That agency is the superior agency of the Reverend Tusch, the highest ecclesiastical authority in that region, above which there is only His Holiness, the Pope. I shall read what I have started on before, on page 26, the last paragraph.
"The result of the contract was considered satisfactory by the late Archbishop Dr. Caspar Klein and the office of the Vicar-General. The execution of the plan would not have meant any harm to the parish of Wewelsburg from an economic point of view, even if for different reasons they would have rather kept their old place of worship."
Then I am offering, as Exhibit No. 10, Document No. 10. This is an original copy of the letter from the Construction Office of the SS School House Wewelsburg on 20 July, 1939. This is a letter by Herr Bartels. As could be seen from Wolff's affidavit and testimony, Bartels was the man in charge of the construction project in Wewelsburg which functioned under the Wewelsburg office of which Taubert was in charge. From this original copy, it becomes clear that Bartels had far-reaching authority to carry out the construction measures there, that he even interfered in such matters which actually were the duties of Klein, the purchase of land. This is all the reference which I shall make to this, and the court will no doubt read it later.
I shall then offer Exhibit Klein No. 11, which is Document No, 11, an affidavit by a Kurt Kraemer of 28 June, 1947. I shall not read it, but I shall come back to it later when the defendant is on the stand.
I shall then offer, as Exhibit Klein No. 12, Document No. 12, which is a letter from Albert Radkowski of 29 June, 1947, and I shall come back to this letter also later on.
Then, one of my most important documents will be Exhibit No. 13, Document No. 13, an affidavit by Heinrich Schwarz. If your Honors please, I should like to say this about the document. There is a reference here to a document which has been submitted in Document Book 17 of the Prosecution, as Exhibit 456, Document No. 2169.
This is an affidavit of the same Heinrich Schwarz from whom I had obtained this affidavit which he gave in Dachau. And he, to a very large extent, takes back what he said in his affidavit and, as far as the defendant Klein is concerned, takes it back altogether. As it is such an important document, I shall read it in its entirety. I shall start with paragraph 1:
"1. I signed the affidavit of 24 February, 1947. For its clarification I supplement it with the statement of today."
"2. During my whole life, I was in Wewelsburg only for a fortnight, between 14 and 28 July 1942. Because of illness I was confined to bed in the infirmary of the camp during this two-week period. My transfer was ordered before I had fully recovered."
"3. All this time I was never in the prisoner camp proper. All my knowledge of the camp is derived from the tales of comrades and not from my own observations. I learned at Wewelsburg that there was a certain Klein. I do not recall what rank this Klein had in the SS. I was informed that he was staying at the castle and had something to do with the construction of the Wewelsburg. I even had the impression that Klein was not well-liked by my comrades, the men of the guard, but I cannot state the reason."
"4. I do not remember having seen Klein personally at Wewelsburg. When I was questioned for the first time, I was shown photographs. I believed to be able to recognize the picture of a man known to me in one of the photos. Then I was told that this was Obersturmbannfuehrer Klein; thus I got knowledge of his rank. I cannot say any more today where I may have seen him before."
"5. In order to comply with the truth, I have to correct my statements of 24 February, 1947, that Klein was the superior of Hauptsturmfuehrer Haas and department chief of the Wewelsburg enterprise, and that he was permanently on the castle by stating that these declarations were only assumptions on my part. Today I can only say that I learned in Wewelsburg about prisoners having been assigned to the quarry command.
This information was imparted to me by comrades. I do not know who gave the orders. In particular, I did not hear that these orders were given by Klein. When I stated further that I have seen that Klein could inform himself of the conditions personally, this equally was an assumption of mine. Finally, when I stated that Klein had prisoners liquidated this was only a conclusion too. I have not heard anything about it."
"6. At my first interrogation, I explained to the interrogator almost at every second sentence that all that was only an assumption, as I had done no active service. When I gave my signature, I did so in the belief that it could be clearly seen, that my statements were based on assumptions."
JUDGE PHILLIPS: Just a minute, DR. Bergold. Mr. Higgins, who was the interrogator that took the interrogation of this witness on the 24th day of February 1947?
MR. HIGGINS: Your Honor, the interrogator in this instance was Mr. Ortmann.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: Where is he?
MR. HIGGINS: He is, at present, in Room 398.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: I think that the Tribunal should have some of these interrogators up on the stand in this court and let us know what took place. Practically every affidavit, practically every interrogation that has any merit in it or any particular evidence in it is repudiated by these assignees by a later affidavit and I want to hear from them what took place at the interrogations, because there has been entirely too much repudiation. If it is the truth, I want to know it. If it is not the truth, I want to know it. In order words, we want to know that the truth is.
MR. HIGGINS. In this particular affidavit the signature of Mr. Ortmann appears. I don't know whether conducted the interrogation or whether he was solely responsible for deqwing up the affidavit. However, during the recess, I will check on it to ascertain just what conditions are and, if Your Honor wishes, we will produce the man and see what the matter is and get the truth.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: Yes, I want to get the truth. The affidavit sets out facts and then they come to a repudiation and say "I never swore to that as a fact, I swore to that as a conclusion and an assumption of that, and we want to know what the witness said and whether or not the affidavit that the Prosecution has offered is the truth or is not the truth.
DR. BERGOLD: (Attorney for the Defendant): If Your Honor Please, I believe this was not taken down by Mr. Ortmann. It says here at the end of my document that it was confirmed by a man called Lorry Wolf. If the Tribunal please, I might add, the interrogation which I carried out in Dachau was made in the presence of an American interrogation officer.
I was never alone with the witness Schwarz for one moment and in the presence of the American interrogating officer. I always told him emphatically that I did not care for him re repudiate the document. If my client had done something wrong, I wanted him to be punished. I wanted him to tell me the truth and nothing but the truth and my secretary can confirm this. I told him that several times in the presence of the American interrogating officer. He was completely free and all he had to do was to tell the truth. There was no point in making wrong statements.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: We are not casting any aspersions on your Dr. Berghold and we are not insinuating that you had anything to do with the witness changing his testimony. We just want to know why the witness first made one statement and then made another, and then we want to know whether the first one was the truth or the second.
MR. HIGGINS: I got it. I thought it was Mr. Ortmann and now I remember Mr. Wolf went to Dachau and he conducted the interrogation and then wrote the affidavit. He is present here now and I am sure we can have him here concerning the interrogations.
DR. BERGOLD: If Your Honors please, I would like to draw your attention retrospectively to the document somewhile back. Exhibits 11 and 12, from which it becomes clear -- that is why I didn't have reference to it right away that in Wewelsburg, in the concentration camp Wewelsburg, there were two guards who were also called "Klein." They were Czecks. One of them was an Unterscharfuehrer in the SS. If the witness Schwarz, therefore, during this fortnight in Wewelsburg heard the name "Klein" in a hospital, nobody knows whether this man meant the present defendant or because he heard it from the guards, who were merely talking about their comrade Klein, in the concentration camp, the SS-Unterscharfuehrer. I believe the whole trouble comes from the fact that an efficient interrogating officer, as soon as he hears the name of a defendant, believe that he is the defendant, but the name "Klein" is a common in Germany, as the name "Smith" is in the United States.
THE PRESIDENT: Wir haben zu viele Klein.
DR. GERGOLD: Then I shall offer Exhibit Klein No.14, Document No. 14, as affidavit by Frau Klein, the defendant's wife, and she has reference particularly to the period of to, when it was not safe for the defendant to be in Wewelsburg between January, 1942 and June and July 1942. It was during that period of time when they had just been married and spent their honeymoon and you may rest assured that a young wife knows very well the first week of her married life. This affidavit by Schwarz which I have attached is concerned with July, 1942. This affidavit by Frau Liein provides that Klein in that period of time was not in Wewelsburg at all.
Then I shall offer Exhibit No.15, which is Document No.15, and affidavit by Ernst Ruff. He is an inmate who worked on the Berghaus of Sudelfeld. This establishment also used material from the association. A document has been submitted in connection with the experiments according to which the notorious doctors wanted to carry out their freezing experiments. The court will surely remember the cold and freezing experiments from the Milch case and brief reference was made to the fact that in Sudelfeld experiments of that type were carried out. Ruff's affidavit repudiates that and he says no freezing experiments were carried out up there.
And then I shall offer Exhibit 16, Document No.16, an affidavit of Gerhard Maurer.
THE PRESIDENT: Wait a minute. What is the name you mentioned Sudelfeld?
DR. BERGOLD: Sudelfeld, yes. Ther berghaus of Sudelfeld. It is near Bayerisch-Zell. It is the same thing. One it is call BayerischZell and on another accation it is called Sudelfeld.
THE PRESIDENT: That was the health resort, was it not, the bath?
DR. BERGOLD: Yes, it was a recreational center, Sudelfeld near Bayerisch-Zell. It is in the Bavarian mountains.
THE PRESIDENT: How far from Dachau?
DR. BERGOLD: Oh, well from Dachau, it's at least 100 kilometers. Dachau is relatively near the Bavarian mountains, because it is so close to Minich. Dachau is not very far from the Bavarian mountains.
THE PRESIDENT: What is the document which states that at Bayerisch Zell there were experiments being carried out?
DR. BERGOLD: It is in Document Book VII on pages 46 and 102 in the German text. Unfortunately, I have forgotten that particular document book, and I shall have it brought here and we will give the court some particulars. Perhaps we can continue, if Your Honor please. My secretary will bring the book up in a minute and then I can give you the particulars.
I shall then offer as Exhibit 16, Document No.16, an affidavit by Gerhard Maurer. I have to correct another mistake, I am afraid. In the last but one paragraph, the last sentence should read, "This applies also to W-VIII," and not "D-VIII." It is on the bottom of page 38, if Your Honors please, the same applies to "Department D-VIII". but it should read. W-VIII." Maurer, who was in charge of D-II confirmed that Klein never approached him in order to obtain inmates. The company which he directed had nothing to do with the request for inmate labor. Then I shall offer as Exhibit No.17, Document No. 17, an affidavit by Frau Olly Oldanch. I shall read the last paragraph on page 40 of this document.
"The son of my sister, Frau Betty Klein, nee Post, was often at my apartment in Berlin during the years of the Hitler regime and I discussed with him in detail the daily events of that time. I talked with him too after the plundering of Jewish shops on 8/9 November 1938. He told me that the SS-office for which he weeked had not been involved in excesses just as severely as I did myself." The court will no doubt read the remainder.
Then I shall offer as Exhibit 18, Document No. 18 an affidavit by Fraulein Sofie Wolff. Fraulein Wolff was the secretary of the defendant's father. She says roughly the same as the witness we heard yesterday ab out the attitude taken by the circle around Klein's father, and in particular she also testifies to the events which took place after Frau Von Ruppert had been arrested and describes the defendant's efforts to secure her release.
I do not believe it is necessary for me to read this affidavit. Her testimony also shows, and perhaps I should read that one particular part that both Klen's father and Klein himself did not know the details about concentration. I shall therefore read from page 48 the long paragraph:
"Horst KLEIN affuaged the great anxiousness of his parents about the life of their daughter in the concentration camp, in a convincing way by such remarks as that he was grateful to the fate that his sister by being sentenced imprisonment in a concentration camp, had escaped the People's Court, although this period now would be a time of hard labor for her. But due to the circumstance the concentration camps were properly managed and - in comparison to a confinement in city prison she was now sheltered somewhat against air-raids, he was full of hope that according to human judgement his sister would get over the time of detention in the concentration camp, this also in view of the fact that the war would undoubtedly be ever soon. He said that he had tried to get more detailed information about the conditions in concentration camps and had been fortunate to learn that the inmates were getting enough food, medical care if necessary, and that they were assigned to different groups according to their professional training, or that they were being re-trained. From the results of his investigations he must conclude that his sister due to her profession of a commercial artist would be employed with office work or designing, as had also been told to his father and to him in the Reich Main Security Office the RSHA in Berlin.
To my later question from man to man whether it has to be feared that his sister might have to suffer ill-treatment which as it was whispered, was common in concentration camps, Horst KLEIN replied that he thought that these things are only rumours and that he did not believe that"
DR. BERGOLD(Attorney for Defendant Klein): That should suffice. Then I shall submit as Klein Exhibit No. 19, an affidavit by Frau Eva Stahl. Here we have a few more mistakes once again. On page 52, I am talking about a paragraph which begins after page of the original. "On several occasions Klein has used mis influence with the Secret State Police on my behalf." The term "used his influence" is not correct. It means something else in German, and if you look at page 53, at the first sentence of the second paragraph, "In my opinion it was extremely dangerous for Klein to intercede in my favor," there the German word "Winsetzen" is translated correctly by "To intercede in my favor." I should like to ask that on page 52 it should read the same; "to intercede" does not mean "use his influence." It simply means, "he did something for me," so on page 52, I suggest it should also read,"Klein has interceded in my favor." This witness is a Jewess and Klein has saved her on several occasions from the Gestapo for the reason that under the Third Reich she had illegal intercourse with Aryans. She had love affairs with German officers. She therefore make herself liable to punishment, but Klein, himself, will tell us more about this. I don't think I need to go into any details by reading from this document. However, it is also interesting to note from this affidavit that later on it can also be confirmed that my client did not only intercede for her, although she was Jewish, but he did the same for a German girl who had a love affair with a Chinese and this might also come under the heading of "Racial Pollution." She was arrested by the Gestapo, but he helped this girl also. He will explain himself later, how he saved her from the clutches of the Gestapo.
Then Exhibit 20 will be Document 20, an affidavit by Dr. Klaus Boeltzig. This man was an officer in the Luftwaffe and he had connections with the Witness Stahl and because he had a love affair with a Jewess he had been before a court-martial, and he also confirms that it was only due to Klein's efforts that he was saved from the consequences.
Then, finally, Exhibit 21 will be Document No. 21, an affidavit by Thea Bresser. She is the wife of Dr. Bresser about whom the witness Von Ruppert has told us yesterday, that he belonged to the circle of friends and that he was also sentenced to death by the Gestapo and the People's court for his anti-Nazi attitude. This lady also gives us all the details of how much Klein knew about the deportation of Jews and altogether what he knew in this respect. From page 61, perhaps, from this document, which is given by this lady, both in English and German, I should like to read the last paragraph:
"Assessor Klein apparently had no knowledge at all of the deportation of Jews and the concentration camp excesses. I myself have been present, when my husband asked him about conditions in concentration camps, but Herr Klein was not able to give any information, because, as he said, conditions in concentration camps were unknown to him. I furthermore noticed his ignorance when my husband demanded his help for a Jewish employee of the work, one Max Cohn"--and Frau Von Ruppert has told us about him yesterday-"who in the middle of 1942 was taken to Theresienstadt and about whose fate he tried but unfortunately unsuccessfully to obtain information. Anyhow Mr. Cohn was spared and returned after cessation of hostilities. He is again employed in our works."
That is all the document contained in my document book. Before I continue, I should like to answer the court's question about the document to which the document, Exhibit Klein 16, by Gerhard Maurer has reference. It's in Book VII. It is Document 242, Exhibit 205, an affidavit by Herr Brandt and Exhibit 213, which is Document 1612PS. In the first document the passage concerned is in paragraph 11 in Document 205 and Exhibit 213 the important passage is under para graph 4.
THE PRESIDENT: Both in Book V II?
DR. BERGOLD: Yes, both in Book VII. Both in Book VII.
If your Honors please, I have another three documents which I shall have to submit, which are not contained in my document book, of which translations are not available yet. I would like to give them exhibit numbers, because I assume that in due course they will turn up. I do not need them, except for the Karoli document to which I shall refer later on. With the court's permission I shall offer those three now. I shall submit as Klein Exhibit 22 an affidavit by Pastor Tusch, a second affidavit of the reverent gentleman of 18 July 1947, in which he affirms that in the concentration camp of Wewelsburg there was a man called Otto Klein who was a Czech national. He was a Waffen-SS officer.
Then I shall submit an Exhibit Klein No. 23, Document No. 23, an affidavit by witness Hermann Karoli of 28 July 1947. If Your Honors please, this man Karoli was here on the witness stand once before. At that time I could not put the questions to him, because as far as the report was concerned when Klein left Office W-VIII it was made by the Defendant Baier and I was not informed about this report. I only learned later on that Karoli took part in the auditing and the result of this auditing is contained in Karoli's affidavit. I would like to ask the court to accept the affidavit despite the incorrectness of this procedure.
THE PRESIDENT: What is incorrect about it?
DR. BERGOLD: Actually, I should have asked the questions of the witness when he was on the stand. That would have been regular, wouldn't it?
THE PRESIDENT: But you state you didn't know about it.
DR. BERGOLD: And then my final document will be Exhibit Klein 24, an extract from the "Neue Zeitung" about the possible phase of United States policy.
It is a verbatim report on new directives issued by Lucius D. Clay. I shall submit paragraph "D" under the heading "Federal States and Central Government," because the rule is established under what conditions Germans can be taken into protective custody. I shall come back to this later on in my final plea.
This concludes the presentation of my documents. I shall now ask the court's permission to call Defendant Horst Klein to the witness stand.
Horst Klein, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Please 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.)
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q Witness, when were you born, and who were your parents?
A I was born on 27 February 1910, in Wiedenbrueck, in Westphalia. My parents were Edvin Klein and Berta Klein, nee Post.
Q What was your father's profession?
A My father was a district counsel in the Wiedenbrueck district. From my birth until his death, his work was devoted only to his district, and the phase of his work was that his district, while he was in office, developed from a purely agricultural district to a very healthy, sound, agricultural and industrial district.
Q What attitude did your father take to the events shortly before and after 1933? What attitude did he take toward the Party?
A In 1932 my father saw the rescue from Communism within Germany, near the Ruhr area where the Communist danger which threatened from the Ruhr was very disquieting. The Party was not a dictatorial one at that time; it collaborated with other parties, for instance the German National Party, the conservatives in what was called the Harzburg front. Later on my father got into trouble with the Party on more than one occasion. He clashed with the district leader, the Kreisleiter, and his work was changed by the constant conflict with the Kreisleiter into a veritable hell.
My father did not resign from his office as he wanted to do his duty, and he did not wish anybody who was not trained to taken over his work. I can still recall that in 1939, when he celebrated his thirtieth jubilee in office, he wanted to leave. He had taken over somewhere else. Then the higher president of Westphalia called or us. He was Freiherr von Luening, and in a long conversation he persuaded my father to stay in office.
Q Witness, what schools did you attend, and what education did you receive?
A I went to the secondary school in Wiedenbrueck. After that, I went to High School in Guetersloh. The High School in Guetersloh was a very religious establishment, and I have never left the church myself. In 1928 I graduated in Guetersloh. I wanted to take up my father's career and become an administrative official. I studied law and politics at the universities of Lausanne, Freiburg, and Bonn. In February of 1933 I passed my examination before the District Court in Cologne.
Q When did you first acquaint yourself with political problems?
A Even as a child I came into close contact with political questions because of my father's position.
Q Did your father, in 1933, or before 1933, express his political anxieties to you concerning the political and economic situation of Germany?
A Yes. The way my father looked at the situation was that, as the result of the bad economic position of Germany, and the unemployment, there would grow logical unrest, and that the masses would turn to more extreme solutions.
By the end of 1932 the tension was such that civil war seemed to be imminent. The middle classes were between the millstone of the Communist Party and the NSDAP. The Communists seemed to be the more extreme party.
Q Well, that is what your father told you. Did you have any experience of your own which bore out what your father told you?
A Yes; first of all I had live impressions about the Communist danger from the Ruhr. As far as my father was concerned, between 1918 and 1923 we had special units of the Reichswehr, which were used against the Communist trouble in the Ruhr. In knew from what these soldiers told us, with what enormous cruelties the Communists made these uprisings in the Ruhr. In 1932 it was my impression that these conditions would return. I give you two small examples of what I mean.
Q Yes, but be very brief, please.
A In Bonn a friend of mine, Schomorz, in 1932, when he walked back from the station in the evening and took a taxi home, and took out a five-mark piece to pay the fare, was assaulted by a complete stranger and severely wounded in his face with a knife. The man escaped into darkness without taking hold of the five mark piece. The reason for the assault was, obviously, only class hatred. Another example -- in November of 1932 I visited my sister in Duesseldorf. I had to go back to Wiedenbrueck during the night, which was about 150 kilometers. I wanted to go by way of Wupperthal, Elberfeld, which was the usual route, but my sister told me that I must not under any circumstances go back that way because in the suburbs of Elberfeld cars and motor bikes were always being shot at.
I had to take a different route. Since the unemployed were hanging around all street corners, as soon as I came to the cross roads, stones were hurled at me. The houses were full of slogan posters, and the various insignia of the various parties were all over the streets. The fact that I had a motor bike apparently sufficed for the unemployed, in order to stir up their class hatred.
Q That is enough. Now, how did you regard matters after the Nazis came into power?
A First of all, I was full of hope - and I expected a political appeasement. The personnel chosen was somewhat defective, the ones, I mean, who became political leaders - for instance, with regard to the person of our district leader, I did not share my father's impression. I relied on Hindenburg who, at that time, was the person I worshipped most in Germany, and I believed in Hitler's oath on the Weimar constitution.
Q When did you join the Party?
A On I May 1933. I had no misgivings at first. I believed that we would be safe from Communism. I was requested by the Justice Administration, to which I belonged, but I never held an office or any activity in the Party.
Q What was your opinion about the Party program? Did you read it, or didn't you?
A Of course, I looked at it. It seemed to me in its original form as Utopian. The Party program contained things which made sense, together with other things which didn't. The sentence, "The collective good is above the individual good" - which stresses general socialist principles, is flanked with the sentence about getting rid of the bondage of interest.
All interest was to be demolished, and one wanted to go back to medieval ecclesiastical ideas. That this was Utopian was quite obvious. The decisive element for the policies of the Party did not seem to me to be the Party program, but the propaganda at the time.
Court No. II, Case No. IV.
Equally, as very often not the basic law - but the executive direction, which the masses face in life. These executive directives are expected from people who have recently joined the Party and were experienced in life.
Q. This is all very nice, but did you not know that the program also spoke about the extermination of your Jewish fellow citizens?
A. That, you could not see from the Party program. The Party program contained, according to the propaganda directives issued at the time, only the fact that the Jewish population should be pushed back - but not illegitimately, or in a criminal way. The Jewish population at that time appeared to be in all leading positions in Germany, with the result that the impression arose that the Germans proper were being impaired. I believed that the Party -
THE PRESIDENT: I wonder if the translation was exact when he said - the Jewish population was to be pushed back. Does that mean curbed, or restrained?
WITNESS: May I say something about that. I used the term "pushed back." They should be restrained in their economic interests.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, "pushed back", then, means restrained; and curtailed, curbed, held down?
WITNESS: To keep them down would be too strong an expression.
A. (continuing) I assumed that the Party, with the exercising of this restraint, wanted to appease public conditions. I was not in a position to see that the Party had these enormously evil plans as Hitler carried them out later on. In the Balfour Declaration Zionish had stressed their approbation for an autonomous Jewish state.
Q. Was it your expectation that new formulations would be reached about relations between the Jews and the nations which gave them hospitality?
A. Yes, certainly, on an international basis - basis of international law.
Q. Now, you told us that your father took a negative attitude towards the Party. Could you not, an the basis of what your father told you, if you deliberated, see how dangerous national socialish was?
A. No. First of all, you can answer that only from the situation at that time, and understand it properly. It is easy today to reach such conclusions. You are always clever after the event. At that time I did not think the misgivings of my father were material, and his difficulties I regarded as difficulties for a transitional period which would be eased as time went on. No decent human being could foresee the perverted destruction which Hitler, the insane, later carried on. Nor is it possible today to see a situation which will come to an end twelve years from now.
Q. When did you join the SS, and why?
A. I am not quite sure. However, on the 1st of April, or 1st of May, I joined the SS.
THE PRESIDENT: What year?
A. In 1933 - by request of the authorities, who insisted that one must belong to a formation. I was a passionate motor cyclist, and there was only one motorized unit in Wiedenbrueck, but not SA or anything else - or NSKK. The SS always made the best impression of all these formations.
Q. Well, did you not realize that by joining the SS you joined the most active part of the NSDAP?
A. No, in no sense at all. That wasn't true at the time at all. The SS at that time did not have any political significance. The real leadership was exercised by the Political organization.
At that time, aside from the political organization, the SA was much more important, and the SS was only a sub-form of the SA. The SA had about five or eight million members, whereas the SS was allowed to have only two hundred thousand. The SS had no political infulence; certainly not in my home county.
Q. In order to clear up one point - a question which was asked of your sister. When you joined the motorized SS you joined the Allgemeine-SS?
A. Yes, certainly, and I say so in my affidavit also.
Q. What did you do in the SS - what type of service?
A. In my unit we simply were sportsmen; we made trips through the country, we tested our capacities, and things of that sort. On some occasions we went on service when public ceremonies were held, and so forth.
Q. What type of men did you meet in the SS; what sort of fellows were they?
A. You get an impression of an organization when you look at the men with whom you are on service. What I saw in the SS at the time were all decent boys. They were above reproach. They had to prove that they had no criminal record. They were not gangsters. Also, you did not find the SS at that time what you found in the P.O. at that time; no bosses, nor anything else.
Q. This is very nice of you to mention the word P.O. This is an abbreviation which even most Germans don't know. Please don't use abbreviations but tell us what it is.
A. I apologize to the Court. P.O. is, as I see it, the usual expression for a political organization - P.O.
Q. Witness, now tell me - did you not think that at that time the SS was particularly anti-Jewish? It was to be a unit of anti-Jewish Nordic, blond-haired men. Did that not entail a definite attitude as biased?