Did you know anything about that? Did Speer give it to you or show it to you?
A. No. All I knew was the fact that he had held a speech there but I did not know the contents of the speech.
Q. Document D-316, Exhibit Number 12, on Page 38, is a memorandum of a certain Huper of the 14th of March 1942, concerning the employment of Russians with the firm of Krupp. Did you know this memorandum in your capacity as GL, or in any other capacity did you over see this document, and was it ever brought to your knowledge?
A. Not up until these trials.
Q. Witness, did the air armament industry have any contact or contacts with the Krupp firm?
A. I believe that there were orders for our engine groups. What I mean is that our ministries had nothing to do with it.
Q. In other words, Krupp did not belong to the air armament industry as such?
A. No.
Q. The Document Number 016-PS, Exhibit Number 13, on the 20th of April 1942, contains Sauckel's program for labor assignment. Was this program submitted to you in your capacity of GL or to the Central Planning, or did you ever hear anything else about that in any other of your capacities?
A. No.
Q. Did you know anything at all, and were these Sauckel decrees ever submitted to you, generally speaking?
A. No, they were never brought to my knowledge.
Q. Such decrees may appear in certain law publications of the Ministry. How was it in the Luftwaffe, was there a law booklet and then others concerning questions with respect to the Luftwaffe?
A. Yes, that was only questions concerning Luftwaffe.
Q. You didn't let me finish my question. How was it in your Ministry? Any agency naturally had decrees appear in some information leaflet. Were they all submitted to you, or did you experts show you only those decrees which had something to do immediately with your own office or the task of your office?
A. Only the latter, and that only to a very small extent. In certain cases as far as I can remember my office had nothing to do with these decrees.
I was never shown these Reichsgesetzblaetter; but we had to know what was in our own information leaflet; and only those things were submitted to me in exceptional cases, an excerpt only, when I absolutely had to know about those things. I believe that the Hitler secrecy order was also applied to this case.
Q. Witness, Document R-129, Exhibit Number 14 of the 30th of April, 1942, on Page 52, concerns a letter of Pohl, who is on trial here in the fourth case, Pohl's letter to Himmler concerning concentration camps. Was this letter here of Pohl's ever brought to your attention and to your knowledge?
A. Not until those trials.
Q. Witness, on this occasion I would like to ask you, what then do you know about these concentration camps during the war?
A. I only knew of two concentration camps, namely, Dachau and Oranienburg. I visited Dachau personally in 1935; in other words, before the war. That was the only time that I had visited a concentration camp, with the exception of now when I was a prisoner of war. What there was inside the concentration camps I do not know. In 1935 there were only Germans in there; and I was very much surprised to learn after the collapse of Germany that there were also foreigners in the concentration camps. I did not know that. I am quite convinced that none of my collaborators knew about those things in the concentration camps. We had been told at the time that in these concentration camps criminals of most various categories were being detained; but what I saw in 1935 were habitual criminals. I thought it a very good idea that these people be not allowed to walk around freely. When we were there these people had to tell us their sentences; and there were several barracks around which were crowded with people, and there the average criminal record was twenty to thirty times, rape of small children. Therefore, I, being a father believe that it was best for these people to be locked up.
However, I know that there were also political people there; and I saw them too. There my opinion differed. But I was told that those people were there only on temporary basis and would only be kept in there for a longer period if they actually committed active sabotage against the state. At Dachau most of the political people who were being detained there as prisoners in 1935 were members of the SA, on account of the Roehm-Putsch in 1934, and that was the basis and reason for their being there.
I should like to add that I asked to be allowed to visit that concentration camp at the time, together with other officers of my arm, in other words, of the Luftwaffe, because during my meetings and conversations with foreigners, I repeatedly heard the statement, particularly from British, "We understand your Hitler's system very well. There was no other way for you to go. However, we do not understand your concentration camps." That is why I decided to get some sort of a picture for myself by seeing the camp. It took a little while; but finally I get the permission to visit the concentration camp. That at the time was my only contact with the question.
Q What was your impression of the camp? Was it clean?
A In 1935, well, yes, at that time it locked very well. There were good barracks, absolutely waterproof, wooden floors, with two cost, one above the other, like the soldiers. Our old barracks always had the same system one above the other; and I was the only one to get that principle in the Luftwaffe, so that there was quite a revolution amongst the soldiers in the army. I witnessesed one of their meals. There was a good portion of food, meat, vegetable, potatoes, first soup. The people were thus well fed. Of course, they had to work. The work they did was not an easy task. Cleanness was noticeable. The beds had checked sheets. The entertainment of the people was taken care of. There was recreation. They had special, rooms where they could hold speeches. They had facilities for writing and reading. There was an excellent library there which even according to its size and contents was very interesting. I looked through the index one time. The man in charge of the library was a Gruppenfuehrer of the SA and also a concentration camp inmate.
I saw the bakery, saw the butcher shop.
1841-A At that time I am sure that there were no cruelties and no inhumane equipment of any kind.
Of course, I could not speak to these same individuals and ask them how they liked it in here, we were only allowed to stop these people; but the person was allowed only to say what his sentence was.
Q. Did you see what kind of work these inmates had to carry out?
A That was very hard. They worked on their own equipment, I believe, not only for the camp but for all sorts of purposes and for the SS. In other words, they made furniture for themselves and for the Waffen-SS--far instance, cupboards, chairs, stools, tables. They also had a locksmith shop there. As far as I know they did work outside the camp as well.
I believe therewere special commands for cutting down trees; there were special commands for splitting stones. However, I cannot go into detail because I carried out this visit one day -- it was in the afternoon after I had an inspection of the troops in Munich, which inspection I got through with about 9:30 in the morning, and at four o'clock in the afternoon I had another inspection to carry out, of the Luftwaffe, and in the meantime I saw the camp. I myself ate or tasted the food which the German inmates had, and I thought it was very tasty, good and sufficient.
Q. Witness, at a time following that, did you ever hear, even if there were rumors, that inhumane acts were being committed in the concentration camps?
A. I cannot remember that anything had been mentioned in that had anything to do with the truth or that seemed like the truth. I can confirm the fact that there were quite a few rumors during the war. However, all our efforts to find where these rumors originated were not succesful. We were not able to find out anything at all, I had very few connections with the SS itself.
Q. I shall come back to the SS later on. Now, witness, however, as witness said, you yourself saw to it that persons in concentrations camps be freed, or would not be sent to the concentration camp. Can one not draw the conclusion from that that you were of the opinion that it was not very good in the concentration camps; that bad things were happening there, because if somebody did something wrong, then he is to be protected to be put in jail?
A. At the beginning I was of the opinion, or I was quite convinced that these concentration camps were just a temporary measure in appearance. I know from the press that they had done the same thing in Italy with the Mussolini regime, and that then, after a few years, these institutions had been dissolved -- at least that's what I heard at the time -- and, as many things were being imitated here in Germany which Mussolini's Italy had done, I saw in that concentration camp nothing but such an imitation.
That certain abuses would occur there, I could understand, and I knew, because, after all, the National 1843a Socialist movement itself, in its early beginnings, was a revolutionary group, and even if they weren't so, at least that's what people said about the organization.
I considered it to be like certain children's diseases. However, if I ever heard, if anything was brought to my own personal attention, then I thought it my humane duty to help. That the parents of somebody who is sent to a concentration camp or something, are always convinced of his innocence can be understood and every one of us knows how they feel today. However, certain other reasons prevailed at the time, wherever the family wrote: that is probably the case with one of the cases which was submitted here as an affidavit, the main reason was not that the man was a Social Democrat Leader. No; he was blamed for other things. And that had to be cleared up. That is why my help took a little bit longer here, and I believe that the man had been rehabilitated. The blames which they made to him, and which came from those two denouncers whom we had at the time had to be refused by bringing counter evidence.
Q. That's enough, witness. Now such people were taken out of the camp by you. Then I'm sure that they came to see you and thanked you for it?
A. No; they didn't do that and I did not pay too much attention to that. I told their parents and their relatives to restrain them from doing that. Maybe they wrote a letter though, sometime, but i did not do it in order to get their thanks and appreciation.
Q. Witness, didn't you over speak to anybody who had been released from a concentration camp and who then would have given you more details about the concentration camp?
A. I never spoke with anybody who had been released from a concentration camp -- at least, not that I know of.
I never spoke with anybody about his experience in a concentration camp. However, during my captivity, I learned through other prisoners and that no one else was ever supposed to have heard suck a thing either, because these people were not only prohibited from speaking, but they were also so scared that they followed that order to every letter.
1844a
Q. That's enough on this subject, witness. Now I shall come to three further decrees issued by Sauckel, namely, Document NO.3044-PS, Exhibit A on page 50A, Your Honors, Document No. 2241-PS, Exhibit No. 15, page 64, and Document No. 3044-PS which is Exhibit No. 15-A. These are orders issued by Sauckel of the 7th of May 1942, 20th of July 1942, 22nd of August 1942, and all of them deal with how foreign labor could be recruited, transported, fed and quartered. Do you know these decrees and orders, and directives issued by Sauckel: Were they ever known to you? Were they ever brought to your attention, or does the same thing apply to these, what I said about Document 016-PS, Exhibit No. 13, does your statement apply to these too?
A. All three of them were not known to me before these trials. The same thing that I said before applies. We had nothing to do with that question.
Q. Witness, Document No. 654-PS, Exhibit No. 16 on page 67, Your Honors, these are notes notes by Theirach, concerning a conference or discussion with Himmler of the 18th of September 1942, in his field headquarters, concerning the turning over Jews to Himmler for extermination through work, Do you know anything at all about this conference in which also officials of the Justice Minister were present? Did you learn anything about it, and particularly, did../... you know anything about its results?
A Not up to these trials, and the question of the extermination through labor or work, also for the first time in this trial. However, concerning the question of the extermination of Jews in captivity, I know.
Q Witness, what do you know generally speaking about the treatment of the Jews in Hitler's Germany?
A I know that in 1937 or in 1958, the Nurnberg Laws were issued. I know that prior to that, constant propaganda was being carried out that the Jews could only be used according to the percentage of their number in certain fields of tasks. For instance, it was said that in some city, there was one percent of Jews; however, 80 percent of them were doctors or something like that. It was said that this would have to be brought down to a smaller basis and that time would take care of that. That is all I know at the time. However, the difference became more and more effective with the time, and some time passed by, it had been repeatedly mentioned, namely, when the Nurnberg Laws were published, or when the German diplomat was murdered, a largo program of Jewish business and Jewish synagogues took place. I did not know about that at the time. In 1939, I believe, during the war, when I was stationed at Koenigsberg with my old garrison, I noticed that the place where the synagogue was standing was empty. I asked my guide, who happened to be an officer from Koenigsberg, if he had any idea what kind of a square this was. He answered that he had only been there for a short time himself; however, the synagogue was there, and one of these years, I don't know -- until it was 1937 or 1938, it had been burnt down and that was all he had learned.
There, for the first time, I saw this question of degradation to a church.
Q. What else did you learn during the war was to happen to the Jews. Did you learn that they were to be brought to the cast?
A. Yes; but only through rumors, because neither from radios nor from the papers nor any other official agency would one learn about the facts.
1846a What struck me, however, was -- and I don't know exactly when that was that the Jews were wearing a yellow star on their suit.
The star was about that big (indicating). It was very conspicuous. I saw that while I was driving from my office to my home, or from my home to my office, but I could see that. During the war, however, it struck me that very few of those stars could be seen in Berlin. I kept inquiring about that matter, but I never received an accurate answer, until one day somebody told me -- I don' t remember who -- that the Jews were being sent to special Jewish cities and resettled there. They wanted to give them state of their own, or a city of their own, if you want to call it that, a homestead of their own. As most of the Jews lived in the region of Galicia, I heard that these little homesteads of theirs would be set up there. However, the whole thing was not clear. The man who told me about that knew nothing more about it than what he had heard through rumors.
Q Witness, did you know that large numbers of Jews were being sent to concentration camps?
A No.
Q Did you know that they were being gassed in the concentration a camps and murdered in an inhumane manner?
A No.
Q Did you know what the name "Auschwitz" meant?
A No, not in connection with the concentration camp or inhumane acts.
Q However, there was quite an important factory there?
A Yes; that is how I know the name.
Q Have you ever visited that factory?
A No.
Q What was your opinion concerning the face question?
A Until the end of the first war, or until about the middle of the first war, I did not know the Jewish problem or the Jewish question. During the war, however, the Jews were being reproached for avoiding the draft, for the fact that they had made a lot of money as war profiteers or racketeers.
During the whole war I was at the front and never at home, with the exception of a few days' leave or furlough, and I was not able to observe that with my own eyes.
From that time on, until the end of the war, we had one family where my sister and the daughter of a Jewish family were known to each other; in other words, they were friends. Those were the only Jews I ever saw in my own family and they were very nice and sympathetic people.
After the first war, however, there was a large immigration of Jews from the Eastern parts of Europe into Germany. I know from those Jewish people that I knew--that is, those that I know--that they were absolutely against that immigration of the Eastern Jews; and they even made a statement to the effect that this was not their own race.
Later on, in the continuation of my work in civilian aviation, I very seldom met Jews.
For example, the Poles, with whom I made all these agreements at times concerning the commercial air line and the sale of Junker planes--coming back to that, the first man of that company was Jewish. I had very good connections with him, and I got along fine with him; I thought he was a very good man. When I was in Warsaw I stayed with him; there were difficulties with billeting at the time.
Then, in the Lufthansa, I used, as my technical secretary, a pilot who also was Jewish; he has been mentioned here before. His name was Erich Schatzki, and I believe that at the Lufthansa I helped him to keep his position as well as to build up his position, which he deserved according to his work, because he was a hard working man and an honest man. It was my duty to help him during the war when, during the occupation of Holland he wanted to go to the States, which I could understand very well, and I tried my best to help him.
Q Is it correct that colleagues of that Mr. Schatzki in the Lufthansa had approached you and asked you to have him fired when they were so excited that he, as a Jew, had such an important position? What did you tell these people upon that?
A The higher technical chief who was between myself and Schatzki did not like him. That was, technically speaking, my deputy. I did not comply with these wishes, but I was absolutely against them, and as there were other points which I did not like about this gentleman, I went to see the Control Council and saw that he was fired. Schatzki, together with somebody else, took his place, or his job. However, after 1933, Schatzki -- he was an honorable man and he did not want to stay in Germany as a man of second-class because he was a Jew. I told him I could understand that very well, and we helped him to receive a job with Focker, first with Kurzhofen, and then with Focker.
Q Witness, did you believe in the Master Race theory, or were you against it?
A I have been abroad very often, and I know three continents. From that reasoning, it can be understood that I did not believe in the Master Race theory. I saw in that nothing but a reflection of the people's own inferiority complex. Whoever knows the Englishmen and the Frenchmen, or the Russians, will never be able to speak of an inferiority complex within those races.
Apart from that, I think it absolutely crazy that some one who believes in such a theory should mention it or speak about it. I don't believe that anybody would say he is more handsome than anybody else, even if he himself is absolutely convinced of that.
Q Thank yon, that is enough.
Witness, document 017-PS, Exhibit No. 18--this is a letter of the 5th of October 1942, of Sauckel's, to the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, namely, Rosenberg, concerning the mobilization of foreign laborers. That is a letter he wrote. Do you know anything at all about this letter?
A Not until up to these trials.
Q Witness, what, generally speaking, do your know about the recruitment in the East? At that time did you go to the East, and could you make your own observations at the time?
Q I only arrived at the air fields near the front, where I inspected troops, and then I drove in my car through known countrysides to Hitler's and Goering's headquarters. These were headquarters which were in wooded areas, in the woods north of Winniza. I landed either in Winniza or Kalinowka; the airfield of Winniza was in the North. In other words, I did not drive through the town itself. That place, had no air field, had no houses whatsoever.
Q In other words, you could not make any observations whatsoever?
A No. I couldn't make any observations.
Q You couldn't know that, I see. Thank you.
Document 054-PS, Exhibit no. 19, is a report of Rosenberg's-- on page 85, Your Honors-- concerning the bad situation which had been caused by the Sauckel action, the report of the 7th of October 1942. Has this report been brought to your attention?
A Not up to this trial.
Q Did you ever hear any rumors about that, or any other statements that Sauckel, when recruiting these Eastern workers, had taken considerably wrong measures and that bad situations had occurred or arisen namely , that these people were taken together like cattle, so that one could speak of theft or robbery of human beings?
A No, not up to this trial. On the contrary, if I ever heard anything about that question, or if I read it in the newspapers, then it was described in the most beautiful colors you can imagine.
Q Witness, you also visited factories, didn't you, and you saw Eastern male or female workers there, didn't you?
A Yes.
What was your opinion about these people? Didn't they complain to you of anything?
A I regarded it as absolutely natural that whenever I visited a factory it was natural for me to talk to these workers, even if, in my official capacity, I had nothing to do with that question. However, as a soldier I was accustomed to act in that way. On that occasion I asked them how they were, how the food was; I looked at the people and I saw how well they were clad and what kind of an impression they gave us, generally speaking, if they looked healthy, if they looked satisfied or not. I saw Russians, namely Russian prisoners of war. Then I saw Russian female civilian workers, namely, Ukraines. I saw Frenchmen, namely, French civilian workers. There could have been prisoners of war amongst them, but they were wearing protective overalls over their clothes. There could have been workers from Slovakia, who considered themselves our allies, but they were very, very few. Then there were quite a few Italian workers there, those who had come on a voluntary basis at the time; those so-called "Emis" I did not see.
Q Did Eastern workers, male or female, ever complain to you concerning their work?
A No, they did not. On the contrary, the general im pression of these female Ukrainians who worked on the Junker 52's was a very pleasing one.
The girls were singing; they were well fed; they were well dressed; and they answered my questions in a nice, cheerful way. I spent about 20 minutes with these girls. There were quite a few pretty ones amongst them, and towards the end they flirted with me, and the girls were laughing all the time.
THE PRESIDENT: The Court had better recess, this is getting to the danger point.
(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)
AFTERNOON SESSION
THE MARSHAL: Tribunal No. 2 is again in session BY DR. BERGOLD: Witness, I now turn to Document 294 PS, Exhibit 19A. It is a document dated 25 October 1942, and it is a top secret matter in the shape of a memorandum from a Mr. Braeutigam dealing with the situation in Russia. The back of it deals with the situation regarding prisoners of war, some of it with the treatment of Ukranians. Had you previous knowledge of this matter?
A. No.
Q. I now come to Document L6I, Exhibit No. 20. It is an express letter from Sauckel dated 26 November 1942 addressed to the Presidents of the Landes Employment Office. It deals with the employment of Jews and their exchange for Poles. Do you know or did you know at the time of this document and its contents?
A. No.
Q. Document 1063 PS D Exhibit 21, an order from a certain Mr. Mueller from the RSHA relating to detainees capable of work who were to be sent to concentration camps. Do you or did you know anything about this at the time?
A. No.
Q. Exhibit 22, Document 018 PS, which is a letter of complaint from Rosenberg to Sauckel dated 21 December 1942. It relates to labor in the East, and Rosenberg is complaining about wrong measures which Sauckel adopted. Did you ever get this letter, or did it ever come to your knowledge?
A. No.
Q. Then of coarse you couldn't know anything about the story told about this Document 3003 PS, Exhibit No. 24, a report from a certain Lt. Haupt regarding the war economic situation in Holland. Did you know anything about that at the time?
A. No.