: 451764
Trial Issue
Document Summary
PS-3840: Affidavit by Karl Kaleske, formerly adjutant of the higher Ss and police leader of Warsaw, 24 february 1946, concerning the part played by Kaltenbrunner, the Ss, • and others in the action against the Warsaw ghetto