By interrogation on the stand I induced Klein to describe to you impressively what Klein thought of Himmler. He considered him, whom he never got to know personally in connection with a crime, as an idealist who demanded loyalty, decency, bravery and similar virtues from the SSmen, as described by General Wolff.
On the occasion he met him he recognized him as a man who was susceptible to a frank and sincere word, who let himself be set to rights when the incorrectness of an opinion or of a plan was pointed out to him.
I request, your Honors, not to say that these are vague phrases of the defendant in which nobody can have faith. Please do not confound your subsequent knowledge with what the defendant could ascertain at that time. At the witness von Rouppert deposed, Klein, for example, learned in 1938 that Himmler stormed with indignation at the pogrom against the Jews in November 1938. Couldn't he believe such a man capable of good?
Your Honors, I know only too well that abroad one has no faith in the assertions of the Germans that they were not aware of the true character of Himmler. However, have you the right to share in good faith this general point of view after having learned from the witness von Rouppert here in this trial that the same Dr. Bresser who was a strict and inexorable opponent of the party, the same Dr. Bresser who was executed because of his antagonism, that this same Dr. Bresser took it for a ray of hope when Himmler, the allegedly notorious Himmler, was appointed in 1943 as German Minister of the Interior? That was shortly before the date when Bresser was arrested. It was at a time when Himmler had already enacted his terrible massacres of Jews.
It was at a time when he filled millions of people to concentration camps through the Gestapo. It was after the time when through the SD he had in the East, made the most horrible offerings of blood to the Moloch of a false idea. In spite of all this, such an obvious enemy of the party, such a courageous man as Dr. Bresser, who died for his fight against the party by the hands of the hangman, had faith in Himmler and hoped that Himmler would now carry out an elimination of all criminal elements from the party. This is a scene which could not be painted more horribly by any great poet, for instance Shakespeare, if he wanted to describe the misled confidence of a victim in his executioners. Who in the world has the right to stand up after this and impute in good faith and without any reasonable doubt, that everyone in Germany must have been able to recognize what type of man Himmler was? Who would do this, would indeed blindfold justice with the terrible bandage of being unwilling to know? No, what has to be conceded to the friend of the defendant as lack of knowledge, according to the testimony of the witness, must also be conceded to the defendant who had heard nothing of all these atrocities. He had much less opportunity to learn the truth than the opponent of the Third Reich, Dr. Bresser. For he was an SS-man, towards whom every anti-Fascist kept silence as a matter of course.
Therefore, I think I can state that I have proved that Klein by no means had the second required category of knowledge, namely that the organization of the SS was systematically used by its supreme leaders for the commitment of crimes, which are punishable according to Article VI of the Statute.
Even if, however, one should not share my opinion that I have already proved the lack of knowledge, attention must be paid to the fact that it would properly be the task of the Prosecution to produce evidence of such knowledge. It may claim that it can produce prima facie evidence. If, however, like in this case, such important facts have been proved concerning the Defendant's lack of knowledge, prima facie evidence can no longer be sufficient for the Prosecution, should justice make sure. Then it must prove positively and in detail the knowledge of the defendant. Any reasonable doubt that the Defendant, Horst Klein, had the knowledge as required by the IMT, must be weighed in his favor. He therefore must, as I herewith request, also be found not guilty with regard to count 4.
Before I close, your Honors, I should like briefly to sketch once more the character of the defendant. No personal misdeeds of his have been reported here. The statements of the witnesses, Wolff, Oldach, Stahl, Boeltzig and von Rouppert depict him as a man who is frank and honorable and who has a pronounced feeling for justice. He is a man whose heart bleeds for everyone who is persecuted and who had the wonderful courage to help those persecuted by interfering in person.
Read, I beg you, the statement of the witness Tusch, a priest, of the man whose highest authority sold his church to the SS and who as a Catholic clergyman really had no reason to speak well of an SS-man as such. He depicts Klein as a man who was always loyal and who cannot be charged with the arrogance of the Party, and the extravagances of the SS.
This man was not a blind follower of the Party. He joined the Party in his youth when he was certainly not mature enough to form correct political opinion.
He was at the age when optimism sways and when one is prepared to believe the best of anyone.
In peacetime his activity was of only short duration. In wartime, however, he could no longer leave the Party, although inwardly he had turned away from the Party and belonged whole-heartedly to the circle of opposition of which his father was the center and a number of whose members paid for their attitude with their lives, among them his own brother-in-law. He had to live to see his own sister put in a concentration camp, one of the same concentration camps with reference to which he is to be made responsible today. He fought for his sister and it has become evident from his own statement and that of his sister that he was suspected by the Party and the Gestapo just as much as his father.
It is indeed only by special circumstances that he himself was not ground between the milestones of the Gestapo. You have heard that he used every means to avoid being drafted into the Waffen-SS, that even in the early stages of the war he tried to resign from his offices generally by service in the armed forces because he felt increasingly ill at ease in the Party.
This man is therefore not the type that the Prosecution tries to depict him. He does belong to this category of men and I believe that he is not unworthy of acquittal.
THE PRESIDENT: That concludes the arguments of Defense Counsel. If there is nothing more today, the Tribunal will recess until nine-thirty Monday morning in Courtroom No. 1 Dr. Hoffmann?
DR. HOFFMANN: Your Honor, my colleague, Dr. Gawlik, and I, have been to Room 57 in order to get an appointment with out clients. However, that room is locked up and we are afraid now that without requesting once more the assistance of the President of this Tribunal, because of administrative difficulties we will be unable to talk to our clients.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I was assured by the Marshal's Office that the room would be open from one-thirty until four. Of course, it is only twelve-thirty.
DR. HOFFMANN: Yes, your Honor, but up to now it was the custom that beforehand an appointment would be made, and it is impossible for us to make this previous appointment. However, I assume that maybe the defendants will all be taken over to that room. It is quite possible.
DR. SEIDL: Your Honor, I believe that I can give some information in this instance. I was assured half an hour ago that all the defendants will be taken over this afternoon, and that it will not be necessary to make a special appointment with them.
THE PRESIDENT: Much ado about nothing. We will recess until Monday morning at nine-thirty in Courtroom No. 1.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal will recess until ninethirty Monday morning.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 22 September 1947, at 0930 hours).
Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America against Oswald Pohl, et al, defendants, sitting at Nuernberg, Germany, on 22 September 1947, 0930 hours, Judge Toms presiding.
THE MARSHAL: Take your seats, please.
The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal No. II. Military Tribunal No. II is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal. There will be order in the court.
THE PRESIDENT: Will the Marshal close the door of the courtroom, please. Close the doors.
The Tribunal is ready to hear the statements of the defendants as provided by the ordinance at this time.
DEFENDANT OSWALD POHL: Mr. President, Your Honors:
When with the end of the first World War the German people laid down its arms, it did so in the belief in the fourteen points of your President Wilson, and the hope for a just and reasonable peace.
But the peace which was dictated was the one against which President Wilson had so strongly warned. Germany was torn into two parts, and the right of self-administration of the peoples was violated in the most blatant manner, which made the cause for an everlasting conflict. Thus the dictate of Versailles sealed Germany's fate. This fate was suffered by every German more and more from year to year. The everincreasing misery caused passion and dissent. The community disintegrated into numerous parties which were fighting against each other. This situation forced every responsible German to adopt an attitude, this way or the other, and that applied to me, too. I joined the NSDAP. I considered that a group of force which seemed to be called to reunite the German people and, in correspondence with its social needs, to lead it towards a future which was worthwhile. That was the first time that I had to deal with political problems. In the foreground there stood for millions of Germans the worry for mere survival. The securing of that was, therefore, one of the primary demands of the NSDAP, and, in comparison to that, everything else had to move into the background.
This applied to the racial problem in general and the Jewish problem in particular. I faced both of them with indifference up to then. What I knew about it was not due to experience gathered by myself, but was gathered here and there. I examined such knowledge and extended it, through study, particularly on conceptions heard abroad, particularly those of America. I read Madison Grant and Houston Stoddard regarding the racial problem. I studied publications by Henry Ford, which appeared in 1924 to 1926 in his newspaper "The Dearborn Independent", and which appeared in book form with the title "The International Jew", and was widely read in Germany. This attitude of this great practical American, who was not anti-Semetic, impressed me particularly at that time and strengthened my belief that the racial and Jewish question was not mere theory. Based on this knowledge, and in view of the ever-increasing symptoms in Germany, I gained the conviction that the influence of Jewry was not properly related to the portion of the population and that, therefore, some realization had to be obtained. I considered such possible through proper and sufficient legislation. This exhausted my interest in the Jewish question. For that reason I never participated in measures of force against the Jews, nor approved of them, nor supported them knowingly. I was never in any way a participant in legislative measures. In the uproar of war I still refused the measures adopted by Himmler's and Hitler's orders regarding the destruction of the Jews, and neither deliberately demanded them nor supported them. As far as the extent of the extermination is concerned, I could not form a picture at that time. I did not receive reports because I was not a participant. Details only became known to me here in Nuernberg from documents. Up to the time when Himmler made his speech in Posen on the 4th of October 1943, I had no knowledge of the plan. Nor was I taken into confidence after this date. I had not participated in conferences about it, and I was not a member of the circle of those who took part. In peace time in such a situation I could have surrendered my office, but war deprived me of freedom of action and decision. The war had reached a dangerous climax.
It became a fight for survival of the German people. The last capable men and youngsters were at the front. Women and girls worked in the armament factories at home. In such a position, my resignation would have been treason against Germany. For that reason I, in my position, could not even so much as consider such a thought.
Here I am indicted as the chief of the WVHA. The organization of this office of the Reich, from its smallest stages and subject to the greatest difficulties, was my life's work. In those last ten years I devoted my entire strength and time to it. It is my work. My activity as the Administrative Chief was an administrative and economic one, not a military and not a police executive activity. The aim of this work was the maintenance of man and substance for the purposes of the struggle and the work - but not the destruction.
Before this Tribunal the structure and significance of the WVHA has been much discussed, without that aim having been achieved, much to my regret, that a picture was drawn which was correct in every part. A last cause for this lack of success is, no doubt, the chart which was hanging on the wall, and it was not suitable to supply proof pro or contra. Yes, it has my signature because I assumed that the chart was merely to show the Tribunal my field of activity in its most simple form, but not to serve the prosecution as a trial tactical means. The WVHA consisted of three heterogenous parts which had nothing to do with each other. First, the WVHA as ministerial level for all matters of the administration for troops, with the Office Groups A, B, and C, corresponding to the Army administrative department. Secondly, the economic enterprises which were under my personal supervision which, according to their legal basis, were not SS industries but industries of the Reich. They were contained in Group W. Third, the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps, which after the 3rd of March 1942 came under my personal, although temporary, supervision, the Staff Gluecks, which was Office Group D.
For practical reasons I gave the WVHA that external appearance which is customary for ministerial offices, without consideration whether that corresponded to the nature of its individual sections.
Thus, for the entirety of the economic enterprises I chose the fiscal description of Amtsgruppe or, for its chiefs, Amts chiefs, although these official designations are not customary in enterprises conducted on a business-like basis. When, in March 1942, I was given the task of directing the labor allocation of detainees on a ministerial level, I came into close contact with the system of concentration camps. For a long time it had the relentless face in every detail which it was given by its creator, Heydrich, and its organizer and drillmaster, Eicke, in the ten years of their activities. I faced a completely rigid organization. Only by removal of the entire personnel which had worked there for years and all its guards, and a radical reform of the state police methods, could it have been basically changed. The situation of the war, unfortunately, made that impossible.
As far as I was able, I fought against the taking over the direction of labor allocation because my time and my strength had been fully occupied through my proper and far-reaching tasks. My resistance was taken notice of by Himmler in as far as he limited my activities and responsibilities until the end of the war. However, the military events of the summer of 1944 caused him further to give an order as early as 16 July 1944, instructing that the concentration camps in the "A" case - that is, in the event of an approaching enemy - were to be handed over to the regional Higher SS and Police leaders. All evacuation measures and orders, which finally led to the conditions which were found by the armies of the Allies and which was ascertained by the commission of the United States Congress, originated, therefore, from Hitler, Himmler, or the Higher SS and Police leaders - and not from me. I had not given one single order to that effect. After 1942 there were one or two annual visits to the larger concentration camps where armament affairs took place. During these official duty journeys which usually lasted only for hours, but never longer than one day. I neither noticed atroci ties nor did I become a witness to exterminations.
The events in concentration camps, however, were soon overshadowed by the terror of death which came over the whole German nation. However, it neither gave pardon to the worker in the factories nor to the peaceful peasant in his field. The air war of the Allies had made the whole of Germany a battlefield. One town after the other collapsed under the hell of bombs, of phosphorous of the Allied air fleets under which hundreds of thousands of German children, mothers, and men died in the flames. Of the inhabitants of the town of Dresden, where refugees from the East who had fled from the Russians were crowded together in small territories, in one night 200,000 became victims of that horrible fate. These horrors and atrocities made it impossible for any living to think of the present and the surroundings and tie them up with the fate of the eight to ten millions of fathers and brothers who were fighting a terrible fight at the front. These were standing in the center, but not the 500,000 detainees in concentration camps. After distance and time have clarified all events and when passion has ceased and when hatred and revenge have stilled their hunger, then these many millions of decent Germans who have sacrificed their lives for their fatherland will not be denied their share of sympathy which today is being attributed to the victims of concentration camps, although a large number of them owe their fate not to political, racial, or religious characteristics but their criminal past.
In spite of the limitations of my tasks to the ministerial direction of labor allocation I used my free initiative and human considerations to make honest efforts to direct conditions in concentration camps into decent channels. My defense counsel has dealt with details of that. I do not regret these voluntary efforts, even today, even considering the deductions made by the prosecution regarding my participation. What I do regret, honestly, however, is that my efforts have been denied an appropriate success. And the reasons for that were no fault of mine, but they were, on the one side, the impossibility for me to supervise this entire organization from a ministerial leven in Berlin personally, and, on the other hand, they were due to the mess in the traffic and supply situation which was caused by the destructive air attacks of the Allies.
Wherever I met deficiencies I fought them energetically. This includes the initial formation and later refusal of the activities of the SS Judge Morgen when I realized that, in spite of the highest authority and the greatest support from highest sources, he did not succeed in introducing rapid and exemplary justice in the extermination of the pest of atrocities in the concentration camps. In his place, the institution of a special court was welcomed by me and thoroughly supported. Success of my efforts, and the fact that after 1942 an improvement was noted in concentration camps, has been confirmed by the evidence in this trial. I had no share whatsoever in the measures adopted by the Gestapo nor did the WVHA. At no time and in no case did I take steps to increase the number of detainees in the interest of labor allocation. Not one single prisoner was brought to a concentration camp by myself or a member of the WVHA. On the other hand, I and my collaborators in the W-Office opened the way to freedom to many a prisoner. Usually this was done against the opposition of the RSHA and in spite of the sabotage of camp commandants. This is a fact which cannot be overlooked even if it is nothing other than the symptom of an attitude. If that mere attitude had been adopted by the responsible men in the RSHA, Gestapo, and the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps before 1942, then concentration camps would never have become the hateful institutions which the world has condemned them to be, and the German people with it. Every expert on actual conditions in the years 1933 to 1945 will lack an explanation that the administrative center, the WVHA, is to be held responsible for the measures of the Gestapo and the organizers of that system, although the WVHA had only been given those tasks during the last two years of the war - the carrying out of which had been set in motion during ten years of independent activity on the part of the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps. As chief of the WVHA I was not only the designer, I was also its motor.
I alone led it. It was my place of work, where fate had put me, and which imposed upon me more burdens than honors. Therefore, particularly during the war, I only left this place of work for a few short hours of rest or on official directions. For that reason I used no deputy. The fellow defendants here were my subordinates. They were subject to my orders and had to carry them out. But I never gave one fellow defendant, or any other of my fellow workers, an order which would have meant the carrying out of a crime. My considerable spheres of activities forced me to burden my collaborators with a certain amount of responsibility within their individual spheres. This responsibility was not an independent or a genuine one. It came to an end with me and I adopted it towards the outside, as far as that organization is concerned. And that corresponds to the rules of the leadership principle. This does not mean infallibility. It is a principle that human beings are to be led to the achievement of the ends of the state. In the case of soldiers, complete obedience cannot be separated from this. I used to recognize this principle earlier because I believed that it would lead to a final state and to a final form of state subject to a gradual development, and that it was right and essential. I cannot, therefore, deny today that this was so, and I can, therefore, not construct individual responsibility for the individuals working under me. As far as my own entire responsibility is concerned, not even a Control Council law nor any human judge can make me free - and I do not want it, because I consider this to be a matter of conscience and of loyalty which I owe to these men.
I shall bear this responsibility also for the defendant Dr. Hohberg, as far as I called upon his services beyond the duties which he was bound to carry out due to his contract. My life, beyond one human life, took place in this sphere of a soldier. Orders and obedience, instruction and coercion, were its laws. There have been controversies between them and my thoughts and feelings, and sometimes also with my conscience. My life was never the function of a Party member, although I was a high SS leader and an old National Socialist.
It was devoted only to my country, which stood above the Party, and the freedom and welfare of which was a dream supported by my ideals. The picture of that life, even today, is known - and stands best - for everyone beyond any doubt. There was duty and there was work, for Germany. It was left to the hatred of the enemy to use unhesitated slander and lies against me. Against that I defend myself because even the worst punishment is better than lies about character. As a German in Germany I have worked according to German laws and for Germany. I did not consider these laws to be incorrect under international law. For that reason I cannot recognize my being sentenced on the basis of a law created ad hoc by the victor to whom I am exposed, defenseless, as a vanquished person - but I voluntarily confess to my deeds. Even when examining my conscience most thoroughly I am not conscious of having committed crimes. Every era and its events are more confounding and afflicting at the present than seen from a distance of years and decades, particularly if they are spent in such a fortunate country as yours, the fields of which have never been devastated by the horrible storms of two world wars. The greatest crime of all times has always been treason committed against one's own nation during war. For that reason those clever intellectuals, those political speculators, who have helped the regime into the saddle, first received honors and titles and then let it down - without conscience and character. They are the greatest criminals against Germany, and I will not be one of them. It was my aim to walk through my life on this earth in a decent and straightforward manner, and even today I still believe that everything I did I can justify before my conscience and my God. Whatever I did, I did in the holy will and the pure belief that I was serving my country and help it to victory in its struggle for survival. It is to that country I felt I owed unconditional faith, and I kept that faith toward my Germany. I shall not break that faith of mine to my unfortunate fatherland -- not even in death.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Frank.
DEFENDANT AUGUST FRANK: Your Honors: When I joined the SS in 1932 as a simple SS man, I did so in the hope that the National Socialist movement could save Germany from its political disintegration and lead it toward an era of economic well-being. At that time I had no idea that there would one day be a second world war in Germany and an extermination of the Jewish race. From the first day of my main professional employment, I was specializing in administrative work; and I had considerable influence regarding the creation of the SS troop administration, following the example of army administration. In this special sphere I did my duty, undeterred by political events, right up to the limits of my capabilities.
I considered it my task to work in the first small and young action troop of the later Waffen SS and to create an army administration which followed the best traditions of the German Army. I was interested in clarity and cleanliness and the exclusion of any type of bureaucracy. I was interested in training troop administrative officers who could meet those requirements. This is corroborated by my consequent actions which took me from the SS troops through the quartermaster's office of the Waffen SS to the administration of the German Army administrative offices. My work and all my thoughts were filled by this task to such an extent that politics moved altogether into the background. I regretted it much at the time that the WVHA of the SS, which to my view would have been nothing but the administrative offices of the SS, was in March 1942 connected by Himmler with the system of concentration camps by the use of the person of Pohl.
Matters appertaining to concentration camps, which really lay in a completely different sphere, remained a strange matter for this administrative department. The task of supplying concentration camps with funds brought me into the WVHA after the inclusion of the KL but didn't bring me into any closer contact with concentration camps. The question of supplying these funds, which was a task of Group A, cannot be considered as criminal but rather to the contrary, a restraint regarding the funds necessary for the maintenance of prisoners.
But even this allocation of funds was dispensed with when the war progressed. I never had through this task an insight into the conditions in the camps, however.
When in the autumn of 1942 in my capacity of senior group chief I was given the task of securing and surrendering the personal property taken from to prisoners or left behind by prisoners, which took place within the Action Reinhardt, the conflicts of conscience occasioned thereby caused me to leave my position in the WVHA at the very next opportunity which arose. I did succeed in doing so when I was nominated chief in the administration of the order police. This was not a promotion in rank such as the prosecution claims in its plea. That one year later I became the chief of the army administration was something which I couldn't even guess at the time.
Let me emphasize in this connection that my conflict of conscience was not connected with the fact that human beings were murdered, because that was not something of which I could be aware at the time; but that was due to the fact that measures were adopted by other authorities so that prisoners or their heirs were deprived of property and that I was now concerned with the dealings connected with this unpleasant affair. It is a fortunate circumstance that this collaboration of mine, so far as time and extent are concerned, was so negligible that it represented only a very minor portion of my entire activities in the WVHA and that, as far as I am concerned, it came to an end before Himmler's speech in Posen gave me an insight into the ghastly occurrences which Himmler together with Hitler had brought about and which were the exact opposite of the idealistic world philosophy preached by him to us.
The most convincing proof that I had nothing to do with my criminal events in concentration camps can be found by this High Tribunal in the fact that considering my high rank in the SS and in spite of repeated demands, by films, press and radio, not one of the tens of thousands of former prisoners called upon to do so in the present trial gave evidence against me; but the affidavits submitted by my counsel to this High Tribunal show that in the cases where I had an opportunity to decide whether the mad orders of the leaders should be carried out or opposed, I did the latter.
On one occasion the destruction ordered by Hitler of important goods was prevented by me; thus I saved those essential articles for the German people. Secondly, on my own initiative and without examining the question of authority, I made a quick decision and prevented the march ordered by Himmler of five thousand prisoners from the outside camps of Dachau to the Tyrol. Those five thousand unfortunate human beings, insufficiently clothed and fed, were ready to march across the snowed-in mountain ridge of the Alps. It would have been a death march with absolute certainty.
The question will arise of why I did not leave the SS after the speech at Posen. In that connection, I should like to say this. At the time of the speech of Posen and even later, until the end of the war, I was working in the police and in the army on a matter which did not represent any kind of violation of the laws of humanity and humane conduct of the war. Himmler in his speech at Posen unmistakably and cynically declared that he would exterminate anyone who was unfaithful even in thought. Every one of the Gruppen and Obergruppenfuehrer present knew that this was not just a figure of speech. It could not reasonably be expected of me that I would sacrifice my life and that of my family at a time when I was at a distance from all criminal events and at a time when my resignation would not have changed matters in the least. Both of the two cases which I have mentioned above proved that I was not discouraged nor passive and did not let matters take their course when I was confronted with an immoral and criminal event.
In no single case am I conscious of having committed a crime against humanity or a war crime.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Fanslau.
DEFENDANT HEINZ KARL FANSLAU: May it please your Honors: In July of 1931, at the time of the greatest economic chaos in Germany and of the greatest unemployment, I at the age of 22 joined the NSDAP and the SS. Up to that time I was completely outside any political activity. The NSDAP was the second strongest party in Germany. I, basing my opinion on the propaganda of the time, was convinced that this party would succeed in carrying Germany out of her economic chaos. As an idealist, full of belief, I became a National Socialist. The SS was an official party organization, an official party administration and organization exactly like the Reichsbanner, which was a party organization of the Socialist Party of Germany or the Rotfrontkaempferbund, which was a party organization of the Communist Party of Germany. At no time could I have realized or even suspected that the SS would become a criminal organization. As a matter of fact, in order to show that he had no criminal record, every member had to show an excerpt of his penal record and a police character reference before he was able to join the SS. None of my superiors ever ordered me to commit a punishable deed, nor did I demand that any of my subordinates commit any punishable deeds.
Unfortunately, crimes against humanity and crimes against the rights of humanity occurred. I cannot defend these crimes, nor do I wish to defend them here. However, there is a crime which so far has not been mentioned and which I should like to refer to now. Due to the fact that Himmler abused small groups and individual human beings and persons of the SS for his criminal aims and due to the fact that he gave the SS uniform to these people, he polluted the honor of the entire SS and the 300,000 fallen comrades of ours.
From 1938 on I was a member and an officer of the SS Special Task Group and later of the Waffen SS. In both divisions to which I was assigned to Western and Eastern Front duties, not one single case occurred where members of the division violated the Geneva Convention or the Hague Regulation of Land Warfare. As many of those members who participated in my courses at the administrative school testified, that in my final speeches I repeatedly admonished the young administrative officers to adhere to honor, chivalry, and self-discipline.
Those, indeed, are not motives which one recommends to members of a criminal organization as a guidance in their future life. In my activity as an administrative officer I never was able to see any criminal or punishable activities. Had I had the same activity in the army, the air force, or the navy administration, then I am quite sure that I would not be sitting here today as a defendant before this Tribunal. I have a clean conscience; and I trust in the sense of justice of this High Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Hans Loerner.
DEFENDANT HANS LOERNER: May it please your Honors: Duty and work have been my motto since my youth, for my entire life to come. After my difficult and fatiguing economic struggle, I believed that the National Socialist movement would give new hope to the German people and would help them to become united and to work and to earn their bread. That is the reason why I joined the Party and the SS and at the same time in the administrative service of the SS took over a field which a clean administration of the SS was my aim and task. I did not join in any political activity. Race persecution was far from me, and I never did enrich myself through the National Socialists.
Up to the establishment of the WVHA I had in my position no contact whatsoever with the concentration camps. As I was dealing with the open war budget of the SS in the spring of 1942 in the WVHA, I did not have the right nor the duty to deal with income and expenses in detail as those agencies dealt with them which handled these incomes and expenses. My activity gave me no insight whatsoever into the concentration camps, nor did it permit me to have any knowledge about the cruelties committed in the concentration camps. The letter signed by me and addressed to the Court of Audits concerning the concentration camp of Stutthof dealt only with the budgetary compensating of an amount spent between two Reich Treasuries. No human being could possibly consider this a punishable deed.
I never heard Himmler's speeches of Posen, Cracow, or Metz, nor did I read them. I had at my disposal no means of obtaining information which would have oriented me better than any other German citizen. I never had any way of realizing that human beings were being tortured to death and murdered in the concentration camps nor that they had to work under humiliating circumstances. The assertion of the prosecution also in their final speech that I had to know about the Reinhardt Action is incorrect, as can be seen from the introduction of evidence. Hauptsturmfuehrer Mellmer of Hauptabteilung A/II/3 was never subordinated to me.
I have seriously examined my conscience and I cannot find anything which makes me co-responsible for any guilt of the crimes which were committed.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Vogt.
DEFENDANT JOSEPH VOGT: Mr. President, your Honors: In his written, final plea my defense counsel defined his attitude regarding the counts of the indictment raised against me by the prosecution; and he has dealt with them in factual and legal respects, rebutting them exhaustively. The loyal conduct of this trial so far carried out by this Tribunal gives me the hope that the plea submitted by my defense counsel will find its appreciation by the Tribunal. I myself consider that I am free of any guilt, although the prosecution has tried again and again to charge me with the commission of war crime and crimes against humanity. Even at the end of the submission of evidence, which lasted for months, I can still not recognize under which counts of the indictment I was criminally responsible.
My membership in the WVHA on its own can hardly be considered a crime if you consider my professional activities carried out in that office where I acted as an accountant. The prosecution has tried repeatedly to undermine my credibility before this Tribunal. Even if appearances were against me now and then, I still believe that I always succeeded in completely clearing up these misunderstandings. I wish to declare today at the end of this trial before you, Mr. President, and you, your Honors, that I have spoken the pure truth with regard to my brief inclusion in the affairs of the Action Reinhardt into which I was caught up without being forewarned. With the knowledge which I have gained on the basis of the evidence during this trial, I have become aware of the fact that at that time I was misused by persons who did have knowledge of the criminal action and who used me as a willing tool. Please believe these words of mine and do justice to me.