Q: Generally you say that the clergy were not put in the concentration camps on account of religious grounds; just simply if they said something against the Government then they were placed in concentration camps?
A: I did not hear that there was a general policy of that sort. I heard only of two or three cases, but I am unable to give you a name. I heard what was generally known.
Q: What camp did you say you visited with Pohl and inspected the camp?
A: Visited with Pohl, you mean?
Q: What concentration camp did you testify that you visited with Pohl and made an inspection there?
A: Stutthof.
Q: Stutthof? And when was that?
A: In May or June, 1943.
Q: What was Pohl's business there that day?
A: Stutthof was to be dissolved, as he told me on the telephone that evening and he wished to see the spot, and he wanted to have conferences there, whether the dissolution could be carried out or whether it couldn't, and that is how I remember it now....
Q: He had authority to say whether or not it should be discontinued as a concentration camp or continued as a concentration camp, is that correct?
A: Whether he had the power of decision, I am sure I do not know. He did not tell me. All he said, "Fanslau, you had better come with me in my airplane and see whether you could use the camp after the discontinuation as a school." That was out of the question. --
Q: I understood you to say just a minute ago that he went there for the purpose to see whether or not to continue the camp on as a concentration camp or to discontinue it. Didn't you just say that?
A: Yes.
Q: Did he inspect the camp while he was there?
A: Yes, as I said before.
Q: He made a thorough inspection of the camp and the inmates while he was there?
A: All I can tell you about is what I witnessed myself.
Q: That is what I am talking about, not what somebody told you. He inspected the camp and the inmates while he was there, did he not?
A: Yes. And I explained everything in detail.
THE WITNESS: That is what I described in detail before.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: That is all.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. ROBBINS:
Q: Witness, did I understand you to say just a few moments ago that the economic enterprises under Amtsgruppe W were not a part of the SS?
A: What I said was I regarded them as economic and private enterprises.
Q: Well, that does not answer the question. They were a part of Amtsgruppe W, weren't they?
A: Yes.
Q: And Amtsgruppe W was a part of the WVHA, wasn't it?
A: Yes.
Q: And the WVHA was a part of the SS, wasn't it?
A: Yes.
Q: Now, you have talked about Sommer's career with his attorney here on the stand in a good deal of detail. You have talked about his promotions and transfers. I just want to get it straight for the record, were you telling about his promotions and transfers and the details of those from your own knowledge, or were you just telling us about how it was generally dealt with?
A: In the case of the promotions I spoke from my own knowledge, because it was there that I met Sommer for the first time when he reported to Pohl. The transfer from the Wehrmacht to the Waffen-SS, and on personnel matters about which I commented, these were expert opinions as compared with my own personnel management and the personnel management with the army.
Q: But you remember the exact date when Sommer was promoted from a lieutenant to a captain?
A: Yes, that was in April, 1944.
Q: But you cannot remember when you were made Chief of Amtsgruppe W, or Amtsgruppe A?
A: Witness, I think the point that you stressed the most emphatically and most repeatedly yesterday was that you were interested only in professional military affairs, and that you never interested yourself whatsoever in political affairs. It is true, isn't it, that you joined the SS in 1931?
A: Yes.
Q: The 1st of July, 1931?
A: Yes.
Q: And you joined the Nazi Party in July, 1931?
A: Yes, I did.
Q: The SS was not a very large organization at that time was it?
A: No.
Q: The main purpose of the organization at that time was the personal protection of Hitler. Did you regard that as a purely military task, to guard Hitler in those days when he was not the head of the state?
A: In the SS I saw a formation or a concentration of men, of young Germans, just as the other parties had also.
Q: Well, excuse me, I just asked you if you regarded the personal guarding of Hitler as a purely military task?
A: No. At that time we had no military tasks. --
Q: And in 1931 when you joined the SS in July, that was before what Pohl and Frank have called here on the stand the seizure of power. That was two years before the seizure of power, wasn't it?
A: Yes, one year and a half before.
Q: And you also said that you joined the SS in 1931 because you were interested in raising the level of the middle class in Germany, and that you saw in the Nazi Party a movement of the people to bigger and better thing Did you regard these as purely nonpolitical objectives?
A: Not as a nonpolitical task, no.
Q: You told us yesterday that you knew about the program of the Nazi Party with regard to Jews, and you also knew that the SS as an organization was committed to racial persecution, did you not?
A: I did not say that, that the SS was engaged in racial persecution.
Q: I didn't say you said it. I ask you if you knew about it.
A: No.
Q: When did you first find out about it?
A: For the first time in wartime --
Q: Yes.
A: But not as regarding persecution, purely as a police measure, in order to protect and preserve the defense of Germany and the war effort, because the state was faced with the danger of sabotage and espionage.
Q: And you regarded the persecution of the Jews as necessary to that end, is that right?
A: I was scarcely intimate with these matters, to scrutinize the various police measures in this respect, but that was my opinion, which I still held in October of 1944. I expressed it very clearly at that time.
Q: Well, I wonder if you happened to see in 1936 a pamphlet that Himmler published for the edification of the SS men, which was under the title of "The SS as an Anti-Bolshevist Fighting Organization". Did you see that pamphlet?
A: Individual propaganda pamphlets, certain things like that, I really can't remember, much as I may try. I never held a political office at any time, nor did I take part in any political training or training courses.
Q: You didn't hear that in 1936 in this pamphlet to the SS Himmler said that the object of the SS was to take care that never again in Germany will the Jewish Bolshevists of the subhumans be gathered. "We will, without pity, act as a merciless sword against the Jews."
You didn't hear about that?
A: I cannot remember it.
Q: Did you attend Himmler's speech in Cracow in April, 1943?
A: No. I said before I saw Himmler for the last time in October of 1938.
Q: You didn't hear anything about his speech on that occasion?
A: I heard about that here, not before.
Q: Did you hear that Himmler had stated publicly that the SS has only one task, and that is to stand firm and carry on the racial struggle without mercy? That was a public statement of Himmler's. You didn't hear about that?
A: No. As I said before I looked upon racial struggle and racial policy with different eyes.
Q: Well, did you ever see the organization book of the Nazi Party?
A: It is possible that I saw it. I certainly did not read it.
Q: You did not know that the organization book of the Nazi Party states that the SS man openly and relentlessly fights against the most dangerous enemies of the state, namely, Jews, Free Masons, Jesuits, and political clergymen?
A: Of these orders that the SS man has to fight publicly I heard nothing. The attitude as such, as far as the enemies of the state were concerned in wartime, and to look after the state, that was generally known and quite correct.
Q: And did you regard the Jews, the Free Masons, the Jesuits, and the political clergymen as enemies of the state?
A: As far as they were active, yes.
Q Did you hear about the time during the war - I think this was before the war - when the SS took the names of the deceased war veterans who were of the Jewish race, they took their names off the War Memorials in Germany?
A I heard that for the first time now.
Q You didn't know about that before?
A No. On the contrary, during my conversations even in the war time I gave an example of the exaggerated racial policy; the example of a friend of mine who had volunteered in the first World War, and had distinguished himself; although he was a Jew, I believe he was given the Gallantry Medal; and that I always expressed it when I criticized exaggerated views -
Q You say -
AAnd I said so quite openly.
Q You say you didn't know anything about these announcements by the Nazi Party in its organization's books and in public statements by leaders of the SS as to the policy of the SS with regard to racial persecution. You knew nothing about that.
A I knew about the general intentions of racial persecution, which I said before, but it has always been the case, even today, that if I compare three parties
Q Just a moment, Well, did you
THE PRESIDENT: Let him finish that answer.
A That if I compared three parties, I wouldn't advocate any party one hundred per cent; it would be like eighty to ninety per cent, or if I have sixty and forty per cent of another party, and the third party less or nothing. There will be many people surely who are members of a party, but nevertheless don't subscribe one hundred per cent to the political views and program of the party.
Q Well, did you know about a newspaper that the SS published?
A Yes.
Q What was the name of it?
A The "Schwarze Korps."
Q Did you read the Schwarze Korps?
AA little bit, but I didn't take it in literally.
Q You know there was an order of the SS which required SS men to read this Schwarze Korps, did you not?
A No, I didn't know that; I did not subscribe to it at any time at all.
Q Did you see in the Schwarze Korps the statement of the official policy of the SS towards the Jews?
AAs I said before, as far as the exaggerated racial views and policy were concerned, I knew about that. Details, on the other hand, were not known to me, particularly not the things which I have learned meanwhile.
Q You didn't ever hear that the Schwarze Korps announced that it was the policy of the SS to eliminate the Jews from Germany? You never heard that?
A Elimination and to limit their activity, their rights, etc., that was known to me.
Q When did you first hear about that?
A Generally speaking in 1931.
Q When you say you heard that it was the policy of the SS that they should be eliminated from Germany, what did you think the policy of the SS was in that regard?
A If I said I discussed the point with Jews and half Jews myself, and Mr. Prosecutor, as the problem is made a personal thing here, I will have to, although I don't like to do it, and I didn't even tell my counsel this before, I must say that not only my sister-in-law who is half Jewess is part of my family, but that before 1933 a cousin of mine, a girl in my own village, married a half Jew called Salomon, and we were friends.
Q What happened to him?
A I don't know. All my relatives are refugees - thirty persons.
Q Did you hear, any time during the war, that people were put in concentration camps? Not because they had committed any crime, but just because they were a member of a particular race?
A Not concentration camps, but I heard of Litzmannstadt and Theresienstadt; they had a Jewish administration there, a Jewish colony up there and their own special district, and in these a so-called Jewish colony was set up, but I did not visit Litzmannstadt or Thersienstadt myself. Not only do I not know the Jewish part, but I don't know the town itself as such; I have never been there. I did not remember these measures in war time as criminal; on the contrary I assumed that they were some sort of personal excesses of Germans who vented their hatred and that thus it would be avoided.
Q And you assumed that it was necessary for them all to be looked up?
A During the war time, yes.
Q And you regarded that as a purely military and non-political objective?
AAs far as I can see from my own point of view, Germans in other countries were interned in war time for reasons of security, and equally I regarded the measure here in Germany.
BY JUDGE MUSMANNO:
Q There is one thing I can't understand. In other countries, where Germans were interned, that country had perhaps declared war against Germany, but had the Jews declared war against Germany?
A No, the Jews as a people did not actually declare war.
Q Or even as individuals, do you know of any family or clan, or tribe, or even individual Jews that stood up and advocated the over-throw of Germany, or fought Germany in any way?
A Sometimes things of that sort were published, but I don't know any details any more.
Q You just stated that you could see nothing wrong about the incarceration of Jews, all the Jews during the war, because in other countries Germans had been interned; and now I call to your attention that in those countries a state of war existed between Germany and that particular nation; but, I do not know of any declaration of war by the Jews.
Then, that isn't a very happy illustration, is it?
A Your Honor, all I can say is how I regarded it as a soldier in war time, and, as I said before, whenever I had purely political conversations - I can not express it myself in the way I would like to draw these suitable conclusions.
Q Yesterday you said something about your father being required to establish a known Jewish origin. Am I mistaken in that recollection?
A I didn't say anything about my father at all.
BY MR. ROBBINS:
Q It is becoming increasingly clear that you mean when you said that you were concerned only with military and non-political objectives, that it is just a difference of opinion as to what political and military objectives consist in. You told us that you believed in part of the Nazi program when you joined the party, but not all of it; that you didn't believe in that part of the program with reference to the Jews, which I believe was point III, or perhaps it was IV.
A If I said I always regarded that as an exaggeration, so did my family and I criticized it - in some cases quite openly. I might mention, perhaps, I don't know whether I shall succeed in getting the affidavits because I declined to do so, so far, that after the program of 9 and 10 November, 1938, about which I had heard from a Jew in the apartment of my sister-in-law, I expressed my criticism quite openly. I hope there will be time for me to obtain that affidavit. As I said before, I have done nothing with respect to this because I did not want to do so.
Q You say you expressed your criticism openly. I wonder if you ever saw the SS Manual "The Soldier's Friend," which was a recruiting manual for the SS. It states in that manual that every SS man must be a pure blooded German and be an adherent to all the National Socialist doctrines, but you have succeeded in concealing your lack of belief in part of the Nazi program; is that right? And the recruiting pamphlet of the SS called
THE PRESIDENT: He didn't answer the question.
A I am sorry; I didn't get part of the translation.
Q I will repeat. I should like to read you just two or three very short quotations from SS official publications and Nazi publications which were introduced before the IMT, and then ask you if in the face of all of these regid requirements of the SS, you were still able to conceal your criticism of the party platform. The SS manual "The Soldier's Friend," states that the SS man must be an ardent adherent to all National Socialist doctrines, and the recruiting pamphlet of the SS entitled the "SS Calls You," states that the SS man will be especially bound to the National Socialist ideology, and the organization book of the Nazi party says that with regard to the SS man that obedience must be unconditional, it corresponds to the conviction that the National Socialist ideology must reign supreme; and another quotation from the organization book of the Nazi Party: "The conceptions of the value of the blood and soil serves as directives for the selection into the SS."
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
Every SS-man must be deeply imbued with the sense of the National Socialist movement."
In spite of the rigid standards of the SS with regard to these policies you were still able to conceal your criticism which you say you expressed openly. Is that right?
A I knew these pamphlets. Nevertheless, I maintain that I did not advocate what I regarded as exagerated measures against the Jewish race; an attitude against the Jewish race existed--and I admit that. I shared that attitude as regards non-Germans, people who had reached Germany later on. I read once more in the papers today that the Jewish people not yet have a home of their own, which surely should happen now, after these problems have existed for several centuries throughout the world. At last, things should settle down by giving the Jewish people, the Jewish race, as a people, a home of their own as it exists for other nations. Then these personal things will no longer apply.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q I cannot refrain. There were a good many million Jews who had homes of their own in the East, and the Germans uprooted them from their homes and forced them to leave their homes and come to Germany--where you did not want them, and where you say they were enemies of the State. Why did you import millions of Jews into Germany, take them away from their homes and bring them here, where you despised them?
A As I said before, I knew nothing about the fact that the Jews were brought to Germany. All I knew was that they were interned in Czechoslovakia and Theresienstadt, and, later on, in several cities in the East, of which I heard in conversations or public announcements, such as Litzmannstadt also. There were other regions in the East as well. I myself went through these only with my division, and, therefore, I do not know of any details in the villages or districts in that part of the country.
Q Well, you do know that the concentration camps in Germany Court No, II, Case No. 4.were filled with Eastern Jews, don't you?
Don't you know that?
A No; what inmates concentration camps had in detail or by percentages, I did not know.
Q Well, you were in favor of limiting the activities of the Jews in Germany, weren't you? I am using your own words.
A Yes, indeed. Limitation of professional activities in accordance with the percentage of population. That was the view I advocated already at the time.
Q Well, were you concerned with limiting the activities of the Jews in Poland and the Ukraine and Russia?
A I know nothing about conditions there. I did not know what happened there.
Q Well, we will determine that later. But I ask you again whether you were concerned with limiting the activities of the Jews outside of Germany.
A I had nothing to do with that myself.
Q Right! It was none of your business, was it?
A No.
Q So that if limiting the activities of the Jews in Poland involved murdering a number of millions of them, that wasn't carrying any German national policy, was it?
A I know all these things today: that it was a policy, and that extermination was carried out. But at that time I did not know, nor did I know that there was a secret oath as it was called, and collective family responsibility. I was never demanded anything of the sort. In '38 I gave a Soldier's Oath and after that I gave no other oath at all.
Q Well, you said that you thought it was all right to lock up enemies of the State to prevent sabotage and espionage, to protect Germany?
A Yes.
Q It was not necessary to imprison enemies of the State in Court No. II, Case No. 4.Poland and Russia and the Ukraine, was it, in order to protect Germany?
A Those were occupied territories--as we are an occupied territory today. Therefore, security had to be provided from a purely military point of view.
Q Oh, don't deceive yourself, sir. The extermination of the Jews took place while the fighting was going on, long before you had established German sovereignty. The extermination of the Jews began immediately the German troops entered these other countries and while resistance was still going on.
A Yes; but that was, for us, occupied territory and, therefore, automatically after the fighting there was the sector of the front and there was a demarcation line. And as a field unit went through this demarcation line the task of the civilian administration would start in the rear territory.
Q Well, your definition of an Enemy of the State is anyone who dared to disagree with National Socialism, isn't that true?
A No; only he who somehow or other makes propaganda, undermining, favoring spies, or other offenses as enemy of the State or the people.
Q Well, don't you know--and it is incredible if you don't-that thousands of people were sent to concentration camps for just the merest casual criticism of National Socialism? Didn't you hear one of them testify from the chair that you are sitting in?
A Yes; I heard that testimony, and I knew it too that whenever, in wartime, there was open criticism or that things were criticized in a derogatory manner in the view of the Government these things, including listening to enemy broadcasts, in passing on of views were things that had to be punished.
Q Mere difference of opinion was sufficient to bring about imprisonment, wasn't it?
A I believe you must draw the line somewhere here.
Q You draw the line!
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
A Yes; in what manner and to what intention these things were done; details, Mr. President, precise details what would be punishable and what would not be: all that I know nothing about. These are purely police affairs.
Q Well, how high do we have to go in the SS organization to find somebody who did know something about these many unspeakable things? How high does the official have to be before he begins to know something about the things that the SS did? You didn't know anything about it. Pohl didn't know anything about it--- How much higher do we have to go to find somebody who did not?
A I beg your pardon, Mr. President. I don't believe that it has anything to do with the rank and position. An NCO in the SS who has orders of that sort might easily know in great detail, whereas a full general, or the highest Gruppenfuehrer, for instance, my commanding officer, Hausser, knew not a thing, and he was the second-highest rank in position in the SS altogether.
Q And I venture to say that if Himmler were sitting in your chair now he would say that he knew nothing about it, that we would have to go beyond him. That is merely conjecture.
BY MR. ROBBINS:
Q Witness, did you ever find out that the SS was not a purely military organization?
A Yes, of course; originally it originated from a political party, and even before the war there was the distinction between the General SS and the Military SS.
Q So it is not--and you were a member of the Allgemeine SS-entirely true that you concerned yourself only with military affairs and with no political affairs?
A I beg your pardon, but I believe I said so on direct examination by my counsel quite clearly that I was a member of the Allgemeine SS until March of 1938; that my tasks was administrative rather than anything else, and I had no political activity to perform.
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
Let us say that I was busy in the local group of the party or any other party agency. Within the party organization in the SS I was an administrative official. I don't think I need mention what sort of service we did in the SS. What we did and what we did in order to make our young men strong and efficient, was just the same as other parties did.
Q And so you became a general in the SS without carrying on any political activity whatever?
A. Yes, I became a General of the Waffen SS not on the basis of my political activity, I believe, but on the basis of the fact that I was the most senior divisional administrative official. I would like to say that when I was promoted to colonel this happened at the suggestion of my divisional commander when I had left the division and it was made known to me that I was to be the administrative officer of the corps.
Q. When you joined the WVHA in 1942, you knew what kind of tasks Amtsgruppe C, which was a part of that organization, carried on, didn't you?
A. Yes, of course, in accordance with the organizational chart which I saw.
Q. And you knew that Amtsgruppe C was engaged in carrying out giant construction programs with the use of slave labor, did you not?
A. I did not know who were used for these tasks.
Q. You didn't know that Amtsgruppe C employed any concentration camp inmates? Did I understand you correctly?
A. After I joined the WVHA, yes.
Q. How long did it take you to find you?
A. That didn't take me very long, four five, or eight weeks.
Q. Four or five days, wasn't it? Where did you think Kammler got all of the laborers for his giant armament programs and his giant construction programs. Did you think they came from the East or did you think that they were free German laborers?
A. I did not know anything of giant construction tasks in February of 1942. I knew nothing about giant construction tasks and I had not been transferred to Amtsgruppe C in order to know all about it. In the first four or five days I was transferred to Office Group A.
Q. I understand. So it took you four or five weeks before you found out that Amtsgruppe C used concentration camp inmates in its construction program?
A. I cannot say whether it was three, four, five, six, or seve weeks.
That would be quite impossible.
Q. It wasn't longer than that, was it?
A. No, I heard about it in three or four weeks, perhaps, or six weeks.
Q. And when you joined the WVHA in February, 1942, you knew what kind of tasks Amtsgruppe W carried out, did you not?
A. Only from the point of view of the organizational chart, because, as I said before, I regarded it as a purely economic -
Q. How long did it take you to find out that Amtsgruppe W operated giant economic industries, stone quarries, with the use of concentration camp inmates?
A. These giant enterprises under its direction, I did not know how big they were actually. I knew there were a great number of them, and that there were a great many enterprises in the East from the organizational chart.
Q. And that they used concentration camp inmates -- when did you learn that? Well, you knew where they were located.
A. No, I did not know the individual locations.
Q. When did you first learn that they used inmates?
A. I knew that inmates were used there, in the economic enterprises.
Q. When you joined the WVHA?
A. That they did work in armament industries and other equipment work-shops in concentration camps, I knew all that in 1938, or 1939, or 1940, in any case, before the War.
Q. When did you first hear that concentration camp inmates were worked to death in these industries under W and under D, did you ever hear that during the War?
A. I heard that in Nurnberg, or by the press before.
Q. And that is the first thing you ever heard about it, isn't it?
A. Of these labor conditions, yes. I never visited a stone quarry or any other enterprises where a large number of inmates worked.
Q. And you never heard during the war or any other time before the end of the war, did you, that these people who were worked by Amtsgruppe C and Amtsgruppe W were undernourished and underclothed?
A. I only heard that here, yes.
Q. When Amtsgruppe D was incorporated into the WVHA a few months after you joined it, you knew what kind of tasks it carried out, didn't you?
A. According to the organizational chart, I knew that they were the Inspectorate of the concentration camps.
Q. You knew that prior to that time it had been the Inspectorate?
A. Yes.
Q. You knew that it was in charge of administering the concentration camps and allocating labor?
A. Allocation of labor, I did not know; I knew they were dealing with the administration of concentration camps, but the procuring of labor, for instance, that they were alleged to have anything to with that, I heard here in this trial.
Q. Who did you think allotted the concentration camp labor. Did that question ever occur to you?
A. I don't know what you mean by "allotting." Do you mean that concentration camp inmates were drawn into the enterprises?
Q. Well, you knew that there was an office under Amtsgruppe D called "Inmate Labor Commitments", didn't you?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you know that shortly after the Inspectorate was incorporated into the WVHA Pohl issued an order saying that the concentration camps thereafter would be run on a new or modified theory and that thereafter labor allocation, utilization of labor, would be the extreme value and that there would be no limit to working hours and the work would be, in the true sense of the word, exhaustive?
A. Of these measures regarding exhaustive labor, I knew quite a bit generally, in that respect; we ourselves had the most severe phase.
We were expected, ourselves, to do this in our offices to such an extent even that we were not really very delighted with these long hours of work.
Q. You said you knew quite a bit about the exhaustive working conditions. Does that apply to the concentration camps?
A. That I took as a matter of course, that concentration camp inmates had to work under the same conditions as other workers and that they were working under especially poor conditions or that orders existed to that effect, I did not know.
Q. You didn't hear that there would be a new theory of concentration camp administration after Pohl took over the Inspectorate and it was incorporated into the organization, of which you were a part?
A. Yes, of course, I said that Office Group D was incorporated and was under Pohl. If a divisional commander received a new anti-aircraft regiment into its unit, for instance, the division does not become an anti-aircraft division altogether. An infantry division remains an infantry division. That was a purely personal incorporation and subordination.
Q. And you knew, did you not, that the people who were in the concentration camps under Amtsgruppe D, the people who were worked by Amtsgruppe C and Amtsgruppe W, were those same people that you have told us about being thrown into concentration camps for merely critizing the Government or because they belonged to a particular race? You knew that, didn't you?
A. After what directives they were sent to the camp, whether they were directives you just mentioned, I do not know. As I said before, I knew that all of those who somehow or other had offended against the rules and regulations of war from a police point of view they had to be put into a safe place. They had to be interned and thereby came into concentration camps. Some of those were sent to concentration camps even by judicial authorities.
Q. You knew that these people who were in the camps under Amtsgruppe D and that they were employed in the industries under Amtsgruppe W and in the construction tasks under Amtsgruppe C?
