A Yes, Of course, we had to use the transport supply trucks of the fighting units.
Q This transportation was usually taken place in the area which had been recently, or fairly recently evacuated by the Russian or Red Army, is it not that true?
A Yes, the Red Army was in all localities which we occupied.
Q And the Red Army had the habit, had it not, or destroying the bridges and wreching the roads as much as it could?
A In Russia it was not possible to destroy the roads because the roads were hardly in existence.
Q Now the roads you testified about just now were frequently hard to get over. Now whose job was it to see that these roads were kept in repair so that the vehicles could go over them?
A In the combat unit no road work could be done. Whenever we hit a bad road up at the front, then we would try to make a new road thirty or forty meters next to it. It is quite impossible to consider European conditions here, with regard to conditions prevailing in Russia.
Q All right. Suppose you got a river where there was a bridge, and the bridge was destroyed, whose job was it to repair that?
A That was the task of the combat engineer battalion.
Q And if there was no combat engineer battalion nearby then, who did it?
A It never happened in combat that such combat engineer unit was never at hand. There was a combat corps engineers in every division. Every division has its own engineer column, which is only to build bridges.
Q And you mean to say that in a short distance of eighty kilometers it never happened that a bridge went out when there were no engineer troops in the neighborhood?
A Well, then the combat unit could not be on the other side of the bridge if the bridge was destroyed, because combat units had to build a new bridge anyway in order to be able to pursue the foe.
Q Bridges were never damaged by floods, or heavy traffic on the road?
A I have said often, if destroyed bridges were concerned which the Russians had destroyed after their evacuation, then our troops just had to build another bridge in order to pursue the enemy.
Q And you say that the civilian population was never used to repair roads and bridges in Russia?
A I don't know of a single case where that happened.
Q You never heard of it being done in the area where Viking division was?
A That is a question which I can not possibly answer. It can happen with an individual vehicle that wants to pass through a field road, and there is a very small bridge out, and probably the individual vehicle had to construct its own bridge.
Q You never heard of a civilian population being used by the Organization Todt for that purpose?
A Well, these were construction battalions. However, the construction battalions were not used with the combat units. That was the task of the re-echelon occupational army, the occupational units. That was the task of the local military government attachment. With all of those things the combat units did not have time to occupy themselves with.
Q But you were aware of the Organization Todt was using civilians and Jews particularly for these purposes, were you not?
A I can not judge that. I have just stated it may have happened in a re-echelon area, just as well as it probably could happen also to an American Army. I can not imagine it to be different than it would be in any military forces in Europe.
Q Do you know whether these civilians received any compensation for this work?
A It is very difficult for me to answer this question.
DR. STAKELBERG: Dr. von Stakelberg for the defendant Fanslau. Your Honor, I object to this question. Apparently the Prosecution now commences to introduce completely new questions to deal with in its cross examination. The question of compensation of this civilian population which was used for construction work has not been touched upon on direct examination.
THE PRESIDENT: This is a completely different subject matter.
MR. FULKERSON: I withdraw the question. That is all, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Any further cross examination by any defense counsel? The Marshal my remove the witness.
(Witness excused)
DR. PRIBILLA: Dr. Pribilla for the defendant Tschentscher. Your Honor, may I please the Tribunal, I now would like to begin my presentation of evidence by calling the defendant Tschentscher to the witness stand.
DR. STAKELBERG: Dr. Stakelberg for the defendant Fanslau. Mr. President, as further counter-proof of evidence in the rebuttal of the Prosecution, I have offered a number of witnesses. The witnesses whom I need most of all have not arrived as yet. The witnesses who are present here in the court proceedings, and whom I have also mentioned are concerned primarily with the defendant Tschentscher. My colleague, Dr. Pribilla, will examine them first on direct examination and I shall ask them questions in connection with that examination. It is my request that my colleague Pribilla, may begin his defense now, and after my witnesses have arrived we can examine these witness at that time.
Court No. II, Case No. IV.
ERWIN TSCHENTSCHER, defendant, recalled as a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:
DIRECT EXAMINATION (Rebuttal) BY DR. PRIBILLA:
Q. Witness, when you appeared as a witness on your own behalf, you were put under oath. Now I want to point out to you that you are still under oath at this time. At what time were you a member of the SS-Division-Wiking?
A. I was a member of the Division-Wiking from the moment of its establishment, that was 1 December 1940, and I was a member of the Division until 31 December 1941. I actually left the Division in November 1941. At the end I was on leave, and I had to carry out another assignment.
Q. Therefore, from the 1 December 1940 until the end of November 1941, as it was 21 November 1941, practically speaking, what position did you occupy in the Division Wiking?
A. I was the company commander of the first company of the supply battalion, that was the food column.
Q. Do you know that two witnesses have alleged here that you had been the commander of the supply battalion, what do you say to that?
A. I can only confirm that Fanslau has stated before me. That according to the general custom in the German Wehrmacht, and also in the Waffen-SS, the commander of this battalion from the Divisional Administrative officer is the company commander of senior rank. I was first deputy, and I had been expressly sworn by him to that position.
Q. When the Division was about to be established, did you give any lectures at that time about the Jewish question, did you give any lectures there?
A. Yes, I did give orientation lectures. I gave factual lectures about the technical use of the supply units during combat operation.
This was a lecture which was directly connected with the training of the officers and the men. I gave this lecture in three parts. Then I also recall that on a special occasion I once addressed the entire battalion about the position of the SS-man, his attitude towards wife, his mother and his fiancee. Then in my company I only gave the so-called command training, about intelligence, about counter-intelligence questions, security, certain points of International Law with respect to the Red Cross, and the consequences of that, and then I would give them orientation about the ideological training, and here I used pamphlets of the high command of the Army which were prescribed for the entire Wehrmacht, and these were commentaries of the press which gave a certain general survey; they were printed and distributed, put on the bulletin board, and, perhaps, also read by the platoon leaders. I want to emphasize here, that special lectures about the Jewish question were not even discussed, and I certainly did not give any lectures on that myself, because the training period was so brief, which was available to us, that we had to limit ourselves to things which were of extreme importance for the troops.
Q. Why was the training period so brief? How long did it last?
A. On paper, the division was activated on 1 December 1940. That is to say, only some of the officers and noncommissioned officers were available at the time. The men, however, were assigned from the replacement units only toward the end of January and the month of February. However, even at the end of April we went to the basic training center, and here the military and technical training had to be completed within ten weeks.
Q. When you gave this orientation to your company, did you use your own thoughts there? Did you work out this material by yourself, or did you just repent what you had received in the pamphlets?
A. I just repeated the material that was contained in the pamphlets. If I can speak about my own mental work, then I discussed only the tactical used of the supply unit and the experiences which I had gained in the campaign in the West in 1940.
Q. Witness, you know that according to the chain of the witness Otto, and in part also of the Witness Sauer, even during the first days of the advance excesses are alleged to have occurred--and they were considerable excesses--toward Jews. Can you comment on that?
A. Things of that kind did not take place before my eyes, neither in my own unit nor in any other component of the army that was closely attached to us. I did not make any observations of that kind.
Q. Did your supply battalion, for example, occupy itself with the assembling of Jews and with having them deported?
A. No. A supply unit, if you are closely acquainted with it, is most unfit to carry out such actions. A combat unit, for example, does not constantly fight.
Sometimes there are days on which it rests absolutely or on which it is force to rest. However, food is supplied constantly, so that a supply unit actually does not have any spare time. Just to give you a short insight into what work had to be done by this supply unit, with a supply strength of about 25,000 men -because so-called corps units and emergency airfields were within our field-- every day 10,000 army loaves of bread were baked, and in the butcher company there was the capacity for killing 80 hogs or 40 steers, and sausage was made out of this meat.
Q. Excuse me. That was per day?
A. Yes, per day, and the food column every two to three days had to load and unload 80 to 120 tons of food with relatively little personnel, so that our personnel did not have any time to carry out any other acts.
I can recall here a somewhat strange suggestion which the divisional commander Steiner made at the time. Steiner was a real soldier, and he wanted that the supply battalion also should have some military training, that they should be not only bakers and butchers. On one occasion he made the suggestion to me that, for example, the baker company, which consisted of young, strong men, should be relieved of its work for two weeks and go into combat. I only laughed very briefly at the moment, and I said, "Yes, but please give me the 7th Company of the 2nd Regiment for that time so they can bake bread." Steiner saw that his plan was impossible and this settled the entire suggestion.
Q. In your companies, the baker company and the butcher company, were any Jews employed by these units during the advance?
A. Aside from the fact of whether they were Jews or not, the use of foreign elements, especially in food depots where food had to be handled and especially in areas where epidemics were so prevalent as is usually the case in Eastern Europe, was impossible.
Therefore, if any working detachments should have been formed from indigenous personnel there, only very small detachments could have been concerned here. Of course, occasionally, at certain places where combat operations had taken place a short time before, some small clearing up work had to be done, where rubble and debris had to be removed, and I know from my own experiences that on two occasions I saw two detachments of that kind with one of our units. However, I want to emphasize here that these were Russians prisoners of war. They were wearing military uniforms.
Q. You exclude the possibility that the baker company or the butcher company used Jews in work detachments?
A. This never existed as a normal condition. I want to say that it might have happened, that occasionally a small detachment was used by a local military government detachment or a mayor so that they could clean up the rubble and debris. However, a combat unit always can demand that such work be carried out through the civilian authorities, and among these civilians Jews may perhaps have been used to some extent. However, I have never recognized the principle that particularly Jews were selected for that purpose.
Q. However, they were not used in the baker and butcher platoon?
A. No, not in our baker and butcher services at all.
Q. During the time you spent at the front, did you see any mass executions of Jews, or did you hear anything about them, or did you yourself make any observations about them?
A. No. After we had passed through the area of Tarnopol, I heard by way of conversation that within the population of Poland which had been evacuated by the Russians riots had occurred.
I heard that this was the result of the murders which had been committed by the Russians when they killed Nationalist Poles, Ukrainians and National Germans who were hostages whom they had arrested before. These riots were allegedly directed against members of the Communist party, the party followers. I know only from hearsay after we had passed through the area of Tarnopol that among the people who had been murdered, who had been discovered in the so-called GPU building, there was also a number of German prisoners of war who had been murdered. They were members of the army, and some of them were members of the Luftwaffe. I further heard in this connection that the story was prevalent that a first sergeant had recognized members of his division among the dead and that he was sentenced to death by a military courtmartial of his division because he himself had tried to get justice.
Generally, I would like to say that when we passed through the cities -- after all, we only passed through them -- Lemberg, Tarnopol -- we saw that the population there was extremely excited. I made similar observations as Fanslau has described them, and I also know the big prison building. It was surrounded by a large crowd of people, and certain riots occurred, and the German military police were trying to keep the roads clear and to keep these people who were demonstrating in check. That is what I was able to observe for the few minutes that I passed by on that road. After all, we did not stop there. Otherwise, we were located in cities only very rarely. I know only of Shitomir, where components of our battalion were quartered, and all three units were located at Biala-Zierkew and at Novo Voskowsk, which was on the other side of the Dnieper River.
Q. Did you or one of your units have anything to do with the exhumation of the corpses from mass graves?
A. We certainly did not have anything to do with the exhumation of bodies. In the troop assembly units, where comrades who had died in battle were taken, we had so-called grave registration detachments, and I believe that such units also existed with the headquarters in the read echelons, and their task was to bury corpses and also carcasses of animals. May I please ask you to answer the question yourself, where in the world a food handling agency had to deal with the burying of corpses? After all, this would not be hygienic, in any case.
Q. I want to sum up your answer. With all the incidents which you observed, you and your company or your battalion had nothing to do. You had no contact with these things?
A. No.
Q. The witness Otto has described an incident here which is alleged to have taken place at a bridge at Zlotzow. Will you please comment on his description?
A. As far as I know, only the First Company was located here--which was the food office. The two other companies had already gone on ahead, as was frequently caused by the supply situation. I can still recall that I passed through Zlotzow with my company in the early morning hours, and in the city, which I can not remember anymore otherwise, there were fires burning at various places. That is the only thing which I cam still remember faintly. The city must have been evacuated by the enemy only a short time before. I can not remember a bridge there at all. It was not the case that we were advancing on our own, but we were preceding in an endless column which followed the leading divisions; we were reserve combat units and supply units of all the different divisions which followed their divisions which were engaged in combat further up ahead.
We were in the middle of that marching column.
When we left the city limits of Zlotzow, several hundred meters behind the castle which was to the left of the road, on the large square, the baker company was located, and it was already in operation when we passed by there, and it was already baking bread. Somewhat further up ahead--it may have been two or three villages further, as far as I can recall-the butcher company was quartered.
If a bridge had existed there, then this could only have been a very unimportant and small bridge. Above all, I can not recall the slightest incident anymore which could have anything to do with the happenings which the witness Otto has described here.
Q What do you say with regard to the allegation by Otto that you, Tschontscher, on that spot leading to the road, together with the defendant Fanslau, threw a Jew into the swamp?
A This claim is completely invented. Such an incident did not take place there, nor did it take place anywhere else.
Q What do you say with regard to the statement wherein the witness says that this was a swamp with a stone edge?
A I can't say anything with regard to that because I was not present when such an incident occurred. However, the description seems to be contrary to all experience and logic, because if the bridge of which the witness had given us a very detailed description was to have a width from the witness stand to the attorneys' bench here, that amounts to approximately three meters in length. Then, such a bridge must have been raised to a certain extent when it led over the swamp, so that the interval there which was bridged over could have amounted to only 1½-2 meters. What kind of a swamp could have been below such a miniature bridge is very unclear to me. My fantasy is not sufficient for me to imagine that.
Furthermore, a swamp does not have any steep edges. I can imagine a little brook with swampy edges where, perhaps, you can sink up to your knees, but it is contrary to all my experiences, and, above all, I can not imagine that in such a small swamp-and Otto himself did not see any larger one--where large numbers of people are standing around the edges, that one person can sink below that swamp in a very few minutes.
Q The witness Otto has further stated that the vehicles had been stopped one behind each other very close to the bridge, so that he stopped directly behind your vehicle.
Just what was the state of affairs here?
A This description which the witness Otto gave here is completely improbable to anybody who has any experience in the leadership of convoys and convoys in general. Above all, that the leading vehicle had stopped only two meters away from where the obstacle was. Aside from the fact that I have already stated that we were going along in a big marching column together with other units, if I had been alone at the head of the column, I would have stopped about 50 meters before we reached such an obstacle, because, after all, we had to count on the fact that such an obstacle could not be removed, and then I had to take the precaution and leave so much space that the vehicles could be turned around and a different route taken.
Aside from that, the order of march given by Otto does not correspond to the facts. If Otto had been in one of the leading vehicles--and now I am referring to the trucks--then he could only have been in tenth place.
Furthermore, at the time we had the experience, which was new and rather embarrassing to us, that the Russian air force had a rather unpleasant superiority toward us. Especially in those days I can recall that different bombers attacked us fourteen times in succession, and we were trying very much to observe the interval which was proscribed in case of air attacks--a distance of 20 to 30 meters between vehicles.
Q How far would Otto's vehicle have been behind yours? According to his description, it was the first truck. According to your knowledge of the facts, where would he have been in the column if such an obstacle had arisen?
AAs the tenth vehicle he would have been at best 200 or 300 meters away from the bridge, if such an obstacle had existed.
Q What was the order of march? Can you still recall it clearly?
A The marching order remained always the same. I believe Fanslau had described it to us before. He stated that I usually had two couries on motorcycles preceding me, and I followed with my vehicle. Two were behind me. Then came the vehicle of Hauptsturmfuehrer Schaefer, who was my deputy at the time, and then followed the deputies of the field treasury and the battalion medical officer, and then came two other officers' vehicles. Then followed the car with the machine gun, which was to be used for air attacks, and then came the vehicle which Otto described as the Signal truck, which was a vehicle which we used as a mobile office, and only then Otto's car, which could have been behind that.
Q Did you know the witness Otto? Can you still recall him?
A When I looked at him for a while here, he again returned to my memory. I know him, and I know that he was with my unit.
Q Was he in your company, or was he only a member of the battalion?
A I can't say that anymore with certainty. In any case, he was a member of the battalion. What he states may be correct--that later on he was transferred from the Third Company to the First Company.
Q Now I come back once more to the description which Otto gave here. Do you still recall that description?
AAbout the bridge?
Q Yes.
A Yes.
Q He told us that it amounted to three meters in width, and he also described how these Jewish people were driven down there and how they were maltreated so that they should repair the bridge. According to your technical knowledge, is this a probability that this description is correct?
A I don't have any great experience in the technique used in the construction of bridges. However, it does not seem right to my common sense that a bridge which is three meters in length-and let us assume that it was completely broken--that it should need more than 15 wooden planks to completely rebuild the bridge.
Even if we assume that the whole incident was true, then it still appears highly improbable to me that 30 Jewish workers should be made to carry 15 railway logs until they were completely exhausted. Also, the other personnel which was used in order to rebuild this extremely small bridge, where he mentioned ten officers, 30 guards--altogether 85 men. This appears so illogical to me-
JUDGE PHILLIPS: Dr. Pribilla, isn't your witness taking over the prerogative of his counsel in attempting to argue the truthfulness of Otto's testimony, when he says he does not know anything about what happened, he has no recollection of it at all. That is your province, not his, to argue the probability of the truth of Otto's testimony, not the witness'. Confine your questions, please, to what he knows about what took place there and not argue the case. We haven't got time for that.
Q Well, Witness, you are not to go into the technical details here of the Witness Otto's testimony, but here you are only to refer to your own knowledge. Do you know anything about what the witness has described here, or any similar incident?
A I can answer that very briefly. I know nothing in the least about anything the witness Otto has stated here. Something of that sort did not happen at Zclozow in my presence. I don't know anything about it.
Q Did you witness any execution of Jews or killing of Jews at Zclozow?
A No.
Q Was Sturmfuehrer Braunagl, to which the Witness Otto referred, was he at Zclozow with the unit?
A No, I know quite certainly that Braunagl was located to the west of Lublin in the village of Josefo. Here he had an accident with a motorcycle and broke his ankle and he was sent to the hospital in Lublin. I visited him there and this may have been on the 26th of June, 1941, and I only saw Braunagl again in September when his wounds had healed and he returned to the unit.
Q Consequently, the village which you mentioned where Braunagl had his accident was far away from Russia?
A Yes, it is very far away. It was in Poland west of Lublin.
Q Did you always drive behind the Butcher and Baker Companies as the Witness Otto has described it, or was the marching order different?
A Well, we had to consider the situation. When the two companies went on ahead so that they could begin their operations before we came there -- and this happened quite frequently -- then the first company and the food column would come behind by themselves. When we left together, then the second and the third company would follow behind the first company.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, your marching order changed, didn't it, according to the circumstances. If a vehicle broke down or got stuck in the mud, which was very bad, or if it was struck by aircraft fire, that would change the order of vehicles, wouldn't it? You were fighting a battle. You weren't on parade out through the Ukraine.
THE WITNESS: Your Honor, whenever a vehicle fell out, which could not be taken along immediately, then it just remained by the side of the road wherever it happened to incur the damage and then repair squads which followed the division, where technical units were, either repaired it wherever it was possible or a wrecker would take it back up to the next motor repair pool.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, that would change your order of march, wouldn't it?
THE WITNESS: The marching order was not affected by that at all.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, the place of the vehicle in the column was changed. It had to drop out.
THE WITNESS: The marching column became somewhat shorter as a result of that; whenever a vehicle dropped out, then we arrived at our destination without this vehicle.
THE PRESIDENT: All I am trying to indicate is that you couldn't keep the precise order of your vehicles nor of the marching column when you were subject to fire and in combat.
THE WITNESS: Yes, Your Honor, after all, we were not a combat unit, which would normally spread out whenever we contacted the enemy.
THE PRESIDENT: You were in a combat area. You were being fired upon, weren't you?
THE WITNESS: It may have happened, or perhaps it did happen that as the result of an air attack or a bomb hit the vehicle could not move on, and then the vehicle would remain on the side of the road and it would come back to the column later on. If there was such a change in our point, -- and we are referring here particularly to the head of the column -- I have never experienced it.
Q Witness, when you went on in Zclozow from the bridge to the citadel did you see any dead Jews? Answer with yes or no.
A No. Also, with regard to these statements, I cannot recall having made any particular observations. It has already been stated that at Zclozow a short time before, or a relatively short time before, combat operations were under way, and it may be quite possible that somewhere along the road some dead Jews may have been lying around. Under such circumstances, and if you consider the fact that Zclozow is supposed to have suffered severely during the combat, I can't recall that any more, however; if these dead people were lying around, it is not improbable either that amongst these dead there may have been some Jews. However, I can't recall that any more.
Q Can't you recall either whether Jews were lying there dead as a result of maltreatment?
A Well, if I am to answer that, then we must base ourselves on the fact that I saw maltreatment there and, after all, whenever a dead man is lying by the side of the road, you can't say exactly what his cause of death was, and it wasn't as if in a peaceful territory you see a dead person you stop your vehicle and you get out of your vehicle to look at him. After all, the convoy has to go on. I must answer your question in the negative here.
Q You didn't see the craters either, to which the Witness Otto has referred, that 30 or 40 corpses were in. Didn't you see anything of it?
A Of course, I saw innumerable bomb craters, but I did not see any under these circumstances which have been mentioned here and in the way in which Otto has described it. However, I do recall Zclozow for another reason and that is why this story means something to me. When I passed through the city very slowly I heard about the incidents which have been discussed here already about the shooting of the hostages, and when my column was advancing slowly I went up to the castle for a while and, as I have already described, this happened in the early morning hours. Up there I did not see any military police nor did I see anybody else but I saw four or five inhabitants of the city -- that is, as far as I can recall, but I am quite certain that this number was up there. There were quite a few older men and a few crying women who ran along the rows of corpses in the castle yard. They were trying to locate members of their family. The corpses must have been dead already for quite some time, because the smell of decay was very bad and I did not approach any closer, but after some moments had passed I then left there and then I continued my trip and I followed my column and a short time later I met the Baker Company which I have already mentioned.
Q This was the same incident where you did not make any other observations than you mentioned?
A Yes, that is correct.
Q Can you still recall a town by the name of Bogdanowka?
A I can't recall Bogdanowka, or any other similar name.
Q What do you say about the fact that according to the description of Otto you are alleged to have set fire personally to a synagogue?
A In my entire life neither there nor anywhere else in the world have I ever entered a synagogue. I have never seen one on the inside. I have never set fire to one nor have I ever given an order that a synagogue was to be put afire.
Nobody could have seen that, because it never happened.
Q Did you ever hear anything about the fact that Oberscharfuehrer Senn shot three Jews there?
A I must answer that in the negative already for the reason which I stated before. Neither there nor anywhere else did I hear anything about that.
Q What do you know about the death of Standartenfuehrer Weckerle? Is it correct that after his death an order was issued by the division administrative officer, according to which it was not punishable any more to kill Jews?
A No. I only know that Weckerle died in combat. I heard two different descriptions about his death and at the time it was discussed whether it was a Russian soldier with a German steel helmet on or without a German helmet and whether he had used some trick which was not authorized. However, the fact never was mentioned that he was murdered by Jews. This description I have heard only for the first time here. It was the custom in our Army and I presume probably it is the custom in any Army that when an outstanding member of the unit dies a so-called order of the day is issued, which recalls his life and things of that sort. That may have happened in the case of Weckerle. However, I can't even recall that any more. However, it is entirely impossible that the division administrative officer issued such order, and it is not true that an order of that sense was ever issued, according to which it was not punishable any more to kill Jews. After all, there is no logical connection with this, because Weckerle, according to the general rule, died during combat.
Q What do you say with regard to the statement of Otto, according to which Hauptsturmfuehrer Schenkel is alleged to have said that in a division order of the day it had been ordered that the supply battalion was to assemble Jews and to have them transported to ghettos.