A. No, the Jewish question was not discussed in any form in the SS. I should like to refer here to General Wolff's testimony. Although the facial theories were discussed in the SS, these theories were concerned with hereditary questions - that is to say, findings of popular signs of the time were transmitted to us. The point of this was to give these young SS men an idea of the importance of whom to select as your wives; and the intention also prevailed to have decent, strong and healthy men. For that reason, very strict regulations concerning marriage were issued. The idea of the Nordic race served, in my opinion, as I held it at the time, more as a means to an end than as the actual aim itself. As it was, apseudo-science-- it was easier for the general public to follow it, but it had nothing to do with the Jewish question.
DR. BERGOLD: If the Tribunal please, my next question is somewhat long. If you wish me to, I am quite happy to promote the idea of a recess.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, if you will urge us, Dr. Bergold, we will agree. You insist?
THE MARSHALL: The Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.
(A recess was taken)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q.- Witness, did the Roehm Putsch draw your attention to the criminal ways of the regime?
A.- Not at all, let me tell you. About the way in which I witnessed the Roehm Putsch to start with, I have to go back to the previous history. In the spring of 1934 the SA, as I heard from my father, began to participate to a large extent in the political life of my home district. Furthermore, the SA began to engage in hostile activities against the SS in many places. A friend of mine, who was a Government assessor in the Landrat Bielefeld, von Reinhardt was the name, told me - I think it was in May of 1934 - that he, together with young SA men, had been called to Dortmundt to go to see the competent SA-Gruppenfuehrer there. There they had been told that after a brief training course they would have to take an oath toward the competent SA group leader personally. He had been very much struck by that measure. When was it? I believe on the 30th of June. Anyhow, it was a Saturday, in the evening, together with my father I returned from a trip in the evening. At home orders were awaiting me to go to Bielefeld, which was thirty kilometers away, to attend a parade there. I went to Bielefeld and there met about fifty comrades from my sturm. He didn't know what was going on, and we spent the night being in a state of alert. Gradually the news seeped out that an SA Putsch was supposed to have occurred.
Early on Sunday morning 20,000 SA men marched along the streets of Bielefeld. No excesses occurred in Bielefeld, and on Monday I could go back home. But from those events I gained the impression that the SA gad engaged in a Putsch which had been prepared a long time beforehand. I had no reason whatsoever later on to doubt the statements made by the Reich Government.
Q.- Well, but there were those executions, the so-called measures of justice taken by the Fuehrer.
Didn't that seem illegal to you?
A. Of the execution of Roehm and other high SA leaders I did hear at the time, and in view of the situation that seemed to me an emergency measure, and I also took it to have been a unique revolutionary act. That Hitler or Himmler at that occasion would also eliminate human beings who apparently had had nothing to do with that SA revolt, I only heard after the collapse.
Q. How long did you do active duty in the SA?
A. Well, at the beginning of July, at a speed of about ninety kilometers per hour, I went on my motor bike, and I ran my motor bike into a pile of rubble. I was thrown off and across the road for eight meters, and I hit the road with my skull. I hit the read with my skull.
Q. Don't go into quite so many details.
A. All right. The consequences of that accident for many years deprived me of all possibilities to do any duty service.
Q. Witness, I am going on for another year. Now, you have told us that from the party program you could not realize that the NSDAP was working toward the extermination of the Jewish co-citizens, but in the following year, in 1935, the well-known Nuernberg Laws were promulgated. Did you or did you not have to recognize clearly the aims of the party at that time?
A. No, I was of the opinion that the Nuernberg Laws represented a measure taken by the Reichstag, which had been elected by a whole German people, or measures taken by the Reich Government. The Nuernberg Laws had for their purpose the point to avoid that more people of mixed race, bastards, were to be born, and that concerned all other races as well, colored reces, too. According to the Nuernberg Laws marriages between Germans and Japanese too were prohibited. In the case of the Japanese we were concerned with our allies. It was also their intention to prohibit marriages with Hungarians. At a later time a special executive ordinance was issued according to which marriages with Hungarians were permitted.
That racial legislation was not defamatory because the allies certainly were not to be defamed, and one could not from that legislation recognize that the aim was to exterminate another race, because certainly the allies were not to be exterminated. The purpose, after all, was merely to make a distinct line of separation between the races and to avoid having further persons of mixed race born. Furthermore, the SS did not have anything to do with the issuance of those laws. Those were laws issued by the Reich Government, and at that time no member of the cabinet was a member of the SS. The Reich Government had been placed in office by about twenty-five million electors who had elected them. The SS had perhaps a total of 200,000 members at the time.
Q.- Well, but the Nuernberg Laws talked mainly about the Jewish citizens, and the prohibition of not mixing with other races was only a secondary matter. Did you think about that at all? Did you think at all about the fact that first of all the Jews are named in that legislation?
A.- It seemed obvious that when that racial legislation was passed one had dealt first of all with the problems that were closest. The Jewish part of the population was large in Germany, and there were only a few colored people. Consequently the problem which was closest at hand was dealt with first.
Q.- Well, Witness, but surely you must have heard about the activities of Herr Julius Streicher, the Gau-Prince of this City of Nuernberg.
A.- Herr Streicher seemed to the rest of the Reich to be a Nuernberg speciality. His paper was pornographic. Perhaps I may have read it once, but I never touched it again after that.
Q.- Tell us what was your own attitude toward the racial problem?
A.- I considered the racial question as being a mixture of inmature modern scientific ideas and medieval ecclesiastical ideas. The Codex Juris Cannonici too has a prohibition of the marriage between Christians and Jews so the party program evidently was influenced by such medieval ecclesiastical ideas, or anyway Mr. Dieler, the author of the party program, was influenced by them.
I have already proved, when I spoke of the breaking up of servitude, I myself considered these racial ideas as being more or less nonsense, and I repudiated them.
Q.- Only by words or by deeds as well?
A.- No, whenever I had the opportunity by deeds as well.
Q.- Can you name such deeds by which you took the part of, as we now call it, the racially-persecuted people?
A.- I think it was in the spring of 1934 - correction, 1939, when I made the acquaintance of Fraulein Scheinmann, I soon heard from her that her mother had been a Russian Jewess, that is to say she had been a Russian. She herself was an illegitimate child, and under the Nuernberg Laws she was a full Jew. She had been engaged to an officer, but nothing had come of the marriage because of the prohibition under the Nuernberg Laws. She had a son born from that affair with that officer.
Q.- What sort of difficulties did she have to encounter?
A.- She told me that the Juvenile Office intended to take the child away from her. Over the course of many years and four many hours, I argued with the inspector of the Juvenile Office to persuade him to leave the child with its mother. I only managed to persuade him by making myself responsible for the education of the child.
Q.- Did that success have anything to do with the fact that as an SS man you had a powerful influence over that inspector?
A.- The inspector all the time simply called me Herr Assessor. My SS rank he didn't care about at all. I could only get at him at all from the human angle.
Q.- What other difficulties did Fraulein Scheinmann encounter apart from the difficulty -- According to the testimony by your sister she must have had more and greater difficulties.
A.- She was having difficulties all the time. At one time these difficulties were made to her by the political leaders, the Block-Walter. Sometimes her superiors made these difficulties. She was a technical assistant, and sometimes she worked as a nurse in army hospitals. Sometimes it was her colleagues who made these difficulties. Then it was the NSV who made difficulties for her. In brief, there were many of her fellow citizens who made difficulties for her.
Q.- That is enough. But there must have been one very big difficulty something to do with the Gestapo?
A.- Yes.
Q.- What was that about?
A.- The Gestapo arrested her, because together with an air-force physician - because she was engaged to an air-force physician and was living with him. There was a definite suspicion of racial violation. I heard that she had been arrested, and I immediately contacted the Gestapo.
Q.- When was that?
A.- That was in 1940.
Q.- And what did you do as an SS-Officer; where you able to give rein to your particular contact with the Gestapo; could you impress them, because after all there were very close connections between the Gestapo and the SS?
A. No, I had no particular contacts. I could only tackle the inspector of the Gestapo from the human angle. To start with I offered him a good cigar and talked to him about general topics. Then slowly to breach the Scheinmann problem. I described to him the difficult fate of that woman. Finally the inspector softened when I told him that Fraulein Scheinmann, in spite of the difficult position she was in, nursed German soldiers in a hospital. After three to four hours I had got him to the point that I could take Fraulein Scheinmann away with me, or rather that she was brought along.
I then asked him concerning the air-force doctor, Dr. Poeltzig, whether and indictment was to be filed for racial violation with the War Military Court. I only left when the inspector had given me a letter to the competent Air Force agency in which he stated that the Gestapo was not interested in having Dr. Poeltzig prosecuted.
Q. And that settled the case, did it?
A. Yes.
Q. But there is somebody else whom apparently you helped. You helped a German who had an affair with a Chinese.
A. Yes, that was in 1941. The former landlady of Fraulein Scheinmann, Frau Grenz, rang me up and said that her daughter for sometime had been under arrest by the Gestapo. Her daughter had an affair with a Chinese who wanted to marry her, but that there were difficulties on account of the Nuernberg Law and she was expecting a baby.
Q. And in what way did you help?
A. After the experiences I had in Scheinmann case, in this case I didn't think I would be successful in an attempt at persuasion. Above all I didn't know that girl Grenz.
Therefore I deceived the official and took him in. To start with gave him all my personal data, and then I told him that from the highest authority I had been given the commission to take an interest in the Grenz case. Then I told my opinion in no uncer 6104a certain terms concerning the nonsensical aspect of this arrest.
I told him he could think the matter over as to what he would do in this case. My deception succeeded. The next morning the girl had returned to her mother.
Q. Well then, in both cases you took the steps, and without in any way utilizing the power of the SS. You only did it as a private individual?
A. Yes, My official rank made no impression on anybody in those days.
Q. Weren't those rather dangerous steps?
A. I had placed myself in contradiction to the Nuernberg Laws, and in the Grenz case the facts of the case were actually that I had set at liberty their prisoner and that I had arrogated an office to myself which wasn't mine.
Q. And why did you do that; why did you expose yourself to such extent for a strangers?
A. Then I started out on my professional career I had planned to do everything within the possible to see to it that right and humanity would assert themselves. For the rest I thought the racial legislation was nonsense, as I said here before.
Q. Very well. I shall discuss your attitude to the Jewish program with you, but I think there is still another question which hasn't been answered. Weren't you bound to recognize that the Hitler regime would eventually make war?
A. No.
Q. Why not?
A. In those days I firmly believed in Hitler's love of peace. Hitler reiterated again and again that he himself had been warblind, and that he definitely wanted to save the German people from the terrors of war. When I did my military service I did not gain the impression that war was actually being prepared. Rearmament, according to the official account in those days, was only designed to restore Germany's ability to enter into alliances as it was called.
That Hitler had peaceful intentions appeared to be evident from his attitude toward Poland. Hitler, for the first time since 1918 - that is to say, his was the first German Government since 1918 which had made and attempt to iron out the existing differences with Poland by entering into a non-agression pact. For the rest I myself had an opportunity to talk to a high Polish officer. He was the Generalarzt, the Physician General of the Polish Army. Stanislaus van Rouppert was his name. He was a distant relative of my brother-in-law, and it was in the summer of 1938 that I talked to him. General von Roupper said to me that he was altogether favorably inclined toward the Third Reich, and that he had the same feeling for the SS, and that he was firmly convinced that relations between Germany and Poland had been settled finally, that is to say, through reciprocal friendly agreements could be settled. What happened was that Hitler deceived everybody, and first above all he deceived the German people. After Hitler had led the German people into war, all resistance against Hitler seemed tentamount to treason.
Q.- That's enough, witness. Now we want to get along to the main subject. How did you get into professional relations with the SS?
A.- I tried in the course of my training as assessor to get a position. It was approximately 1936 that I tried to have myself taken over into the position of a Referendar of the Government, that is to say, with the Internal Administration. My application was rejected because, as I heard later, the Personnel Referent of the Prussian Ministry of Interior von Wedelstaedt took the view that for the Internatl Administration I was politically undesirable because my father as Landrat was not considered politically desirable either. After I took my assessor examination I look around for an appointment. I wanted to work for private industry but apart from the opportunities which I discovered, and which my sister described here, I did not find a job. Then I worked for the Luerkopp-Werke in Bielefeld as an apprentice in their administration. Finally, I saw an advertisement where under a cipher number a position was offered as a legal assistant to an SS industry. It was an assessor they wanted. Before I had been offered a job in the Administration of Justice, Prison Administrator, but I refused the offer because the administration of prisons was a thing I didn't like. When I applied for the job I had seen what the task was. The result was that I obtained a job with the Society for the Promotion and Care of German Cultural Monuments. But, I did not consider that job a permanency.
Q.- But you did realize that now you had been mixed up with the SS and the Party? Did you not from the experiences of your father who was always complaining about the bad cooperation of the Party, did you not deduce from that it would always be bad?
A.- From the political organization of the SS, from my eyes at that time, it was not undesirable. For the most part I was young and felt optimistic. I didn't believe those difficulties of my father's struggle would arise everywhere. I considered the SS the best formation of the Party and I hoped that one day it would become the focal point of order.
Q.- And what did you hear about the aims of the society?
A.- I heard something about the aims of the society and I heard also of the name itself. The aim was to take care of monuments, of monuments of historical value. That is a task which, in general, the regional curators had with local administration, with the provincial administration.
Q.- I have just discovered that the translation did not altogether include your comparison that these societies could be compared with the regional societies that had been looking after monuments.
A.- The regional curators are those societies which took care of those buildings which are under special protection within the territory of one province.
Q.- What was the first job you did for the society?
A.- My first job was to buy sites and carry out similar functions to which jurists had to attend. This society possessed sites in several places which were Wewelsburg, Haithabu near Schleswig, Luebeck, Werden, Kranischsfled, Busau, Oldenburg, Bischetz, and Bayerisch Zell. Those were the main places.
Q.- When you started to work for the society did you hear of any other work in which the society was engaged?
A.- No. I didn't.
Q.- Did you hear at that time that the society employed prisoners?
A.- No, I didn't and the society did not employ prisoners in those days.
Q.- How long did you undertake the first job you spoke about?
A.- That job went on until February 1939.
Q.- During that time you witnessed the excesses of November 1939? Did you not realize then what were the aims of the SS and as you had only been in your job for such a short time, didn't you try to get out of that society?
A.- I have to describe in what way I witnessed the excesses. In the morning I came out of my apartment which was Ranke Strasse, 22, Berlin, to go to my office. When I passed the tobacoonist where I used to buy my tobacco I saw that the windows had been broken. I first thought there had been a thunder storm. I then went into my office and work went on as usual. Gradually I heard at the office that during the night excesses had occurred against Jewish shops. Dr. Salpeter, who was then the Chief of the Legal Department, immediately ordered that investigations be instituted against all members of Pohl's office to ascertain whether one of them had taken part in the excesses. Nobody had taken part, as resulted from the investigation. Ad mid day from Berlin West I drove across into the center of town because I wanted to try to get a survey of what had happened. In some places there were still clouds but not in one place did I see an SS uniform. There was just a mob. I did see a few political leaders in SA uniforms. I don't believe to this day that the SS had any part worth mentioning in these excesses. May I refer to the Schallermeier affidavit which was submitted in the Scheide Document Book. Dr. Salpeter's investigations made me draw the conclusions that if any office was suitable to restore order in Germany it was the SS. I myself was indignant about the program. I considered it a terrible crime committed on the Jewish part of the population and also a serious crime against the German people. Later I tried to get an idea about the originators of the program of excesses. Tried to obtain it from rumors that were going about. Rumors were being passed on from one person to another. I heard Himmler was supposed to have gone into a rage, that excesses were supposed to have been initiated by Goebbels and that political leaders had given the orders.
Q.- Well that's one thing I would like to clarify again. In connection with this you did not see one SS man?
A.- No, not one SS man took part.
Q.- And the investigation of Dr. Salpeter did not prove that an SS man had played any part in this excess?
A.- That investigation showed that not a single SS man had taken part.
Q.- How did your work develop after February 1939?
A.- In February 1939 THE SOCIETY for the Promotion and Care of German Cultural Monuments was incorporated in the Main Department S III of Office W. My work for the Monument Society remained the same. Salpeter in the course of the year 1939 stopped the activities of the society which were of a nature that was not layed down in the statutes. He himself dealt with that.
Q.- Continue please.
A.- The society then only dealt with purely cultural activities. The Chief of the Department was Obersturmbannfuehrer Galke. In those days he was subordinated to Salpeter. The financial direction of the society was in charge of Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl and Dr. Salpeter. In the summer of 1939 that office, III W, was plit up into offices of III A and III B. Furthermore, he also dealt with the Extern-Stein-Stiftung fund.
Q. Perhaps you would tell the Tribunal what Extern-SteinStiftung are?
A. The Extern-Stein-Stiftung are an interesting group of rocks in the Teutoburger-Wald near Detmold. As far as science has been able to find out they are the remains of an old Germanic Holy place which later on was turned into a Christian Holy place. The Extern-Stein-Stiftung show the whole of German Plastics and that is extremely interesting, the rendering of Christ being removed from the cross. The Extern-Stone-Fund owned about 500 acres of forest around these stones.
Q. You said that you worked for other societies, too. What was your work for them?
A. In the Main Department under Galke other firms were combined, too, and for those firms at times I worked as a legal consultant. The duration of that work was only a few months.
Q. Did these companies during your activities employ prisoners?
A. No.
Q. In April 1940 there was another change in your office. Did that effect your functions?
A. Yes, my work as legal consultant for other firms came to an end. Instead I dealt with the entire files of the society and from then onwards was able to get an insight into the financing of the society. Further, there was the Koenig Heinrich Fund.
Q. Well, go on.
A. That was all. Those were the changes.
Q. Do you know Document 542, Exhibit 21, in Volume II, in the German text page 1, and in the English page 2. It is Volume 2, Exhibit 21. Exhibit 22, I beg your pardon. Document 542.
A. I didn't know it before but I got to know it here.
Q. Well -
A. I didn't know it before - that document, but I came to know it here.
Q. From what time does that document originate?
A. That document originates evidently from the days of Salpeter.
Q. And at that time who was your superior - who was the Chief of the Department?
A. At that time Galke was my superior.
Q. In that report by Salpeter it says that the Main Department III did not employ prisoners.
A. And that was true at the time of Wewelsburg.
Q. On page 34 in the document you have before you it says: It is page 34 of the original report and it says: "Prisoners were being employed for work at Wewelsburg". Does that not contradict the answer you have just given?
A. No, that is not contradictory to my testimony. What it says here is "work to be done". That in German means a plan for work to be done at a future date.
THE PRESIDENT: Where does it say this?
DR. BERGOLD: That word appears on page 34 of the original report.
THE PRESIDENT: I am looking at page 34.
DR. BERGOLD: Page 23 in the English, but 34 of the original.
THE PRESIDENT: What is the reference you are talking about?
DR. BERGOLD: The answer he gave me was that at Wewelsburg no prisoners were employed at that time, but now it says here prisoners were to be used for work to be done.
A. If I may point out it is under figure 11 --ExternSteine-Foundation. It is page 22. In other words in this document it also says
Q. Well, witness, you wanted to say something?
A. In this document it also says that prisoners were to be employed on work - that is, at a future date they were to be employed on such work, but they never were employed.
Q. In the document it also says that Lebensborn homes belonged to your office.
A. Counsel, I believe that is not contained in this document concerning organization.
Q. You can answer my question, can't you, as to whether Lebensborn homes belonged to your office?
A. As far as I can recollect at the moment the organization plan of WWH of April 1944 didn't mention the Lebensborn homes. In effect the Lebensborn Homes were never dealt with by me.
At the time the Economic Branches of the Various homes were to be subordinated to the Main Department. The Chief of the Lebensborn, Sollman, rang me up. We discussed the matter and we agreed that it would be impracticable in one and the same place to set up two administrations side by side. I reported to Pohl and there upon the matter was dropped.
Q. Did he therefore not reject taking over Lebensborn homes because he didn't like the aims of Lebensborn?
A. No. I thought that the Lebensborn were very decent. According to the German Penal Code under article 218 abortion is prohibited. At the time one took the view that the State if it prohibited abortion must give the mother opportunity to give birth to her child in peaceful circumstances and that the State must take over the care for the birth and for the child itself. At that time no Government funds were available yet for that task.
Therefore Lebensborn Inc. was the foundation for these were financed by contributions from SS members. That is what I know about Lebensborn from those days.
Q. That is enough. That is your personal knowledge?
A. Yes, that is my personal knowledge.
Q. And that matter will be settled soon at another trial and we do not want to get in advance of the other Tribunal. You have just described what Extern-Steine was. What were the purposes or aims of the Extern-Steine fund?
A. The aims of that fund were to put those extern-steine into dignified surroundings. At the time the Reich Road one ran through Extern-Steine and a street car line, and there was a great deal of traffic. A fund had been established by the Land of Lippe and the Land of Lippe had added about 400 acres of land and it was the purpose of the fund to make the surroundings of the stones dignified.
Q. May it please the Court, I am afraid I have to insist on a recess once again.
THE PRESIDENT: Yesterday you asked to recess until 2. Would you like the same today?
DR. BERGOLD: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: We will recess until 2 o'clock.
THE MARSHALL: The Tribunal will recess until 1400 hours.
AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1400 hours August 13, 1947)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
MR. ROBBINS: May it please the Tribunal, I have been informed that the defense counsel wish to ask one of our interrogators some questions on the stand, and Mr. Wolff is available to them now, if they would like to do so. They tell me they would like to interrupt the Defendant Klein's testimony to examine Mr. Wolff. That meets with our approval, if it meets with the approval of the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. The Defendant Klein may leave the witness stand, please.
(The Defendant Klein resumed his seat in the Defendants' dock.)
DR. BERGHOLD (Attorney for the Defendant Klein.): May it please the court, I only want to make one remark. I did not express the wish to hear Mr. Wolff. If I understood correctly, it was the Tribunal itself.
THE PRESIDENT: That is right.
MR. ROBBINS: I am sorry.
LARRY LOTHAR WOLFF a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:
THE PRESIDENT: Will you raise your right hand? Do you swear the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
THE WITNESS: I do.
THE PRESIDENT: So help you God?
THE WITNESS: I do.
EXAMINATION BY MR. ROBBINS:
Q Will you give the Tribunal your name, Larry?
A My name is Larry Lothar Wolff.
Q And you are an employee of the Office of Chief of Counsel for War Crimes?
A That is correct.
Q You are member of the Evidence Division?
A That is correct.
Q And an interrogator?
A Yes.
Q You speak the German language?
A Yes, I do.
Q And understand that language?
A Yes, I do.
Q Did you interrogate Heinrich Schwarz in Dachau on the 25th day of February, 1947?
A Yes, I did.
Q And did you ask Schwarz if he had been in Wewelsburg?
A Yes, I did.
Q And did he tell you that he had been?
A Yes, he did.
Q For how long a period did he tell you he had been in Wewelsburg?
A He told me he had been there for an approximate period of 14 days.
Q And did he tell you that he had an opportunity to observe the conditions in and around Wewelsburg?
A Yes, he did.
Q He told you that he was subordinate -
DR. BERGHOLD: Excuse me a moment. It is my impression that the questions which my learned colleague has put are leading questions. I think it would be better for the witness to describe what he knows.
MR. ROBBINS: Perhaps it would. I was just trying to save time. I be very happy for defense counsel to carry on this interrogation. I have no particular desire to do so.
Q (By Mr. Robvins) Will you tell us what happened in the course of the interrogation, Mr. Wolff?