Q And when the men in your Wiking Division went on leave, for example, when you were around Kovo Nikuro, back near Dnjepopetrowsk, that is where they would spend the night?
A Well, I spent the night there at least. I think I understand you correctly, that you ask if I spent the night, is that what you asked?
Q No, I mean -
A Excuse me, I see now you refer to the others?
Q Yes.
A The others? Now, they did not spend the night there. They hardly ever came to this outpost. I don't know through what channels and how they would go about having quarters for the night. First of all, there were very few furloughs given during this period, because of the fact that the Division was engaged in hard battles, and the direct way of going back was quite a different way. This way, Dnjepopetrowsk, in itself was a detour, which I used.
Q When did you go near Dnjepopetrowsk for the first time?
A Just at that period we were quite near Dnjepopetrowsk, a certain number of kilometers from Dnjepopetrowsk, but to Dnjepopetrowsk itself we only came for the first time on that occasion.
Q Now at the Stuetzpunkt there was, I assume, an officer of the Wiking Company in this outpost?
A This Stuetzpunkt was commanded by an officer, but I can not recall what was his name. You had to have a man there in order to administer these magazines, this stock of clothing.
Q And there was a definite liaison, of course, between this Stuetzpunkt and the supply service, were there not?
A No, there was only the occasional liaison. No constant liaison. There was no mail connection, no telegraph, and no railway connection either between the two.
Q What was the liaison? What was this occasional liaison?
A Well, when somebody like myself would go back once, then, of course he would know that he had to shelter me there, and provide quarters, and, if necessary also food there, and it was exactly the same if somebody came from home on furlough and wanted to join his Division again. Then when you came to Dnjepopetrowsk, perhaps you would find an outpost of the Wiking Division at that particular point. It was the same as here now. You have signs, road signs, where all units are marked.
Q Then there was a pretty constant concourse of people going between the outpost and the Division. The men who had come from the Division back to near Dnjepopetrowsk were people who were coming from the honeland going to the Division?
A No, just the contraty, as I said. It was only quite occasional, and rather rarely.
Q You knew that this outpost was there before you went back on this occasion?
A Yes, and that was the very reason why I went by Dnjepopetrowsk, because once we had a stock of clothing there, and my last official function was to see that the Division was to procure further clothing for the winter, and to have it sent there for the division. That is, before I would return to the Reich, I had to find out about this clothing reserve at Dnjepopetrowsk and what it amounted to, and what we would have to procure in addition, eventually, if necessary.
Q Now who kept order near Dnjepopetrowsk, did the Wiking Division?
A That was the duty of the Wehrmacht District Kommandantura, the Wehrmacht Standortkommandantur. Around the larger city were the commanders of the rear with the Security Staff I did not make a special investigation near Dnjepopetrowsk, I made no special investigation there, but I think it was the same there as anywhere else.
Q There was no evidence that there was any SD detachment around, any detachment of the Higher SS and Police Leader there?
A Noo I did not hear anything about any such thing, and I ask you to take into consideration the fact that I was there only for a very few hours, only during the evening of that day, and that is why I could not make any investigation there.
Q Well, did you ever hear any general conversation not necessarily while you were at the outpost, but while you were with your own outfit that there had been any particular massacre near Dnjepopetrowsk?
A No, at no time.
Q Now, I am going to hand you a document No. 2832, and I want you to turn to page 23 of the original, after you have identified it to the court, and give the date. Just identify this as Mr. Fanslau did the other documents yesterday?
A Well, only that one page?
Q Identify the document. Look on the first page?
A Well, this is a report on events, "Chief Security Police and SD." Dated 19 November 1941
Q That is enough of identification. Now, I shall ask you to turn to page 23 and read the passage that is marked there between the brackets; actually there is a part of a sentence on the next page, and read that too. Please read it slowly so that the translator can translate it?
A Well, it reads as follows, this paragraph, and is as follows: "Of about 100,000 Jews who originally were at Dnjepopetrowsk, about 70,000 had left before our division was marching up; of 30,000 remaining Jews, about 10,000 on 13 October 1941 were executed by detachment of the Higher SS and Police leader. Until date of report is dispatched, six further thousand of Jews had been shot by the Einsatzkommando, and it was unavoidable for reasons of the lack of skilled workers to exempt Jewish workers needed for special work, to let them alive for the time being."
Q That is sufficient. You never heard of any Jews being killed near Dnjepopetrowsk?
A No. Nor did I hear even that at Dnjepopetrowsk there had been so many Jews at all.
MR. FULKERSON: I have no further questions.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: Witness, do you know the witness Sauer who just recently testified on the stand here?
A Well, I recall him. I remember that he was with our battalion at that time, yes.
Q He testified that he was in the Butcher Company, and that you were his commanding officer for sometime?
A Yes, that may be correct.
Q He testified to the following in regard to your attitude towards the Jews: It is found on page 6566 of the record. The question was to him: "Q What were your instructions about the Jewish question?" His answer was: "A Well, for instance, that the Jews were a foreign body within the community of the German people, and the solution was that the Jews should disappear from Germany, either go to foreign countries, to permanently settle in other countries, or brought to concentration camps and places like that.
Q Who gave these lectures," was the next question. "A These lectures were given by Sturmbannfuehrer Tschentscher himself, in some cases, or by the company chief in other cases. Q How many times do you estimate that Tschentscher gave lectures to you. A In Dachau and Huberg altogether a total of five or six times, as far as I can remember."
What have you to say to that testimony?
Court No. II, Case No. IV
A. I have already testified yesterday that altogether I made only four to five lectures to the whole battalion, and that was in Dachau. Mainly it was a matter of the questions of assignment and of securing the supplies for the troops in combat.
I recall another topic which I mentioned also yesterday, and I have to re-iterate that I never made any particular speeches with regard to the Jewish question of of any content of agitation against the Jews. The question of a solution via the concentration camps was not discussed at all in amy circles at that time.
Q. So you deny his testimons as far as the Jewish question is concerned?
A. Yes, I do deny that.
Q. Did you ever have any trouble with this soldier?
A. I can't recall anything of the kind.
Q. Did you ever discipline him for anything?
A. I could not even discipline him because he belinged to another company.
Q. Then you didn't discipline him then. That is all I want to know.
A. No, I can't recall.
Q. Didn't he have a good record with your outfit, lost an arm in the war, was a good soldier?
A. Well, he lost the arm only later, Your Honor, but I can't tell you anything concerning the man otherwise. I don't know anything good about him, but I don't know anything against him. I only remember his face somehow.
Q. Do you know of any reason why he should come here under oath and testify against you as he has?
A. Your Honor, the only explanation I can find is that such an opinion--or should we say tendencies--were also brought to these people through other channels.
May I only point to the infamous agitation leaflet, "Der Sturmer". I think that man will have some difficulty in remembering where he got that knowledge and from whom he got these tendencies, and probably he identifies that today with the lectures which I gave.
Q. But you have no knowledge of any reason why this man should come here and testify from a personal feeling towards you as he has testified?
A. No, I can't imagine.
Q. Well, you heard his testimony in regard to what he saw when your battalion came into the town of Zlotzow?
A. Zlotzow, yes.
Q. About the Jews lying on the street, about Jews being driven from their homes and herded up near the citadel and forced to open this mass grave where the Ukrainians had been buried, and the beatings which the Jews received in the streets publicly then. Did you see any of that?
A. Well, I have to say **hatically "No" to that question.
Q. Well, you heard his testimony in regard to the Jews that were killed in the courtyard, where your office was located and where your car was stationed, and that the whole battalion knew about it, and that the execution was committed by a man under your command. Do you know anything about that?
A. You are referring, Your Honor, to Shitomir now, aren't you?
Q. Yes.
A. Well, it has already been established that I haven't even been at Shitomir and that at the time when this occurred I was sick and was out of town or I had already gone to Skwira. Anyhow, not the whole of the battalion was stationed there together.
Q. You know nothing of that instance?
A. Not the slightest shade.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: That is all.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
EXAMINATION
Q. Witness, I want to show you Exhibit 639, which you saw yesterday--this illustrated booklet that was published by the SS and printed by an SS controlled printshop. You say you never saw this before?
A. This leaflet--no, Your Honor.
Q. Well, did you ever see one like it?
A. No.
Q. It was published and distributed by the SS, of which you were a high ranking officer, but you never saw it?
A. Well, I ask Your Honor to take into consideration-
Q. I just asked you-
A. That during this period-
Q. Yes, go ahead.
A. --that during this period, after all, we were far in Russia and that for weeks and weeks, if not even for months, we would not receive a newspaper.
Q. I didn't ask you whether you saw it while you were in Russia. Did you ever see it?
A. Well, yesterday I testified that there were publications concerning brutalities which had been compiled in such a way that the descriptions of the executions and of the victims were given and also perhaps of captured criminals who committed the brutalities. I have seen that in connection with the Rundfunk Bromberg in 1939, and I recall having seen that as a book in Latvia, at the Riga station. There at the kiosk in the station these booklets were sold.
Q. I am not talking about reports of criminal executions. There is nothing in this pamphlet about criminals or executions. Did you ever see a book like this before, in Russia or in Germany or anywhere else?
A. No, Your Honor.
Q. Well, to whom were these booklets distributed, if not to the high ranking SS officers?
A. Well, I couldn't tell you that, Your Honor, but maybe they were sold in the newspaper kiosks.
Q. Well didn't you ever buy newspapers at the newspaper kiosks?
A. Yes, but not during that period, certainly not, Your Honor.
Q. What period?
A. Well, I assume, Your Honor, that this leaflet was issued in the autumn of 1941 perhaps.
Q. I don't know. There is no date on it. I assume that it is just one of a series that was issued throughout the war. There is no date on it.
A. Well, I couldn't tell you either, Your Honor. Anyhow, I don't know it.
Q. Did you regard the Dutch Jews in the same class of sub-humans as you did the Russians?
A. Your Honor, I did not have any categories for myself of these Jews at all. After all, I didn't know any Dutch Jews, at least not practically.
Q. Well, you didn't have to know them to hate them.
A. Your Honor, I think that I may claim for myself that during my whole life I never was a fanatic.
Q. Well, you were a high ranking officer in a fanatic society, weren't you?
A. Well, I think, Your Honor, that I may say that the fanaticism was not the decisive moment in our organization at all.
It is a fact that certain circles, of course, became fanatical, and that is very regretable and very bad.
Q. Well, I am looking now at an official publication of your whole circle, the whole SS. This magazine with the photographs in it was printed and distributed by the SS, not by any particular fanatical circle. What does this mean, in German: "Herausgeben: Der Reichsfuehrer--Hauptamt"?
A. Your Honor, yesterday I said that this was the SS Main Office, which was presided over by Obergruppenduehrer Berger. He was the Chief of that Main Office. Concerning the tasks and functions of this Main Office, and particularly during the war, I can not give you any information from my own knowledge. I never dealt with this Main Office. I don't know Berger personally. Apart from that, I don't know any higher officers in this Main Office either.
Q. Well, this magazine came right out from headquarters, right from the fountainhead of the SS, didn't it?
A. Your Honor, no, that is wrong. The headquarters-if I may term it that way--was the SS-Operational Main Office, (SS-Fuehrungs-Hauptamt).
Q. What does "Hauptamt" mean?
A. Well, I could hardly give you a right answer to this question, Your Honor.
Q. Well, translated literally, it means "high office" doesn't it? "Hauptamt".
A. Well, it was one of the twelve or thirteen main offices that we had, Your Honor, but according to my knowledge this Main Office had lost most of its importance during the war. I thought that the SS Main Office--and, Your Honor, please believe me that this is only my personal assumption-
I believed that this SS Main Office dealt with matters of the General SS during the war, but I don't know whether that is correct. That is a sort of hunch that I have.
THE PRESIDENT: I am going to ask the interpreters to take this original exhibit and to interpret the reading on one page. The page is not numbered, so I can't identify it by that, but it is the page with the picture of Stalin in the middle, Churchill, Roosevelt, and LaGuardia.
MR. ROBBINS: While it is being passed over, Your Honor, may I ask just one question of the witness?
BY MR. ROBBINS:
Q. Witness, do you remember that this magazine "Sub-Human" was published by the Nordland Publishing Company?
A. Well, according to the remark you see on the back of the page, it has to have been at least printed in that publishing house, but it is not edited there. You must make a distinction there between the printing and the actual publishing.
Q. Do you know that the Nordland Publishing Company is under W-VII of the WVHA?
A. I must admit frankly that at an earlier date I did know the Nordland-Verlag, but I had no idea that it was under the Office W-VII. I didn't know that.
Q. Well, you know that today, don't you?
A. Yes, now, of course.
Q. And you also know that it was under a W-Office, even before the WVHA was organized in March of 1942? You know that today?
A. Today I know that the Nordland-Verlag apparently already belonged to this office at a very early stage.
Q. And you heard the defendant Klein admit here on the witness stand that he was Prokurist in that Nordland-Publishing Company, did you not?
A. I must admit frankly that the remark may have been made, but I just can't think of anything like that just now.
Q. You know that Klein was a manager, a Prokurist, in the Nordland Publishing Company, don't you?
A. No. I heard something about it here when there was talk about it. I knew only that Klein was Chief of W-VIII.
THE PRESIDENT: Now, please read the translation of the printed matter on the page that I referred to.
THE INTERPRETER: It reads as fellows: "Sub-human will remain sub-human, and Jew will remain Jew, whether they are called Churchill, Roosevelt or LaGuardia. For us they are the scum of the earth. They back Stalin, the sub-human No. 1. They are his confederates and comrades."
THE PRESIDENT: Well, this organization that you belonged to spread that gospel, but you didn't know anything about it?
THE WETNESS: Excuse me, Your Honor. I didn't hear the English, and I didn't hear the German text either.
THE PRESIDENT: I'll show you the German text.
DR. PRIBILLA: Your Honor, we did not get the German text either.
THE INTERPRETER: Should we read the German text over the Microphone, Your Honor?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, good. The German text will be read now.
(Whereupon the German text was read aloud, in German, by the Interpreter.)
EXAMINATION BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. And this is the magazine that was published by the SS and rinted by one of the Amts in WVHA, and of this you know nothing, although you were a high officer in the SS and also an Amt Chief in WVHA.
A. Your Honor, it seems to me that this agitation leaflet, this slander leaflet, is only one edition and was not published regularly.
Q. How do you know that?
A. Well, I never saw such a leaflet in this form. If it had been published regularly, I probably would have had another one in my hands.
Q. Well, I call to your attention the fact that this is not a publication of Goebbels. It is not a propaganda pamphlet from the Propaganda Minister, but from the SS.
A. It seems to me that that is correct, Your Honor.
Q. You don't think it possible that you had a magazine like this when you were lecturing the SS men at Dachau?
A. Well, I again have to say emphatically "No," Your Honor.
Q. All right. I call your attention to the fact that this is not "Der Stuermer", which you describe as "filthy". This furnishes its own filth, but you never saw it?
A. I must say that this leaflet is not exactly nice. I would go as far as that.
Q. Well, that isn't going very far. You see, this sort of filth remains to haunt the people who put it but.
I have no other questions.
EXAMINATION BY JUDGE PHILLIPS:
Q. Witness, I failed to ask you about one other incident from the testimony of Sauer that I had marked in the record on Page 6575. Did you know Oberscharfuehrer Suerth, S-U-E-R-T-H?
A. I do know him, Your Honor.
Q. He was a member of your company, was he not?
A. No, he was a member of the Second Company, the bakers company.
Q. But in your battalion and in the battalion of the defendant Fanslau?
A. Yes, he was a member of the unit, the economic battalion. That is correct.
Q. And he was on the front and engaged in the fight in Eastern Curt 2 Case 4 Poland and Western Russia, was he hot, during the campaign of the summer of 1941?
A. Well, during this period he was around there, yes.
Q. Wasn't he engaged in the activity of the battalion during the summer of 1941 on the Polish front and the Ukrainian front?
A. According to my knowledge, yes he did.
Q. "Yes" is the answer then?
A. Yes.
Q. Well, the witness Sauer testifies that he saw a group of people around a barn near Shitomir during this engagement, and he walked over to the group of people he saw standing there, and that there was an open grave and two Jews were lying in the open grave, who had already been shot. Then he saw Suerth shoot four other Jews with a Tommy-gun, and they were put in the open grave with the other two.
Do you know anything of that incident?
A. I said already No, Your Honor. I never heard anything about it.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: All right. That is all.
THE PRESIDENT: I want to pass Exhibit 639 to the German Counsel, who may not have seen it. The defendants also may see it if they like.
EXAMINATION BY MR. FULKERSON:
Q. Witness, wwen did you say you were in Biala-Zierkew?
A. Biala-Zierkew? Well, just now I could not confirm exactly when, but as the witness Fanslau stated yesterday, it ought to have been about toward the 16th or 17th of July 1941.
Q. How long did you stay there?
A. I think that we stayed there a good week. Well, I would say eight to ten days at least.
Q. Did you ever hear while you were there of any of these mistreatments or executions of Jews?
A. No.
Q. And after you left there, you never heard that any such thing happened there later?
A. Well, later I had no more connection at all with this place. I never was there afterwards, I mean.
Q. Well, I am going to hand you Document 3151. Please identify it to the Court as you did the other one and give the date.
A. This again is a report on events by the Chief of the Security Police, dated 17 September 1941.
Q. All right, will you please turn to Page 17 and read the passage that is marked there in pencil? I think you can see the passage I mean.
A. "In Kuroskien---" I can't give the figure quite right. I think it is 160. "---160 persons were shot. In Biala-Zierkew, while the actions went on, another 68. At Karaschza, 109 persons; most of them were Jews, and they were excepted. That is in September."
Q. Would you mind reading the next sentence, please?
A. "The Special Commando -- Sonderkommando IV--" That is what I read. It is not quite clear. It is a bit blurred. "---thereby has liquidated 4,568 Bolshevists, Jews, and anti-social elements."
Q. But you never heard of any of these things at all?
A. Of these matters I din't hear either.
MR. FULKERSON: That is all.
THE PRESIDENT: Does Defense Counsel wish to examine further?
REDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. PRIBILLA:
Q. Witness, in your capacity as a company commander you gave lectures concerning military and tactical questions, and did you have to, at the same time, give ideological lectures, or even - were there any other lectures you had to give, or were there also other Commanders who had to speak of those questions, or was it all concentrated in your hands alone?
A. Well, normally these lecture were a matter for the Compay Commander only, in other words, the education of the soldier.
Q. Now, within the battalion or the division, wasn't there another institution which dealt more particularly with questions of ideology?
A. Yes. In the staff of the division there was an officer, I think he had been detached to the company by the Racial and Settlement Office, and dealt with ideological education of the soldier, but I cannot recall quite clearly whether the Viking Division at that time has such an educator, at least I couldn't assert it with certainty, and I didn't made his acquaintance personally.
Q. But anyhow this institution of an ideological education director existed in the division, didn't it, and it might be assumed that most of the ideological education rested with this person while the company commander had to deal more with tactical and military questions, is that correct?
A. Yes, that is correct.
Q. Witness, you testified that on the 22nd or 21 of November you were in Dnjepopetrowsk, and on the next day you flew back home?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you at any time before or after that day stay at Dnjepopetrowsk?
A. No, I didn't.
Q. When you wer at Zhitomir, that is when you arrived at Zhitomir, were you already sick or did you only fall ill at Zhitomir itself?
A. Well, I didn't feel very well when I was traveling to Zhitomir already, and the very monent I reached these new billets on the farm I went to bed, and then I stayed in bed during the whole period, and I was sick there as I already described it. I was treated by our battalion doctor.
Q. Is it correct that you were so sick that you couldn't travel on on your own, that you had to be tr reported in your bed.
A. Yes, that is correct, and the reason was there were only very primitive billets at Zhitomir, and that is the reason why I was transported to Skwira because there were excellent billets there.
Q. Therefore you can say with all certainty that at no time you used the billets of the bakery and slaughter company which was lodged in a barracks?
A. No, never, only from the description I knew there was such a billet in the barracks.
DR. PRIBILLA: Thank you. I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Are ther any questions by the Defense Counsel?
(** response.)
THE PRESIDENT: If not this witness may be excused from the witness stant.
(Witness excused.)
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Pribilla, the Tribunal does not wish to hear any further evidence in rebuttal of the testimony of the Witness Otto.
DR. PRIBILLA: Your Honor, may I, at a later stage, submit a few aff idavits of witnesses?
I have succeeded to get in touch with this Herr Schaefer who during all this period worked together with Tschentscher and whose car drove behind Tschentscher. Furthermore I have succeeded in contacting the Witness Stamminger, and that is the man of **** the Witness Otto said that Tschentscher tried to shoot a Jew but almost hit Stamminger.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, apparently you didn't understand me. The Tribunal does not wish to hear any further evidence, either from the witness stand or by affidavit in rebuttal of the testimony of the Witness Otto.
DR. PRIBILLA: Your Honor, may I ask whether this refers also to rebuttal against the testimony of the Witness Sauer, or whether it is only directed against the testimony of the Witness Otto?
THE PRESIDENT: Just as I said.
DR. VON STAKELBERG: Your Honor, I am very much afraid my colleague, Pribilla hasn't understood that quite correctly. The way I see it is that the Tribunal does not desire any rebuttal against the Witness Otto but does admit the testimony against the testimony of the Witness Sauer.
THE PRESIDENT: Exactly.
DR. PRIBILLA: Your Honor, now the situarion is that, of course, in the preparation of my examination of witnesses I have not made any difference between the rebuttal of the Witness Otto and rebuttal against the Witness Sauer.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, when you get to examining the witness you can make a distinction, when you ask the question. Have you another witness ready, Dr. Pribilla? Is Schaefer here?
DR. PRIBILLA: Well, your Honor, Herr Schaefer is in prison. yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Can we have him now as a witness?
DR. PRIBILLA: Well, your Honor, would it be possible that we hear this afternoon, rather after the recess perhaps, your Honor?
THE PRESIDENT: What about the Witness Mueller?
DR. PRIBILLA: The Witness Mueller is at the disposal of the Tribunal also, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: And what other testimony do you propose to offer?
DR. PRIBILLA: Only the Witness Stamminger for this occurrence where Tschentscher is said to have almost hit the Witness Stamminger.
THE PRESIDENT: And where is the Witness Stamminger, where is he?
DR. PRIBILLA: Well, he is near Nurnberg. Of course, we couldn't get him in here today, but we could get him for Tuesday morning.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, by all means have him here Tuesday morning. Have Stamminger here Tuesday morning. Mr. Robbins, do you have something to bring to the Court?
MR. ROBBINS: If the Tribunal please, if the Court has decided on the admissibility of the testimony of Gr. Goldstein, the Jew from Tarnapol, who was present in the courtroom yesterday, we are prepared to put him on the stand at this time.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will take the testimony of the Witness Goldstein.
MR. ROBBINS: I think it will take us about three or four minutes to get him up here.
THE PRESIDENT: Shall we take a recess now so that Dr. Pribilla can get Schaefer and you can get Goldstein, and then we can go ahead full speed, no stops, except for lunch.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal will recess for about fifteen minuter.
(A recess was taken)