THE PRESIDENT: The witness Schwartz is next.
MR ROBBINS: I would like to say to Dr. Bergold, I am not marking these books for identification, because they are the criminals and have to be returned to Wewelsburg, but if you would like to check the books against the affidavit, it will be here at your disposal.
DR BERGOLD: Thank you very much.
MR. ROBBINS: I think some one had better send word to Dr. Hoffman perhaps the Marshal, Pat Morgen will be next to take the stand.
THE PRESIDENT: Was the witness sworn?
THE WITNESS: No.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you raise your right hand and repeat after me, please.
HEINRICH SCHWARTZ, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:
THE PRESIDENT: 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)
THE PRESIDENT: Now will you give us the reference to these affidavits, Mr. Robbins.
MR. ROBBINS: The affidavit of Schwartz, offered by the Prosecution, is NO-2169, and it is the last document in Book 17.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: Exhibit what?
MR. ROBBINS: It is the last document in book 17. I don't have the number of the exhibit.
THE PRESIDENT: It should be Exhibit No. 456.
DR. BERGOLD: I would like to tell the court that my affidavit of Schwartz in my Document Book is Exhibit No. 13, on page 32 of my document book.
THE PRESIDENT: Does this witness have the German translation of the original German of these two instruments before him?
THE WITNESS: No. I have nothing here at all.
DR. BERGOLD: I only got one copy but I am quite happy to give it to him.
THE PRESIDENT: What number document is that, Dr. Bergold? What number?
DR. BERGOLD: 13, page 17.
THE PRESIDENT: Witness, have you before you now two affidavits, both signed by you?
A Yes.
Q One is Exhibit 456, which was signed on 25 February of this year at Dachau?
A Yes.
Q And the other is Defense Document 13, which was signed by you on 19 June 1947?
A Yes.
Q Have you read over these two affidavits since you have come back to Nurnberg?
A Yes.
Q Well, it must be apparent to you that they contradict each other. That they do not agree?
A In the case of my first affidavit, it is stated that I had not noticed these things myself but they had been told me.
Q Well, now you go ahead and explain how you happened to sign these two affidavits which are opposites, which say different things. Just tell us how you happened to do that?
A When I was interrogated on the first time, I was asked about the camp, and I said I could not say anything because I had been there for only a fortnight. I had been away from active service then because I was ill. Then I was told that I must have heard a few things; I replied, yes, I think I've heard things but they were not my own observations. It was a case of this gem put into my mouth, as it were. I did not know, for instance, as I see here, that sofar as the conditions of the superior officers, or the channels of commands in Wewelsburg were concerned.
Then I said that Sturmbannfuehrer Klein was permanently at the castle. I said so because the other guards had told me this. Whether he was present when I was there, I don't know.
Q Did you ever see Klein? Did you ever see him?
A The photograph was shown me in Dachau.
Q No, that is not what I asked you. Did you ever see the man Kleim himself?
A I can not remember, because after I left Wewelsburg I saw a great many of SS-officers, because I was at the cadet school at Brunswick, and there were very many officers present, who were not of the training personnel, but came and lectured.
Q I don't know yet whether you ever saw Klein at Wewelsburg?
A I did not see him in Wewelsburg.
Q Then how did you pick out his picture?
A That photograph some one gave to me, and I said, that man who is in this photograph I know. I was shown a few other pictures, among whom I recognized a few, and then that picture was shown to me again, and then the name was mentioned.
Q Well, had you ever seen the man whose picture was shown to you at Wewelsburg?
A I know that he seemed to be known to me, and that is when I said so.
Q Well, when you recognized him, did you recognize him as some one you had seen at Wewelsburg?
A I don't know. Because I did not say I knew the man from Wewelsburg. I simply said I knew the man. He seemed to be known to me.
Q Can you say where you had seen him?
A No, nor did I say so.
Q You mean his face was familiar to you but you could not associate him with my place?
A No. I simply wanted to say that the face seemed familiar to me.
Q Did you recognize the name of the man in the photograph? Did you remember his name?
A No. The name was then shown to me.
Q You did not know what his name was until it was suggested to you?
A I did not know it up until that time until it was shown to me.
Q During your stay at Wewelsburg, how long were you in the hospital?
A The fortnight I spent in Wewelsburg I spent in the hospital.
Q The entire time?
A Yes. I did not do any service there at all.
Q Well, were you out of the hospital?
AAt the most on the way from the hospital to the canteen for the troops.
Q Well, you say in your affidavit that you saw a trolley with a number of coffins, and that you knew that the coffins contained the bodies of men who had perished in the Wewelsburg plant?
A From the window of the hospital I saw that trolley, and I made inquiries. I asked what sort of trolley this was, and who were in the coffins.
Q Did you only see coffins on one occasion?
A Yes, I only saw it on one occasion.
Q About how many coffins did you see?
A I am afraid I could not tell you. It was a trolley. I think it fully laden. I could not tell you for sure.
Q Well, you think there would be twenty-five, one hundred, or two-hundred? How many about?
A Well, I don't know how much the trolley can carry.
Q Not knowing what you mean by a trolley, I don't know either. Were there more than two?
A Yes. It was a covered truck, a solid cover over the truck.
Q How many coffins would it hold?
A Well, I think there were at least ten, but I really cannot commit myself to a definite figure.
Q Would it be less than fifty?
A Less than fifty, certainly.
Q You think about ten, perhaps more or less?
A Might have been a few more or a few less, I could not tell you.
Q All right. Would you state that the prisoners looked very under-nourished? Did you see the prisoners while you were there?
A Yes, I saw on two occasions, perhaps, detachments as they went out to work, or as they came back from it.
Q Whatever detachments went past the hospital window?
A They did pass the hospital, or when I was in the canteen.
Q Were you confined to your bed in the hospital, or were you able to walk around?
A I could walk around.
Q What was your trouble. What was your illness?
A Rheumatism and Sciatica, and I was being treated for it.
Q You did not do much walking then, did you?
A No, I did not do much walking.
Q You stated that every day a detachment was sent out to collect nettles, stinging nettles, which were used to make soup for the prisoners. Do you know that yourself?
A I myself saw inmates at the fence plucking nettles. I asked why they were doing it, and I was told that a detachment was being sent out to pick the nettles for the food of the inmates.
Q How did you know that the prisoners were transferred to the special working squad in the quarry?
A I was told that.
Q And you said that in the quarries they had to do very heavy physical work, and were worked to death, that is, they broke down and had to be killed. How did you know that?
A I was told that the people in those details had to do very heavy work, and that some had collapsed. Whether they were liquidated, or had to be liquidated, is a deduction I might call it.
Q Whether they were worked to death, is that a deduction, or did somebody tell you that?
A Nobody has told me that. That is also a deduction.
Q Now you say liquidated prisoners, that is, dead prisoners were sent in coffins to Giessen to be burned?
A Yes, that is a mistake on my part. It was not Giessen, but Bielefeld. I must have confused the two placed at the time. I believe what I was thinking about was -- it must have been Bielefeld and not Giessen.
Q That is a very unimportant mistake. How did you know that prisoners who had died were sent anywhere to be burned?
A Because I saw the car and I asked where was it going.
Q Then some one told you that was what was happening?
A Yes, somebody told me that.
Q. You state that prisoners were punished by bemas of the so-called back for breach of camp rules?
A. Yes that is another thing they told me, that the prisoners were being beaten.
Q. Did you ever see any prisoners beaten?
A. No.
Q. Or did you ever see any prisoners that had been beaten and bore brusides or marks?
A. No. I was not in the camp itself, therefore I was quite unable to see it myself.
Q. Well, you state in your affidavit that one of the causes of death of the prisoners in Wewelsburg was an extermination of prisoners who were unpopular by order of Sturmbannfuehrer Klein and Hauptsturmfuehrer Haas. Did you see that?
A. No. I saw nothing of that.
Q. That is what you were told?
A. Yes. On what order this was done, I can't say whether Klein was the man who was in authority, I said already that the channel of command was completely unknown to me at the time.
Q. Were you ever up the castle at Wewelsburg?
A. No.
Q. So of your own knowledge you don't know whether Klein or anybody else lived there?
A. No, I don't know that from my own knowledge.
Q. But some of the guards told you that Klein lived there?
A. Yes. Whether he lived up there or whether he was really merely staying, I don't know. All I was told was that Sturmbannfuehrer Klein was at the castle.
Q. Then nobody even told you that he lived there permanently?
A. Nobody told me that, no.
Q. That is what it says in your affidavit.
A. It says there he was permanently in Wewelsburg. It is a long time ago that I was there, and I really cannot remember too precisely whether he was there permanently, residing there, merely staying there, or had his offices for his business purposes there
Q. You don't know anything about if yourself except what you were told?
A. Yes, I stated time and time again that I do not know these things from my own observation, but they were told me.
BY JUDGE PHILLIPS:
Q. Where are you now; where are you living?
A. In Leipzig.
Q. You are not a prisoner?
A. No. I am interned.
Q. You are interned by whom?
A. I have been arrested automatically because I was a member of the Allgemeine SS, and until the day before yesterday I was in the German camof Heilbronn.
Q. You signed this affidavit freely and voluntarily, did you not?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you have an opportunity to correct it and make it speak the truth before you signed it?
A. I was never asked nor was I asked afterwards until Dr. Bergold came to Dachau.
Q. I didn't ask you anything about that. I asked you when you you signed the affidavit, the first one, did you have an opportunity of reading it and making any corrections that you desired to make if it was not correct before you signed it?
A. Yes, I was given that opportunity.
Q. Well, why didn't you make it speak the truth before you signed it?
A. I said - or he wrote everything down after he had asked me questions, and as I said before, in certain cases he simply spoke the sentences and I said, "Yes". I read everything through, and on that occasion these contradictions did not strike me at all.
Q. Why didn't you point out and say, "This is not correct; I don't know this; strike that out"?
A. Well, I told the gentleman that I don't know these things from my own observations, that they were told me.
Q. Why didn't you put that in your affidavit? And isn't this the truth, that affidavit you first signed is the truth, and then you were told that it was very damaging to somebody, and you could help that person by saying that you didn't know this of your own knowledge, and therefore that is the reason you are saying that now?
A. No, nobody told me that, by that statement I was incriminating somebody. When I read this through and signed it, it did not occur to me that sentence was missing or the remark was missing, that I had not observed these things myself, but they had been told to me, and later on I said so, that in my first interrogation what I had told the gentleman was not observations of my own.
Q. You said that when you signed the first affidavit you did not know that you were incriminating anyone, is that correct?
A. That is correct.
Q. Then when did you find out by signing this affidavit that you were incriminating someone?
A. After I read it I thought all these things over carefully, and I thought, you have made statement there that these are not observations of your own, but I should not remember whether that sentence was contained in my affidavit which I have mentioned just now, and I began to feel that I did not incriminate anybody, I merely stated what I had been told, I had been asked about it.
Q. Who asked you about it?
A. The gentlemen who interrogated me.
Q. Who was that.
A. It is this gentleman over there(indicating)
Q. Mr. Wolf?
A. I don't know his name.
Q. Was a stenographer present when you gave your affidavit to Mr. Wolf?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you dictate yourself any part of your affidavit to the stenographer?
A. No, I did not dictate it myself.
Q. You gave it to Mr. Wolf and he dictated it?
A. Yes.
Q. And no part of it was dictated to you, you are certain of that?
A. I only dictated the beginning, my name and personal data, the first paragraph.
THE PRESIDENT: I don't know whose turn it might be now. Suppose you interrogate Mr. Wolf, if you wish, and then may follow.
BY MR. WOLF:
Q. Witness, you told us just now that after I had interrogated you and you had signed the affidavit you suddenly remembered that something might not be quite in accordance with the truth or that you had not base yourself on observations but hearsay, is that correct?
A. That is correct inasmuch as I have said that it was not the truth I had given, but rather I was incriminating somebody by my statement.
Q. Well now, did it not occur to you after the interrogation, and after you had signed the affidavit that in that affidavit you had made statements which perhaps you could not answer for.
A. No.
Q. You were convinced, after you have been thinking things over, that this affidavit which you gave me was in accordance with pure truth?
DR. BERGOLD: This is a leading question. Mr. Wolf will reshape his question and then we might see eye to eye.
Q. (By Mr. Wolf) Were you, after you had been thinking things over, still of the conviction that you had been speaking the truth in you affidavit?
A. Yes, for the single reason that in the interrogation I told you that I had not observed these things myself, but I had been told about then. You yourself pointed this out. You asked me, "What have you heard in the camp? I know that you were ill; I knew that you were not on active duty, but you must have heard some-thing."
Q. Witness, will you please remember all the details of the interrogation. Did I swear you in properly?
A. You pointed out to me that I was about to make a statement under oath.
Q. Before we wrote down the affidavit did I swear you in?
A. I did not swear an oath.
Q. Who was present at the interrogation and when the affidavit was written down?
A. There was a lady present.
Q. Who else? Wasn't there a guard there?
A. Yes, there as a guard there.
Q. Did the lady take the affidavit down in shorthand?
A. Yes.
Q. Witness, three weeks before I interrogated you, were you interrogated by somebody else who was part of the Nurnberg Prosecution Team?
A. Yes. I was briefly interrogated before on a Saturday afternoon.
Q. Did that gentleman ask you whether or not you had worked at Wewelsburg?
A. Yes.
Q. Will you please tell the Tribunal what you told him?
A. I told him that I had been to Wewelsburg, that I had not been on active duty.
Q. If that gentleman should appear here and was to tell you that you had told him that he had been on guard duty there, what would you say?
A. I cannot remember saying that I had been on guard duty.
Q. Well, now, about your affidavit which you gave me on 25th of February, 1947, can you remember that during the taking down of the affidavit I, on several occasions, interrupted you and interrupted myself when I was speaking myself and told you that you must speak the truth, and that I did not want any assumptions from you but only such things as you had seen yourself or been told by your fellow guards?
A. Yes. After you had asked me first, I told you that I know nothing of the camp. I don't know whether you remember that I said this, that I had been ill, not been on duty. Thereupon you said, "But surely you must know what has been going on in the camp. After service hours you talked about these things."
Q. Do you remember, Witness, my asking you what you had been doing a Wewelsburg?
A. Yes. I told you ten that I had been ill.
Q. Do you remember equally precisely that you told me that you had been ill, had bee tied to your bed?
A. I was in the troop hospital.
Q. What would you say, Witness, if the secretary who took down the affidavit would declare on oath that you said in answer to this question of mine that you first of all had been on guard duty for a while and secondle worked in the office for one day.
A. I never said that.
Q. Witness, how far was the hospital away from the camp Wewelsburg?
A. I was on the fringes of the camp. There was the camp and then there were the kitchen building, the canteen, etc, and then near the forest there was the hospital.
Q. You could look into the camp, could you?
A. No, I could not look in the camp. I don't know whether it was surrounded by a wall or barbed wire. Anyway between the hospital and the castle and the camp there were barracks.
Q. When at the camp, I believe on 14 July 1942, you reported for service, to whom did you report?
A. I reported to the guard unit, and I was taken over to the troop accommodation. I don't know the name of the company commander any more.
Q. Were you healthy at the time?
A. No. I was sent there from stellin because of bad health.
Q. Were you sent to the hospital immediately on reporting?
A. No, I was sent to an examination the next morning.
Q. Did you report to Hauptsturmfuehrer Haas?
A. No, I did not report to him.
Q. When did you see Haas for the first time?
A. I don't know.
Q. Did you see him at all?
A. Yes.
Q. Tell me, Witness, you say that you yourself saw coffins on the trolley.
A. Yes.
Q. As you said yourself, the hospital was not a very big distance from the camp but you could not look into the camp. Where was the truck with the coffins?
A. It passed the hospital.
Q. It passed the hospital.
A. Yes, if it wanted to leave the camp it had to pass the hospital.
Q. Where were you at that time?
A. In the hospital.
Q. Were you in bed?
A. I was at the window.
Q. The window? And you saw the truck pass by, did you?
A. Yes.
Q. Whom were you talking to about that?
A. Some other patient.
Q. What sort of patient was that?
A. I don't know.
Q. Was he a member of Wewelsburg camp?
A. A member of the guards unit.
Q. A member of the guards' unit? I see. And that mean told you about what was going to happen to the coffins?
A. Yes.
Q. Tell me, Witness, I asked you what sort of inmates were at Wewelsburg camp, and you told me they were political prisoners, Jehovah's witnesses, and other categories whom you can no longer recall, it that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. How did you know that?
A. The inmates had been marked, and as I did not know the marking I asked what they meant, these colors.
Q. You saw inmates, in other words?
A. Oh, yes.
Q. Bur really you would have seen quite a number of inmates in order to determine all these categories.
A. I needn't see the inmates myself, because after all if you are somewhere, are to be on duty there, you try to find out about conditions and what was going on, and as everything was so new to me, I, of course, asked questions what sort of people were there.
Q. How many inmates were there in Wewelsburg camp during this time?
A. If I remember rightly about five hundred
Q. The figure in you affidavit of 25 February is correct therefore?
A. Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: We will recess, Mr. Wolf.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
MR. WOLF: With the permission of the Court, I would like to ask a few additional questions.
BY MR. WOLF:
Q Witness, would you please take a look at page number 2 of your affidavit, dated the 25th of February, 1947. In the last paragraph you state: "Hauptsturmfuehrer Haas, who was the commander of the inmates, gave the impression to me to be a very brutal person, and it was his fault that those horrible conditions prevailed. However, Sturmbannfuehrer Klein was informed about those conditions. And I also perceived that he personally could have convinced himself of these conditions."
How can you make that statement, witness?
A It was very easy for Sturmbannfuehrer Klein to move around in the camp and convince himself of all the things that were going on.
Q You stated before that you never saw Sturmbannfuehrer Klein before -- and now you assert that it was possible for Sturmbannfuehrer Klein to convince himself of these conditions. You even said: "I saw him personally."
A Well, it isn't stated here -
Q You state in your affidavit: "I also saw..."
A "--that he could personally convince himself of those conditions." By that I did not mean that I saw Sturmbannfuehrer Klein myself.
Q What do you base your statement on, witness?
A Because Sturmbannfuehrer Klein, whenever he was there, could go to the camp and he could convince himself of all the things that were going on and happening there.
Q Therefore, he could convince himself?
A Yes.
Q You also got to know that he did so?
A No, I did not know that. All I knew was that he had the possibility to go there and to take a look at the things going on there.
Q Witness, the sentence: "However, Sturmbannfuehrer Klein was absolutely informed of the conditions, and I also saw that he personally could have convinced himself of those conditions." Do you realize what that sentence means?
A Well, I believe you understand the sentence differently than I do. I saw that the possibility could exist for Sturmbannfuehrer Klein to be in the camp and convince himself of the conditions there.
THE PRESIDENT: The word in the English translation is not "I saw" but "I know."
MR. WOLF: Your Honor, this seems to be the wrong translation then.
THE PRESIDENT: I know that he had the opportunity... What is the German word?
MR. WOLF: The German word is "Gesehen", which means that "I saw".
THE PRESIDENT: All right.
MR. WOLF: He personally saw ....
THE PRESIDENT: Well, don't you think that word means: I see; I understood that he had; realized?
MR. WOLF: That is probable, your Honor, yes.
BY MR. WOLF:
Q Witness, all these perceptions which you stated in your affidavit of the 25th of February were known to you by tales on the part of your co-guards, with the exception of that one incident when you saw him yourself?
A Yes.
MR. WOLF: I have no further questions.
BY DR. BERGOLD: (Counsel for the defendant Klein)
Q Witness, you know me, don't you?
A Yes.
Q On the 19th of July, 1947, I interrogated you in Dachau?
A Yes.
Q Can you tell me again who was present?
A There was an American officer present, and a young lady.
QQuite correct. Did the American officer speak German?
A Yes.
Q Can you remember that at the beginning of the examination I showed you Affidavit No. 1, and I asked you to read it?
A Yes.
Q Can you also remember that I told you that I wanted to know the full truth from you; if my client Klein did something wrong, then he was to pay for it? Is that correct?
A Yes.
Q Can you remember I told you that three times?
A Yes.
Q Is it correct that at the end I asked you to read the affidavit which I had written?
A Yes.
Q Is it correct that I told you: "You can sign that absolutely freely...and it is up to you if you want to sign it or not?"
A Yes.
Q Is it correct that the American officer also asked you if you wanted to sign or not?
A Yes.
Q Thank you. Did I, at any time, point anything out to you; for instance, that the affidavit which you drew up with Mr. Wolf would be used against you in the denazification trial?
A No.
Q Did I, at any time, tell you that the SS would come back, and that the people who made statements against the Higher-SS leaders would be marked men? Did I ever tell you that?
A No.
Q I just told you I wanted the full truth?
A Yes.
Q Witness, is it correct that you told me, that in Wewelsbuerg you never found out that Herr Klein was a Sturmbannfuehrer, and that fact you only learned when Mr. Wolf told you?
A Yes.
Q Therefore, if, in your affidavit, you speak of Sturmbannfuehrer Klein, this knowledge of the title of Sturmbannfuehrer Klein is to be brought back to Mr. Wolf? Is that correct?
A Yes.
Q Therefore, you knew nothing whatsoever -- you didn't know what Mr. Klein's rank was?
A No.
Q Thank you.
At the end you stated that you convinced yourself that Sturmbannfuehrer Klein could have gone to the camp at any time. How, however, could you convince yourself of that fact if you did not know the rank of that Mr. Klein? You did not know whether he was an SS man or whether he received the permission to go into the camp.
A Well, I was told that Sturmbannfuehrer Klein "is at Wewelsbuerg."
Q What were you told: Sturmbannfuehrer Klein? Or what?
A No, I was told Herr Klein -- let me say Herr Klein. I did not know his rank at the time. I was told that Herr Klein was at Wewelsbuerg. As far as I know, he was to be in charge of reconstruction at Wewelsbuerg. Also, since inmates were being used for that construction work and that he had close contact with the camp because the guards also told us the things that Klein would come to the camp.
Q The guards said that Klein was coming there? Any Klein, or that-
A No; the man by the name of Klein who is up at the castle.