This man here only occupies a very unimportant position, more or less, and he can't give any orders. If administrative officers of the General SS were taken over into a budget of the Waffen-SS then the usual settlement was that he was given two ranks less than he held before. For example, for Obersturmfuehrer in the General-SS he would be demoted to Hauptsturmfuehrer in the Waffen-SS. I am now referring to the affidavit of Hans Loerner, and I can give you many other similar examples. I myself, in February 1945, was drafted into the Waffen-SS as Untersturmfuehrer, and this corresponds to the rank of a lieutenant.
Q. Were you ever a full time SS officer?
A. No.
Q. And now I am coming to another subject. Just what knowledge did you have of the atrocities committed in the concentration camps which have been mentioned in this trial and in other trials?
A. I have no knowledge of these atrocities at all. On the day when my sister was committed to a concentration camp - I mean the day when I heard about this decision - I was extremely happy.
Q. What you want to tell us is that if you had suspected what the actual conditions were in concentration camps you would not have been so glad.
A. Yes, certainly.
Q. The military tribunals cannot comprehend the fact that not every German had exact knowledge of the conditions there. If you just tell us you didn't have any knowledge, can you tell us why you didn't have any knowledge?
A. I shall try to explain this to the best of the knowledge which I have today. A very thick curtain of secrecy must have surrounded the concentration camps. Here I want to refer to the Fuehrer Decree about the secrecy regulations which have been mentioned here so often. If actually within the WVHA any knowledge existed of these things, then I still didn't hear anything about them, because I did not have any friend with whom I could have exchanged my thoughts in private. Since 1943 I was in Kranichfeld. General criticism with regard to the prevailing conditions I only heard in the house of my parents. However, here only the prevailing system was discussed and rumors about concentration camps did not go there. It is clear to me today that opponents of the government probably at the end would have talked to the SS officers about these things. My information I was only able to get from the newspapers and in the years 1944 and 1945 occasionally I would listen to foreign broadcasts. However, from these broadcasts I never heard anything about atrocities alleged to have been committed in the concentra tion camps.
Q. Well, witness, however, so many people were committed to concentration camps and members of their families could be found everywhere and, after all, these stories should have circulated, it could be assumed.
A. I think that your theory here is completely wrong. When I was imprisoned by the American Army, I myself was treated badly and I saw that many others, among them women and children, were not treated nicely at all in the camps. I heard terrible things about the camps from many of my comrades. In spite of this, I never read about army of these things in any newspapers, no matter whether it was German, British, or American papers. These things did not come to light at all, although many people were concerned in this case. I cannot reproach anybody with the fact that he did not have any knowledge of these things, because large circles could only have heard of these things through the newspapers and the people perpetrating these deeds are completely silent about them. When my sister was in the concentration camp, in this way I never heard about the atrocities in the concentration camps. My sister only wrote in her monthly letter that she was doing well. I myself could not establish contact with her. What the press or what the state wants to keep quiet, a citizen can't find out. Furthermore, I am of the opinion that it is nobody's duty, even at the price of risking his own head, to investigate inhumane acts, unless he has a very pronounced suspicion. Furthermore, I did not have the opportunity to lift this veil of secrecy as the case of the experiences of my sister has taught me.
Q. Did you also in some other connection, didn't you see in the case of the deportation of Jews that people would have severe difficulties?
A. Yes, on one occasion, and this may have been in the summer of 1943, I tried to follow up rumors which I had heard from Dr. Bresser, who was a friend of the family. At the time we talked to the adjutant of Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl - it must have been Hauptsturmfuehrer Baer and we discussed all these matters.
He told me that these rumors did not correspond to the truth and that this was propaganda of the enemy and he put me on the carpet, so to speak, rather severely, and he told me it would be better if I didn't listen to the foreign broadcasts.
Q. Now, the concentration camps were subordinated to Pohl. As a result of this, didn't you establish a closer contact with the concentration camps?
A. In my opinion, that was only a personal assignment for Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl. This had nothing to do with and was completely separated from the other fields of work of the WVHA. The Inspectorate of the Concentration Camps remained outside of the WVHA at Oranienburg and the designation of Office Group D seemed to have no importance to me, even if I did not like it and I considered ti to be a measure of organizational geography which was carried out at the time. This means that attempts were made that the field of competence should always look as big as possible. The field of the concentration camp administration was very unpopular with me, because I had worked one time at a prison court in the course of my legal training and after these eight days had passed I was just as depressed as if I myself had been a prisoner there. Furthermore, I considered Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl to be a very capable and efficient administrator and in this subordination I saw the best guarantee to the fact that in the concentration camps decent conditions would prevail.
Q. However, it would have been very easy for you to find out something about the concentration camps, wouldn't it?
A. Even in the case of my own sister I was never able to find out anything about the conditions which prevailed at Ravensbrueck. I tried to hear something from an employee of Office W-V, which had farms near Ravensbrueck; I tried to get some information from him. This was an employee by the name of Steuer. The information which I received was quite favorable. Good conditions were said to prevail at Ravensbrueck and today I know that this information was completely wrong.
Q. Did you have anything to do with the OSTI?
A. No, nothing.
Q. Did you know that the OSTI dealt particularly with concentration camp inmates?
A. No, I asked once what the OSTI actually was. I asked informally somebody from Staff W and here I received the information that it was a secret armament enterprise and I didn't press any further questions.
Q. What do you know about the other WVHA offices, in particular, with regard to the contact with concentration camp inmate labor?
A. I was only informed in general outlines. With the Office W-I, for example, I only now heard that these enterprises were converted into armament enterprises. I was unable to overlook the number of workers that were employed and to look at their financial status. I also was unable to hear anything about the extent of the DWB. In the WVHA everybody was sufficiently occupied with his own work.
Q. Did you know anything about the Action Reinhardt?
A. No.
Q. Did you hear anything about freezing experiments?
A. I only heard about these things here from the documents. I then inquired and from the testimony of Ruff I heard that such experiments actually were never carried out.
Q. Did you hear anything about experiments with caladium seguinum?
A. No, I was in Wewelsburg at the time, but I was away on my honeymoon.
Q. Were any experiments with caladium seguinum carried out at Wewelsburg?
A. No, I don't know that.
Q. What did you know about the euthanasia program?
A. Nothing at all.
THE PRESIDENT: That is what I want to know. Caladium seguinum, what was that?
DR. BERGOLD: The prosecution has submitted a document about that.
This refers to the experiments so that people could be sterilized by giving them certain plants. This plant is called caladium seguinum. This was included in the evidence submitted by the prosecution and on one occasion these experiments were discussed at Wewelsburg. However, this was done quite accidentally and this was not at the time when the defendant was present.
THE PRESIDENT: That is the plant that grows in the United States but wouldn't grow in Germany? In America it grows - in America but not in Germany?
DR. BERGOLD: Yes, Your Honor, that is correct.
THE PRESIDENT: While I have interrupted you, what was the activity at Kranichfeld? What was being done there?
THE WITNESS: In Kranichfeld we had the ruins of an old castle. These ruins belonged to the Society for Care of German Cultural Monuments. Since these ruins were about to collapse completely, Himmler, in 1941, ordered that restoration work was to be carried out and that part of the ruins should be roofed.
THE PRESIDENT: It had no connection with Wewelsburg?
THD WITNESS: No, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Just another castle?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
DR. BERGOLD: Wewelsburg is located in Western Germany and Kranichfeld is located in Thuringia, which is north of Nurnberg.
Q (By.Dr.Bergold) What do you know about the well known 14F13?
A I didn't know anything about it before. I only heard about it here.
Q Did you know the Bosen speech?
A No.
Q In the officers' mess you must have met your comrades. Didn't you hear anything at the officers' mess about crimes against humanity?
A I never heard anything of that kind at the officers' mess.
Q We have heard that dinners for concentration camp commanders had taken place here. Were you ever invited to any such dinners?
A No.
Q Then it could be concluded from statements by the prosecution that in a period of time, which I don't know in detail, in the yard of the WVHA Building allegedly inmates were hung.
Did you hear anything about that? Were you present at the time?
A No, I was not present when anything of the sort took place, and I never heard anything of the kind. I was away very often on tour and therefore it is quite possible that something like that could have happened in my absence. It is also possible that at that time I was already in Kranichfeld. I heard that something like this might possibly have happened for the first time when the prosecution asked me questions about it.
Q What concentration camps did you know?
A By name I knew the following: Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, Dachau, Ravensbruck, Auschwitz, Mauthausen, and Niederhagen.
Q Did you ever enter a concentration camp?
A No.
Q Did you have any conversations with inmates with whom you came in contact?
A No, we were not allowed to talk to them even as SS officers.
Q Did you ever hear anything about the total figure of inmates in the concentration camps? Did you know how big this figure was?
A I was unable to overlook that matter. I only heard from general situations that during the war a large number of arrests took place, As a reason for this I considered the following: 1. The growing opposition to the war and consequently a growing seditious activity against the regime; 2. The growing criminality, above all, as a result of the crimes which were committed in the black-out; 3. An exeedingly large -
THE INTERPRETER: I cannot hear.
( a pause.)
THE INTERPRETER: The channel is clear.
Q (By Dr. Bergold) You were just about to describe to us -
A Finally, as a reason for the growing arrests during the war, I considered that criminal legislation was going too far. In the end it was so that all fields of life were limited and restricted as a result of the criminal legislation so that practically everybody had to violate some law or other. For example, the decrees about the war economy.
Q Whom did you consider to be responsible for all the protective custody orders which were issued?
A I considered the Reich Government to be responsible and also the Gestapo, since they carried out and enforced these laws.
Q Before you have answered my question in the way that you considered the Gestapo as not belonging to the SS. However, the Gestapo officials were members of the SS, weren't they, and, therefore, there must have been some connection between them?
A I don't think that all officials of the Gestapo were members of the SS. If Gestapo officials were transferred into the SS, then the Gestapo did not become, from a Reich Agency, an agency of the SS. Members of the SS were also with other agencies without that this fact would change the character of that particular agency. This did not cause these agencies to become SS agencies.
Q And frequently in cases where you intervened, in some cases, you had to deal with Gestapo officials. Didn't you see some SS uniforms there?
A Neither in the Grenz case nor in the case of Scheinmann nor in my negotiations with the Gestapo at Bielefeld, because of my sister, did I see any Gestapo official wearing the SS uniform.
Q After the Gestapo was subordinated to the RSHA and that was a Main Office of the SS wasn't it, weren't you able to recognize the very close connection between the agencies from this?
A This did not change my opinion either. The Gestapo appears in the organizational chart of the RSHA and this was a main office under Himmler. In the RSHA, however, we also had the Security Police and the Criminal Police combined and that does not mean that the Criminal Police was component of the SS. In the verdict of the IMT, the Criminal Police has not been included in the number of criminal organizations. Furthermore, we also had a Main Department of the Regular Police under Himmler and nobody claimed that the Regular Police was a component of the SS. In my opinion, here the competences just overlapped as a result of the personal union with Himmler. Himmler later on also took over the position of the Reich Minister of the Interior and the Chief of the Replacement Army. In the same false logic, we could also assume that the interior Administration and the Replacement Army were also components of the SS.
DR. BERGOLD: May it please the Tribunal, I am now coming to a different matter, namely, the deportation of the Jews. This will take up approximately ten minutes and I would suggest that a recess be called at this time. May it please the Tribunal, could we take a recess until two o'clock, because I cannot eat here. Because of my sickness I have to eat elsewhere.
THE PRESIDENT: Wait just a minute, please. The Tribunal is very anxious that the Witness Schwarz, who has executed two affidavits involving this defendant be produced here so that we may see him and perhaps ask some questions on behalf of the Tribunal. Now the witness is to be produced, not as a witness for the defense, or the prosecution, but on behalf of the Tribunal, and will the prosecution see that this request is implemented and that Schwarz before the end of the proof is submitted as a witness. He is in Dachau, I believe.
MR. HIGGINS: Yes, he is, Your Honor. We will take care of it.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, we will recess until two o'clock.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal will recess until 1400 hours.
(A recess was taken until 1400 hours.)
AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1400 hours, 14 Aug 47)
THE MARSHAL: Take your seats please.
The Tribunal is again in session.
DR. BERGOLD: May I continue?
HORST KLEIN - Resumed.
DIRECT EXAMINATION -Continued.
BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q: Witness, what did you know about the so-called evacuation of Jews?
A: Of a large-scale evacuation scheme I heard nothing. At the wish of Dr. Bresser, a friend of our family, on the occasion of a Jew called Kohn who was deported and who had been an employee of Dr. Bresser's factory -- at Dr. Bresser's wish I made inquiries and in the summer of 1942 I heard that Jews would be interned temporarily. The reason was supposed to be that on account of their relations with foreign countries one was afraid they would engage in sabotage and espionage, and, understandably, they were hostile to the regime. One could not keep everybody under supervision. Those were the reasons for interning them during the war. Their treatment was supposed to be good. This was supposed to be a measure which very state was adopting against aliens, that is to say, against aliens and elements hostile to the state.
Q: Did you personally see Jews being deported in larger numbers?
A: No, I didn't.
Q: Is it correct that at the request of Dr. Bresser you also made inquiries about a camp at Theresienstadt?
A: In 1942, when I was on an official trip to the Protectorate, I made inquiries about the internment camp at Theresienstadt; and at the time I did not hear that such a camp was in existence.
That information I passed on to Dr. Bresser and my relatives. In the autumn of 1943, by accident I heard that there was an internment camp at Theresienstadt.
Q: We heard from your sister that in the summer of 1943 you inquired about the treatment meted out to Jews at internment camps because Bresser by way of rumors had heard that there was a high mortality rate. What can you tell us about that?
A: Doctor, I have already described to you that in the summer of 1943 I asked Hauptsturmfuehrer Beer who was adjutant of Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl, about the matter. He was very negative in the way he treated me and told me that the treatment was absolutely correct, and added that obviously I had fallen victim to enemy propaganda and that I had better spend less time listening to foreign radio stations.
Q: How was it you hit on the idea of approaching Beer?
A: I assumed that at Pohl's office reports would arrive from many quarters, and that he would also receive secret situation reports so that his adjutant perhaps might have insight into matters which were outside the sphere of the WVHA.
Q: That information that you received from Beer - did you think it was the truth?
A: Yes, I had no reason to doubt that information.
Q: When you made inquiries earlier, did you ever hear who ordered the internments?
A: No. I could not obtain any information about that. I discussed the matter with my father, too. He, too, could not find out what was happening. We supposed that military intelligence offices were ordering the internment, and perhaps also the Gestapo, but we could not find out.
Q: Did you ever hear anything about gassing and mass extermination of Jews?
A: No.
Q: Not even by rumor?
A: No, not through rumors either.
Q: Now tell me, in the course of the war didn't you begin to wonder - to have doubts - about the regime?
A: Yes.
Q: How did you come to wonder, to have doubts?
A: Gradually I can to the conviction that the system was wrong: On the one hand because of what my father told me, and what older friends of mine told me, Dr. Bresser, my brother-in-law, and also due to my own observations.
Q: What was it your father told you; did he tell you about atrocities, cruelties, or what was it?
A: No, I didn't hear anything about atrocities from my father; but my father, every time he visited me, gave me new examples to prove to me that orderly administrative work on account of the dualism between administration and Party was becoming impossible. He told me again and again about interference on the part of the political organizations, the Corps of Political Leadership, even the Ministry, were powerless against them. The competence of the administration was more and more broken up by the interference from the Party. In the Party there was also a lack of experts, and instead of employing experts they employed a staff which was not properly qualified. My father told me again and again "that can't come to a good end."
Q: What did you hear from Dr. Bresser? Apparently you talked with him quite frequently.
A: Dr. Bresser was the owner of a factory in Wiedenbrueck. He was constantly fighting against the Labor Front and the Kreisleadership.
He told us about complete confusion in the organization of trade economy. Besides, he had been abroad for a long time. He had been to the United States among other countries. He warned everybody against underestimating the foreign countries.
Q: And your brother-in-law, who after all was an officer, in what way did he warn you?
A: My brother-in-law told me about his observations observations he had made in the Russian campaign. He thought that that campaign was being carried out with a dangerous military dilettantism. He was very indignant as a former active guards officer about the dishonorable treatment of officers on the part of Hitler. I frequently discussed with him the case of Count Sponeck, General Count Sponeck, who for a long time was billeted with my parents and whose personal acquaintance I made. Count Sponeck had carried out a retreat movement which had been necessary for military reasons and from the rank of a General he was degraded to the rank of a private and he was thrown out of the army. My brother-in-law said that it could not come to a good end if a profession which considered honor its highest aim, such as the Officer Corps, if such a body of people were being treated in a dishonorable way.
Q: What were your own observations?
A: I saw that the suppression of free opinion, and the compulsion which was exercised in all spheres of life, met with more and more resistance - caused more and more resistance; I saw that this new resistance again made necessary more supervision, and that a vicious circle had been established. Furthermore, in my practical work for my country I saw that great confusion was existing among the authorities, the official agencies. In the case of many questions nobody knew who was competent to deal with them.
In various fields of work I was given contradictory orders. My work having been based on an orderly plan - now had to go by improvisations from one day to the other.
Q: Now, will you tell us whether one of your sad experiences was also the experience you met in the case of Frl. GRENZ. I am referring to the cases of racial violation.
A: Yes, I gained the conviction that in a system where one had to risk one's life, one had to play two parts - one had to be "false" in order to help decency and humanity to victory.
Q: Did you ever think about it as to what you might do against the system, as to how you might fight against the system?
A I frequently thought about it as to what one could do. Open opposition seemed impossible to me. That would have been suicide, which would have helped nobody. Besides, I had a family. I never discovered one of the resistance movements; they were too secret. I could only work within the framework of my opportunities. It was impossible for me to leave the SS. For the rest, the thought never occurred to me to look upon the SS as the root of all evil. The political power was in the hands of the political organization and not in the hands of the SS. After the arrest of my sister, my hands were completely tied.
Q You've just said that you are of the opinion that the SS was not the root of all evil. Why were you of the opinion that the political organization had the main power and therefore was guilty above all others? Can you give us an example to explain your opinion why the SS was completely subordinated to the political organization?
A I can give an illuminating example to the Tribunal to explain these circumstances. In the late summer of 1944, a reserve SS regiment suffered eighty casualties during an air-raid. The whole regiment appeared on parade for the funeral in the cemetery. As the cemetery was in the neighborhood I also attended the funeral. There were rain and a thunderstorm and all the persons who had come to attend the funeral got wet through. For a whole hour the regiment and the relatives stood in the rain waiting for the district leader, the Kreisleiter. At the end of an hour a large limousine drove up; and, quite dry, the adjutant of the Kreisleiter got out and told the regimental commander that the district leader had ordered that the funeral was not to take place then but that it would take place the next morning at 9'00 o'clock. The regimental commander pointed at the relatives, who didn't know where to stay the night and who were intending to go home for the night. The adjutant then told him, "The political leadership is the sole arbiter of the sovereignty of the movement; only the political leadership gives orders.
The order of the district leader is binding upon you." The SS Standartenfuehrer Kloth and the regimental commander were trembling with fury, but had to obey the orders of the Kreisleiter.
Q It was from such occurrences that you concluded that the political leadership solely had the political power?
A It appeared to me as if one could draw conclusions of that kind from such occurrences.
Q After the outbreak of the war, did you make attempts to get out of your office by entering the armed forces?
A Yes. By accident I was not called up to my regiment at the outbreak of the war, because I was still registered with the military commander Bielefeld as I didn't think my work in Berlin would be permanent. When my parents, whose address I had registered with the military district command, told me that I had been called up, the regiment had already left. Thereupon, in September, I registered voluntarily with the Luftgau commander at Muenster as a gunner. I was accepted. When I was in Muenster, my superior, Oberfuehrer Moeckel, made an application that I be given the status of an indispensable person, this without my knowing about his action. I was given the status of being indispensable and put under an obligation to work for the Pohl office. That so-called note from the armed forces was renewed again and again during the war.
In the autumn of 1939 or the spring of 1940 Obergruppenguehrer Pohl had ordered staff parade on the terrain at Lichterfelde. He told them that all applications for transfers and discharges even applications for transfers to the front, had been prohibited by him. He described all contravention of that order as an infringement of an official order and he threatened people who offended in that way with a concentration camp.
Q I am now coming to talk of the affair of your sister. I'd now like to hear from you as to when you heard of her arrest?
A In November 1943 my father told me that my sister had been arrested.
Q Did you at any time before hear that there was a possibility of proceedings being instituted against your sister?
A No.
Q What steps did you take to help your sister?
A First I called on the Gestapo office in Bielefeld. There I was told that the warrant for her arrest had been issued by the chief of the Gestapo, Gruppenfuehrer Mueller, in Berlin. Immediately I called on Gruppenfuehrer Mueller, whereupon he told me that proceedings had also been initiated against my brother-in-law. He forbade me to issue a warning to him. I gave Mueller a personal guarantee for my sister and brother-in-law. That was somewhat risky because I didn't know whether the Gestapo had entered into their files the fact that my brother-in-law had been a Free Mason; but, thank goodness, they hadn't done so yet at that time.
Mueller refused to be in any way more lenient towards my sister or my brother-in-law. I didn't know what to do and finally hit on the idea of asking Obergruppenfuehrer Frank for his help. I went to see him, and he promised me his help. From the human point of view he was very much upset by my distress; and I should like to use this opportunity to express my thanks to him. Frank then approached Mueller. That wasn't an easy thing for him to do, either. A decision was obtained from Himmler, Himmler ordering that my sister's case was not to come before the People's Court and he commuted the sentence to a concentration camp commitment. Mueller on principle refused to adopt the more lenient attitude towards my brother-in-law.
About the middle of January 1944 Mueller asked my father and myself to come to see him in Berlin. He told us about Himmler's decision. He also told us that my sister would without any doubt have been sentenced to death by the People's Court on the basis of the files of material against her.
Furthermore, he told us that each of us was to write a letter to me syster, telling her that great clemency had been exercised in her case.
Q May I just ask you to revert to another point? From your efforts one might gain the impression that you as a member of the SS had obtained special help; but is it not correct to say that the Kreisleiter the district leader Horn of Siebenbrueck, wished to prevent you from making efforts for your sister by threatening you with punishment?
A Yes. When Horn heard that my father had asked me to make efforts in the matter, he tried to get me out of all that by informing against me.
Q What did you hear from Mueller about the treatment that was going to be meted out to your sister at the concentration camp?
A Mueller told us that my sister was to receive special treatment. Allegedly, at the camp she was to do secretarial work and other light work.
Q You told us before that you did look upon the decision as being a favorable decision, didn't you?
A Yes. I was very pleased about that decision. The evening when I heard of that decision, my father and I brought up the best bottle which we had in the cellar and sat down together and drank it.
THE TRIBUNAL (JUDGE MUSMANNO): Dr. Bergold, the phrase "special treatment" has in this trial,and the previous trial in which we sat, had a certain meaning. It is not used in that sense in this instance, is it? You mean here "especially favorable treatment"?
DR. BERGOLD: Yes, that's quite correct. Your Honor, that is an ambiguous word because, after all, this treatment wasn't particularly good. We heard that from his sister herself. It wasn't that notorious "special treatment"; but, on the other hand, it wasn't particularly good treatment, either.