In early December 1943, the High Commander took over Milch's attitude that fighter production should be more predominant over border production, but, despite all the support of all the Luftwaffe offices, it was not possible to break the Fuehrer's opposition to this, and to bring him to the point of view that fighter production should occupy the first rank, with all the necessary accessories.
Q. Do you know at what point in the armaments program the fighter production program stood until 1943?
A. In contrast to the allied forces -- in Germany, the fighter production stood in seventh place -- except for the production of crankshafts and after 1942 of radar.
Q. Witness, hereafter, speak considerably slower. Witness, I return to the question of Milch's relations with Goering. Do you know that, in the spring of 1944, there was a basic discussion which then led to a break between the two men?
A. In the spring of 1944, the fighter staff was built, on which occasion there were arguments which extended from the spring of 1944 into the summer of 1944, and led to the result that Milch was excluded from the entire fighter program so far as production was concerned, and simply continued to exercise his functions as General Inspector in the GL.
Q. Witness, do you know whether Milch could go to Hitler without Goering's permission?
A. I know that no Luftwaffe officer could report to Hitler without the permission of the OKL.
Q. When you say "High Commander", you mean "Goering"?
A. Yes.
Q. I simply want that to be clearly shown on the record, because that is not the common understanding.
A. Whenever I say "High Commander of the Luftwaffe", I mean Goering.
Q. Witness, do you know that in 1944, Milch had been given wide plenipotentiary powers from Goering?
A. Such plenipotentiary powers in 1944 would have been impossible, because at that time the armament of the Luftwaffe was in the hands of the fighter staff, and, thus, in the hands of the Ministry for Armaments.
BY DR. BERGOLD: Your Honor, from Document 2C, I desire to bring up Document No. KW 247. I do not have the exhibit number, but it is on page 99 of the document book.
Q. please look at this authorization which had been given in June of 1944; do you remember also having seen such an authorization of plenipotentiary powers through work in the office, and are you certain that such authorization was given in 1944?
A. Whether or not such plenipotentiary powers were given previously to that, I do not know, but I do not believe so.
Q. Do you know that Milch before the beginning of the Russian War protested vigorously against any extension of such war, and that he also appealed to Goering?
A. I do remember a remark in April or May of 1941, at which time General Milch had a talk with Goering in order to point out that waging war against Russia could not be carried out, and 1278 A he asked him to bring up this point with the Fuehrer.
Q. Witness, do you remember who ordered the Luftwaffe underground factories for the Luftwaffe industry?
A. After the attacks, on the Luftwaffe industry increased in 1943, and in also 1944, Goering demanded frequently that the Luftwaffe factories should be transferred to underground installations.
Q. Witness, do you know whether Milch himself could pass the death penalty on members of the Luftwaffe?
A. From the questions asked me by Luftwaffe officers and Air Fleet Chiefs, Goering, only, had the right to pass death penalties, and he refused to give up that right to the Luftwaffe chiefs, on the ground that that was strictly his own prerogative, as Head of the Luftwaffe; namely, the right to decide on the life or death of Luftwaffe soldiers. Even in the case where an air fleet chief requested it, he refused. When Milch asked it, he still refused. So that he, alone, in the Luftwaffe, was in a position to impose or pass upon anybody the death penalty.
Q. Did Milch ever have any opportunity to pass the death penalty on prisoners of war, inmates of concentration camps, or foreign workers?
A. Sentence, if passed, confirmed by the Luftwaffe Court, was approved solely by Goering.
Q. Witness, can you tell me when the basic Fuehrer Order No. 1. regarding secrecy was issued?
A. In December or January of 1941, two flyers were brought down in Belgium. On the basis of this occurrence, the Fuehrer issued an order that every office could be only informed or even talk only about those matters necessary for the fulfillment of its plans, and that, as late as possible. This was in the beginning of 1940. Yes, that is when it was.
BY THE PRESIDENT: In the document that you just read from, Exhibit 99, No. KW 247, does the "Reich-Marshal of Greater Germany" refer to "Goering"?
BY DR. BERGOLD: Yes, sir; there was only one Reichmarshal in Germany that was of general higher rank than Field Marshal.
BY THE PRESIDENT: I understand that the document is not signed and I wanted it made clear on the record.
BY DR. BERGOLD: Yes, thank you.
Q. Witness, can you tell me of the relationship between Goering and Udet. Here previously there was something inquired regarding it, and I want to know what the reason was for a certain severance of relations that took place between Goering and Udet?
A. The relationship between Udet and Goering relations were very friendly; but when Udet took over the job of Inspector General of the GL, this position was made immediately subordinate to him, so that Udet reported directly to Goering. These were private reports. In the spring of 1941, the Chief under the General Staff of the Luftwaffe, General Jeschenek, found a discrepancy between the numbers that the GL announced and the quartermasterGeneral took over. Then there were discussions on the subject, I recall very well because they fell within the period of the Jugo-Slavian Campaign. This discussion was to clarify the first of the differences, on the one hand, and, on the other band, why the programs that had been set, were being generally changed. We called these programs "Sliding programs". For this reason, there were certain difficulties between the Chief of the General Staff and Udet, because it was a great nuisance and trouble to find these mistakes. These were the reasons a certain change of relationship took place between Goering and Udet. And I believe in the late summer of 1941, Field Marshal Milch was commissioned to take part as adviser of Udet in the production program. Udet seemed to become more and more uncertain, and was also in a bad state of health. All of the armament matters that did not come off very well under him, he cried to bring into order.
While, on the other hand, he understood the impossibility of carrying out this program, on the other hand, he incurred the mistrust of, and became personna non grata with Goering, and this lead to the fact that in November of 1941, he shot himself.
DR. BERGOLD: I have no further questions.
1280 a) BY MR. DENNEY:
Q. Did you ever attend any of the meetings of the Jaegerstab?
A. Personally I never took part in any.
Q. Did you ever go to any meetings of the Central Planning Board?
A. No, never.
Q. Did you ever go to any meetings of the GL (General Luftfengmeister?
A. Only once.
Q. What did they talk about at that one meeting that you went to?
A. I cannot remember any details of just what they debated about at that time. I only know that production questions were talked over with all the competent officers and engineers but I cannot remember any of the detail.
Q. Do you remember when that meeting was?
A. 1943, I think.
Q. Did you hear mention anything about slave labor or farm workers?
A. I remember no discussion of such questions. I do remember discussion on production problems and program schedule and so on, but I cannot remember any details of that conference.
Q. You did not hear them say anything about concentration camp workers working for the aircraft industry?
A. From this discussion I remember nothing. I myself only know there were two concentration camps, Oranienburg and Dachau.
Q. Those were the two concentration camps you ever knew about, that of Oranienburg and Dachau?
A. Those are the only ones I ever know about, yes.
Q. You did not find out about any of the rest of these until after the war was over?
A. The names were are now familiar with were not familiar to me at all previously.
Q. So that prior to the German capitulation in the spring 1945 the only two concentration camps you ever heard about were Dachau and Oranienburg?
A. Yes, that is true.
1281 A
Q. Did you know what they did with people in the concentration camps?
A. No, I did not know of it.
Q. You assumed that everybody that was ever sent to a concentration camp, and the only two you knew about, Dachau and Oranienburg, was properly condemned after a proper judicial process by a proper German court?
A. The rest of the situation was this: We thought that people who had been condemned were sentenced by regular courts and were taken to concentration camps.
Q. You never knew anything about any foreigners being sent to concentration camps?
A. No, I don't know of any.
Q. Then you are sure that all people who went to concentration camps were criminals, undesirable people?
A. Yes.
Q. You were Goering's adjutant from 1940 until the end of the war, weren't you?
A. Yes.
Q. Did the occasion ever arise when somebody would come to Goering and say, "Please get my friend out of a concentration camp."?
A. No, that did not happen. I only know that people would come to me to intervene for people who had been arrested by the Gestapo.
Q. Well, what happened to the people who were sentenced by the Gestapo? Where did they go?
A. That I cannot tell you. I know that there was a Gestapo prison in the Prinzregentenstrasse in Berlin - Prinz Albrechtstrasse, rather.
Q. Whatever was the one street or other does not make any difference, but you knew they had a prison there?
A. Yes, that I knew.
Q. So far as you knew, you never made any inquiries about the concentration camps and you did not know what the Gestapo was doing?
A. No, that was not known to me either but in one case I mentioned the name was cleared up and the man was set free.
Q. That was some case of mistake the Gestapo made when they arrested somebody, was it?
A. I don't know the details of it. I know that the person in question was subsequently free, after he was told that nothing could be put against him.
Q. And who was it? He was not in Dachau or Oranienburg?
A. No.
Q. Were you in constant attendance on Goering?
A. As his adjutant I accompanied him on all official trips and during his presence in headquarters.
Q. Did you see all the correspondence that came to and from Goering's office?
A. Only that which was military. That is to say, Luftwaffe matters to the extent it went through our offices and was not dealt with directly by the particular branch leaders with Goering, or went through the Fuehrer headquarters.
Q. But you would have occasion to have letters come out from Goering which he would tell you to send around to the Chief of Staff or the Quartermaster General for the Luftwaffe, or one of the other of the branches?
A. Yes.
Q. And you would take the letter and look it over and make out a "buck" slip, or a little piece of paper and put something on it and send it on?
A. Either that letter was simply signed by Goering, which was dictated by him, or was a messageor note submitted to him for him to decide on, or not, a note on it but some kind of a simple message to pass on without any note. That was the sort of thing which was without any commentary from the adjutant's office.
Q. But an occasion would arise when you would have to make some comment on a slip that you prepared, if he told you to send this letter to so and so and asked him about this and that to put something on it and he would then hand you the letter, is that right?
A. Yes, that is so.
1283 a
Q. Did you, of course, know who Himmler was?
A. Yes, that I knew?
Q. You knew he was head of the SS?
A. Yes.
Q. And the Gestapo?
A. Yes.
Q. You knew that he had concentration camp workers working in the Luftwaffe armaments industry and factories?
A. I know of this only on the occasion of a visit to a factory and that was the only factory where I saw concentration camp inmates working?
Q. How were they dressed?
A. They were wearing German prison clothes.
Q. Were they wearing verticle stripes, say, of white and black?
A. Verticle stripes such as we have lately seen in Dachau.
Q. Where was this one factory you visited?
A. That was in Regensburg.
Q. That was a Messerschmidt factory, was it not?
A. The factory had belonged to the Messerschmidt plants, yes.
Q. They were making airplanes there, weren't they?
A. Yes.
Did you knew where these concentration camp workers came from?
A That I did not know. I asked one of the guards what people these were, and I was explicitly told that these were criminal prisoners.
Q Who was with you on this trip to the factory at Regensburg?
A I accompanied Goering on this trip.
Q Who was guarding these people in these concentration camps?
A The SS.
Q The SS. Did you see where they lived?
A No. We were only in the factory itself.
Q When was this that you went to the Messerschmidt factory in Regensburg?
AApril or May, 1944, if I remember.
Q Did you see any foreign workers there?
AAs I said before, no one struck me particularly as being a foreign worker, but I do know that Goering spoke several times to workers and thus ascertained that this or that one was not German and thus he found out that he was a foreign worker.
Q Do you know what countries they came from, these foreign workers that were out there?
A We. French and Russian were the languages in which the answers were given.
Q Did you ever visit any other factories during the period 1940 when you became Chief Adjutant until the end of the War, that is, between these two dates from 1940 to the end of '45?
A Yes, Arado in Braunschweig, Junkers in Dessau and in Wiener-Neustadt.
Q Would you mind repeating these for me, please?
AArado in Braunschweig, Junkers in Dessau and Wiener-Neustadt.
Q When were these visits, do you recall?
A During the period between 1942 and '44.
Q Did you see the people who were working there in the Arado factory in Braunschweig, the Junkers factory in Dessau--and what kind of a factory was it in Wiener-Neustadt?
A Weiener-Neustadt was also an airplane factory that built Messerschmidt 109's.
Q Do you remember what kind of people worked in those factories?
A We were there to see a development program being carried out, and they were exclusively Germans.
Q You didn't see any concentration camp people?
A No.
Q You didn't see any foreigners?
A No, I didn't notice any.
Q And you didn't see any of the SS boys around guarding anybody?
A. No.
Q You could recognize the SS if you saw them?
A Yes.
Q Can you do any better on the dates of the visits to the Arado factory in Braunschweig, the Junkers factory in Dessau and the ME-109 factory in Wiener-Neustadt than just "sometime between 1942 and 1944"?
A I have to make a correction first. The Arado factory is not in Braunschweig as I said previously but in Branderburg, and regarding the precise times, I really cannot make any statement. I have no schedule with me and no documents on the basis of which I could arrange that, the order in which I visited the various factories or when it was.
Q You just knew it was sometime between the period 1942 and '44?
A Between '42 and '44, Arado in '43 and '44 because we went to look at a specific model which was being fabricated at that time.
Q Do you remember being interrogated here in December of last year by Captain Koch of the -
A Here in -
Q Here in Nurnberg.
A Yes.
Q And he talked to you about this same general subject, and do you remember the last question which he asked you? "I would like to know who was responsible for labor assignment in the Luftwaffe and who asked for labor"? Do you remember that? And your answer -
A. I do not remember that because I neither saw nor signed the record of this interrogation. I only remember that the interrogation took place, but I don't remember the individual questions.
Q. You have no recollection of being asked that question?
A. I know that all the questions were something of the sort of questions that are being asked here, but the individual questions I do not remember.
Q. So you don't recall the question which I just put to you?
A. It is possible that this question was asked in that form, but specifically I cannot remember the details.
Q. Well, you wouldn't say that you weren't asked the question?
A. No, I wouldn't deny that the question was asked me.
MR. DENNEY: No further questions.
DR. BERGOLD: I really have no further questions, but the following has been brought to my attention: Witness, when you spoke of concentration camp inmates previously, you had said that they were penal prisoners not the transcribed word "criminal" prisoners which was incorrect. I then have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: What should it have been?
DR. BERGOLD: The German word "criminal prisoner" used means more than an ordinary prisoner. It means a man who has been sentenced by a penal court, whereas the word "prisoner" is a general term which can include concentration camp prisoners, pre-trial prisoners, penal prisoners and prisoners of war and so on. The translation which was originally "criminal prisoners" should have been "penal prisoners".
THE PRESIDENT: This witness may be removed. Oh, just a moment.
RECESS EXAMINATION BY MR. DENNEY:
Q. You never knew anything about any atrocities that were committed by any German forces, either in the homeland or in any of the occupied territories at the time they were committed; you only found out about these things later; is that right?
Individual cases of plundering or rape were known to me on the basis of sentences passed by courts martials, but personal knowledge I do not have. I know that both in France and Russia measures were taken against these crimes and severe penalties passed.
Q. And so far as you know any of these violations that were committed, which were brought to the attention of the higher authorities, were promptly dealt with by appropriate German military court or the German civil court?
A. I know only of cases from the court-martials. I know that the cases that did become known were dealt with in the correct fashion.
Q. And you never heard anything about families being broken up and sent to concentration camps -- or anything like that?
A. No.
Q. And if you had heard about them, you would have been in a position to do something about them; you were the adjutant to the Reich Marshal.
A. If I had found out about such cases, I should certainly ask Goering what was to be done, because I myself had no power of command.
Q. But you could not talk to him; he was a pretty big man, wasn't he?
A. You could not speak with him -- you could speak with him.
JUDGE NUSMANNO: There is a conflict in the answer. I thought the witness said he could speak with him.
A. Yes, it was possible to speak with Goering.
MR. DENNY: No further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: This witness may be removed by the Marshal.
(Witness removed from Courtroom by the Marshal)
DR. BERGOLD: I ask to call the witness General Folmy.
THE PRESIDENT: It is so close to our recess time that we will call the witness immediately after the recess. The Tribunal will recess now for fifteen minutes.
(A recess was taken)
THE MARSHAL: Tribunal No. 2 is again in session.
DR. BERGOLD: May it please the Tribunal, we should*****like to call Gen. Felmy.
THE PRESIDENT: The Marshal will bring in the witness;
HELMUTH FELMY, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows;
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Will you raise your right hand and repeat after me; I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.
(The witness repeated the oath.)
JUDGE MUSMANNO: You may be seated.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q. Witness, would you tell this Tribunal your first name and your Last name?
A. Helmuth Felmy, F-e-l-m-y.
Q. Then were you born, witness?
A. On the 20th of May, 1885.
Q. What was your rank and your official position which you had last in one German Wehrmacht?
A. General of the airforce, general of the 34th army corps.
Q. Do you know Mr. Milch?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you recognize him here in this court?
A. Yes, he is sitting over there.
DR. BERGOLD: I would like to have the record show that the witness recognized the defendant.
TEE PRESIDENT: The record will so show.
BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q. Witness, do you know the so-called basic Fuehrer order No. 1?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. Could you tell me when this order exactly was issued?
A. On the 12th of January, 1940.