THE PRESIDENT: Very well. BY DR. HOFFMANN:
Q. You say, therefore, that you didn't find out anything about this particular part that Eichmann played, as he was in a secluded soot, as it were?
A. It was only known that he received immediately from the office chief, or from Himmler himself, as I said; apart from their small circle nobody of those employed on the office found out anything about that.
Q. I now return to your activity. You were then in charge of a department on this office, and what was the size of this department?
A. The department consisted besides myself of four people, one collaborator, one registrar, and two stenotypists.
Q. And what was your task in detail?
A. My task was to deal with reports which had been sent us by the Main Office about Partisan activity warfare, espionage, and to evaluate those reports, and to compile them clearly and concisely. Particular care had to be taken that the organization of the Partisan groups were to be recognized, their tactics had to be established, the means with which they work, and so forth, in order to inform the authorities in the East who had to deal with the actual Partisan warfare, and to show them the Partisan activity as it developed in the whole Eastern territory.
Q. Did you have to combine any executive power with this activity?
A. No, executive power in this respective activity I would say didn't exist. Furthermore, no directives where even prepared in this particular department. The directives could only be given through the ordinary channel of com and in existence, that was only by the office chief, and chief of the Security Police, or Himmler himself.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Hoffmann, was it his office which prepared the operational reports, his office?
DR. HOFFMANN: As the witness says, only those concerning Partisan activity, whereas reports concerning shootings, based on the Hitler order mentioned here, went to Eichmann who was in charge of the Jewish problems.
THE PRESIDENT: But the operational reports covered all activities. Activities against Partisans, activities against Jews, activity against saboteurs, everything.
DR. HOFFMANN: Perhaps the witness can comment on this again, very briefly and concisely.
A. Your Honor, those activity reports which were issued in the Reich Security Main Office are to be distinguished from those which bear the title "Reports from Soviet Russia". These reports, about two hundred copies, which also are here the subject of the charge were issued between June until the end of April 1942. These reports contained everything, partisan warfare as well as Jewish actions and all the activities talking place in the Eastern Occupies Territories and everything reported by Einsatzgruppen. These reports only appeared as top secret matters. In the spring, the basic change was brought; from this time on reports were not issued concerning the whole of Soviet Russia but new reports were called "Reports from Eastern Occupied Territories". Already the name shows that there was a basic difference in these reports, and these new reports which are also available here in the Document Center but which have not been introduced as evidence contain these reports from the Eastern Occupied Territories.
THE PRESIDENT: But who actually made up the reports in that office, the reports that have been introduced here in the Document Books?
A. The reports which have been submitted here as evidence by the Prosecution were issued by the Department 4-A-I. That is a sub-department of Office IV in the RSHA. The people concerned are known, the man in charge was Lindow, and his collaborators Dr. Knobloch and Fumy.
THE PRESIDENT: And who?
A. Fumy and Dr. Knobloch.
THE PRESIDENT: Then those three men are the ones who actually prepared the reports which we have here as evidence, Lindow, Knobloch, and Fumy?
A. That is correct.
COURT II CASE IX BY DR. HOFFMANN:
Q. Until when, witness?
A. These reports of events from USSR came to a stop at the end of April 1942. The last copies bear numbers about 194 or 196. The reports from the Eastern Occupied Territories which were issued after that, and only weekly, bear new numbers which begin with one.
THE PRESIDENT: Then, do I understand that the modus operendae was for these three men, either acting separately or collectively, to receive the reports from the field and then to combine them and issue them as reports from Berlin?
A. Yes, that is correct. BY DR. HOFFMANN:
Q. But, Herr Nosske, that was not your activity, was it?
A. I and nothing to do with reports that have been submitted here as evidence by the Prosecution. They and been concluded at a time when I had not joined the office yet.
Q. Do you know what the reason was for this new kind of reporting?
A. As my predecessor had told me, it was for the reason that the manner of reporting until then had been most unreliable, incorrect, and inaccurate. I myself personally learned from Fumy at a later into that these two people, Dr. Knoblech and Fumy, were so much overworked and had to work under such bad conditions that it can easily be explained why these such bad conditions that it can easily be explained why these reports were so inaccurate. Therefore, the evaluation of the reports later on was not only transferred to this one particular office but were distributed to a number of individual departments.
Q. Your Honor, I take the liberty to introduce as Document No. 1 for identification the organizational plan of the RSHA. This chart is in English on order to make it easier COURT II CASE IX for the Tribunal and there the position of the defendant himself becomes quite evident from this.
Would you now comment on this and tell the Tribunal what your own position was?
A. I was in Department 4-D-5 which is Office IV in the center. The chief was Mueller. Then there are Groups A, B, B-4, C and D. The next-to-the-last department was the group to which my own sub-department was attached, and the last one is 4-D-5, Eastern Partisan Organization.
Q. Did you carry out any other special activity in connection with reporting, for instance?
A. Yes, Since the evaluation of the reports was carried out by a number of sub-departments of other departments one special department had to compile the results, and that was done by the departments concerned sent a representative to attend an auditors meeting once a week to which they brought along their own parts of the reports and their own contributions which had been approved by their chiefs. They were proofread, Sometimes objections were made of factual or technical matters and then the parts were put on steal plates and then they were printed and distributed by the Main Office. I want to point out to you the departments which actually contributed to those reports and this general report. First is Office IV in the center under Group A, Department I Communism, Marxism. Then Dept II, antisabotage activity. Then in the group of the same office B, B-1, Division 3, foreign churches, the Greek orthodox Church. Group 4-B-4, for instance, did not take part in this. Then there was in Group 4-D the subdivision 4-D-3, foreign emigrants. My own sub-department 4-D-5 and Group IV-E, counter-espionage and V, Espionage East. The contributions of Office III in the domestic sphere were complied by Group III-B and were brought to the editing meeting by COURT II CASE IX a representative of the sub-office III-B-1. As for the individual sub-departments in Department III, I do not have to deal with them here because more or loss all of them had the opportunity to contribute, be it in the sphere of culture, economy, or the already mentioned field, public health.
Q. How, witness - -
A. Finally, Office VI, that is the next-to-the-last office in the Reich. There was Group C represented by Department II, Russia evaluation.
Q. Would you also be able to explain based on this chart where the reports about execution on the basis of the Hitler order went, for you are new speaking of Partisan and other matters?
A. Yes. What I am crying to explain new concerns reports as they were issued after April 1942 in the new reports from the Eastern Occupied Territories. The Jewish matters, however, - all matters concerning Jewish Operations went immediately from the office chief to Office 4-B-4 Eichmann which is immediately in the center of the chart.
Q. Did you have say liberties as the editor of such reports from the East?
A. I, of course, had to submit the compilations of the reports to the office chief first for his approval. He either approved or changed them. Sometimes he even asked for the original reports but apart from that I had no particular power.
Q. How, as to such reports in which you yourself had participated were they also submitted here?
A. They appear in the new reports form the Eastern Occupied Territories but not in those which are the subject of the indictment here.
DR. HOFFMANN: Your Honor, may I say that in order not to be boring I should like to ask you whether the witness made it quite clear what his position was because perhaps the complication of this chart and also the translation make it very difficult. He takes the responsibility for the reports from June 1942 but he points out emphatically that reports concerning shootings went to the man dealing with the Jewish problem, Eichmann, in the RSHA.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I am very glad you did present this chart because I think for the first time I have been able to get an overall clear picture of the RSHA activities. where?
DR. HOFFMANN: Who issued these reports?
A. They must have come from the East, either from the THE PRESIDENT: They came from the field? DR. HOFFMANN: Yes, certainly. THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Hoffmann, I still don't quite understand prior to the time that a change was made in the method of reporting how a report originating in the field and containing a number of subjects could go to any but one office in the RSHA. The report came on as one entity and it contained reference to Jews, Saboteurs and Partisans, and so on. It had to go to one office, it couldn't be divided up because it was all combined.
DR. HOFFMANN: That is quite correct, your Honor. Perhaps the witness can explain it.
A. During the time until April 1942 the reports from the Eastern Occupied Territories went as one entity, without being distributed to various offices, to this one office IV-A-1. Therefore, they did not have to be distributed.
COURT II CASE IX Later or a new scheme was started and we were told in what shape reports had to be issued. Then after this these reports consisted of separate parts. They were separate of subdivided and passed on to the various department and then it came about that for this particular part, Office IV-B-4, Eichmann, became competent.
Q. I still don't understand. Did they all appear on one shoot or were they separate?
A. They were separate.
Q. Therefore, the executions based on the Hitler order came on a separate shoot?
A. Yes, exactly. In the same way sabotage, economic subjects, domestic spheres - they again were not on the same shoot with Partisan Warfare, and again there was a new shoot.
Q. Witness, I was not in the RSHA. I ask you - -
A. Yes, I understand. The scheme of reporting caused the sub-dividing of the reports so that it was possible for us to distribute reports when they arrived in the Security Main Office.
Q. Do you mean a whole parcel of reports was received from one Einsatzgruppe in Berlin.
A. Yes.
Q. And there was one office - -
A. That was the Main Office who distributed the reports. They signed them and they marked them for these individual departments for which they were destined.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Hoffmann, this has nothing at all to do with reports but I am always curious to know just what a place in which activities took place looked like. Was the RSHA all in one building?
A. No, the main building was in Prinz Albrechtstrasse. Several groups of Office IV were housed there. In the COURT II CASE IX surrounding buildings in Wilhelmstrasse there were other offices of Office IV and Office III; apart from this, the offices of Office IV as well as other offices were distributed all over town, sometimes as far as 15 to 20 kilometers.
Q. Where was Eichmann?
A. Eichmann was in Kurfuerstenstrasse.
Q. What was the distance between his and your office?
A. From my office approximately 8 kilometers.
THE PRESIDENT: Did Heydrich have his office in the large building?
A. Yes, it was in the main building.
THE PRESIDENT: Did Himmler also have his office there?
A. No, not from the beginning of the War on. He had his field command post. BY DR. HOFFMANN:
Q. I think, witness, I have already asked you, how long did you work in IV-D-5.?
A. Until October 1942. of IV-D-3.
Q. What did IV-D-3 deal with?
A. IV-D-3 dealt with foreigners within the Reich. That was the circle of people who had migrated to Germany and were granted refuse in the Reich because of their political attitude in their own countries. There were two large groups, one group of Russian immigrants. That was the group of people who has gone to Western European countries after the Russian Revolution of 1917. The other group comprised the Rumanian group of immigrants. That was the part of the so-called Iron Guard, that was the National movement in Rumania, who had been indispute with the Chief of State Antonescu.
Q. What did your activities consist of? You said you were in charge of taking care of these people.
A. This office had the function of guidance. In fact it was the only office of the Reich Government to which they could turn in order to protect their own interests. These groups of refugees were mainly pro--German and, of course, on account of their knowledge of languages they already worked in a number of German Governmental offices. Therefore, they had to be investigated, and this was also done by this particular sub-department.
Q. Did anything unpleasant for you happen during this activity?
A. I had only been in this department for 20 days when the leader of the Iron Guard who was called Horia Shima, who with his close circle of so-called Captains, was housed in an SD recreation home in Bergenbrueck near Furstenwalde in the vicinity of Berlin. Horia Shima and his followers had given their word of honor not to be active politically in any way and not to leave the Reich territory. Shortly before Christmas - -
Q. Excuse me, Was Shima Rumanian?
A. Yes, he was a Rumanian citizen. He had the right of asylum in the Reich and was considered a guest of the Fuehrer.
Q. Who was in charge of the Romanian government at that time?
A. Antonescu.
Q. Why was Shima against Antonescu?
A. Antonosecu had himself been a follower of the Iron Guard but he had left it, and with the aid of the Army had made himself chief of State of Romania. Therefore, the position of the Iron Guard had become untenable.
MR. WALTON: May it please the Tribunal. This is extremely interesting. I don't think it has anything to do with the issue involved. If he lost his job in connection with this Horia Shima, of course, that would be relevant but to go into his connection with the Third Reich authorities is going a little too far afield. I would like this man to confine his answers a little more.
THE PRESIDENT: I think that is correct, Dr. Hoffmann. BY DR. HOFFMANN:
Q. You deviate, witness, please describe to us very briefly what happened concerning Horia Shima.
A. Horia Shima had leaf the country. As a result, foreign political complications had come about, riots in Roumania. The Reichfuehrer raged and ordered immediately that these people responsible for this should be punished. The man is charge of the SD Recreation Home, Untersturmfuehrer Hartung, was to be shot immediately because he had not reported about it immediately.
Q. What happened to you?
A. I was discharged temporarily and the office chief was afraid that the same thing would happen to me and my friends.
Q The whole think quited down, did it, or did it not? Therefore, regarding my own person, no further orders were issued.
THE PRESIDENT: When were you discharged?
THE WITNESS: That was after Christmas. BY DR. HOFFMANN:
Q. Witness-
THE PRESIDENT: After Christmas? Give us the time.
THE WITNESS: I am sorry, Christmas, 1942. BY DR. HOFFMANN:
Q. Witness, the President asked you when you were discharged. Was it actually a discharge, or were you just transferred?
A. I was just released from my office, I was not allowed to carry out my work. I was, as it were, without work.
Q. How long?
A. About ten weeks.
Q. What did you do after these ten weeks?
A. I used this opportunity to ask Office Chief IV to relieve me altogether from my duties, because I was no longer a valuable person to have. The Office Chief seamed to be agreeable to this, but he said that it was not up to him to decide on this. I never leaned anything further. Ten weeks later I had to deal with the job of the liaison officer with the Eastern Ministry as a deputy. I think he was ill, or anyway, he was not present In this activity I remained until July, until June, 1943.
Q. Did this activity last?
A. No, it was only a temporary activity, anyway. I was - that was the decision of the Office Chief - no longer to do any work in Office IV.
Q. What did you do after your work in the Eastern Ministry, what was your next assignment?
A. I was transferred to Dusseldorf as deputy of the inspector, or at least as assistant secretary of the inspector.
Q What, exactly, was your activity in Dusseldorf?
A. My assignment in the inspectorate consisted mainly of preparation of the organizational incorporation of the customs protection into the border Police of the Security Police and the transfer of the counterintelligence of the Wehrmacht into the the counter-intelligence of the Security Police.
Q How long did this activity of yours last?
Q What happened then? and a new one had not been appointed yet. The Chief of the State Police Office in Dusseldorf took over. Then he then took over the office of the inspectorate, I became the Chief of the State Police Office in Dusseldorf.
Q When was that?
Q Who was your chief? and SD, Senior Government Counsellor, Dr. Albert.
Q Did he remain your superior then, or did this change? inspector, that is in the time following this, that is one wear before the end of the war, were extended, of course, out the activity of an inspector was confined, in its territory which, in this case, was the Defense Area No. 6, to promotion, decoration, and to disciplinary and welfare matters. He was the deputy of Kaltenbrunner in this particular area. Dusseldorf?
Q Why only to the 20th of September, 1944?
date when Kaltenbrunner decided that I should be relieved of my office.
Q What was the reason for your being relieved from this office?
A There were a number of reasons. The main reason was the following: On the 11th or the 12th of September, 1944, I got a telephone call from the inspectorate that I should report for a conference the next day at eleven o'clock. I appeared, and there I met the State Police officers of Munster, the Senior Government Councillor, Landgraf and Government Councillor Hoffmann. A short while after that the inspector arrived and he said that he had seen the Higher SS and Police Leader and he had to pass on the following order to us: In the sector near the front all half-Jews, including their Aryan Spouse, had to be shot. Immediately places were to be found at which this measure could be carried out. The actions have to be carried out without anybody noticing them.
Q Witness, When was that?
Q Where was it?
Q Why was Dusseldorf near the front? invasion these sectors in the western frontier of the Reich had become from sectors, and in these front sectors the Higher SS and Police Leaders were made the plenipotentiaries by Himmler, and were, in effect, his deputies, and they could make all decisions.
Q What did you say when this order was made know to you? Who passed this order on to you, the Higher SS and Police Leader himself? who, at the same time, was a member of the staff of the Higher SS and Police Leader.
Q What was your reaction to this order? I did not think it could be carried out. I also made it clear that I could not carry out this order.
one of the other State chiefs remarked how it was that the Higher SS and Police Leader passed this order on to us. The answer to that was that the Higher SS and Police Leader has all executive power passed on to him by Himmler.
Q You made objections therefore, yes or no?
Q Were they of any use?
A No, there were of no avail. The inspector listened to our objections, but he said the order had been given and had to be carried out. First off all, anyway, the places themselves had to be found, and they had to be reported, and any discussion would be of no avail, and therefore we left the office.
Q What did you do when you returned from this discussion? to consider what I could do now in order to evade this order. First I did not arrive at any conclusion. If, indeed, it was a fact that the Higher SS and Police Leader really had all executive power of Himmler, and if really he had followed directives given to him by Himmler, then it was clear to me that there was no authority to whom I could apply in order to evade, in order to revoke this order. In this case even the RSHA would be of no use.
Q Did you, in spite of this, find a way out? phoned the competent departmental chief and asked him to come and see me - he was a Sturmbannfuehrer Brochorst - and I asked him about the situation concerning half-Jews and their spouses, how many people there were. He named the number. There were several thousand. His own opinion, however, was that perhaps they were not all present any more, that perhaps a number of them had evacuated the frontal zone with the rest of the population and had gone to the interior of the country, of the Reich. I asked him how we would get in touch with these people. He told we he had confidence men and this would be done your quickly.
But I had not informed him about the order yet. The next morning the State Police Officer of Cologne telephoned me and we discussed the order. He wanted my advice, but I could not give him any decision that I had made. On the same evening the inspector reminded us of the order and he asked us for the places that were to be chosen by use for this action. I replied again that this action, which had got the name "Vesuv", could not be carried out.
MR. WALTON: The defendant is being charged with his action as chief of an Einsatzkommando and again as chief of a commandano stab handling Einsatzgruppen matters. As to his subsequent employment after he left the RSHA I am sure the prosecution is not interested, and I don't believe that the Tribunal is. I believe that this immaterial to the issues in the case.
DR. HOFFMANN: Your Honor. may I comment on this and say that the Defendant Nosske has always been charged with membership in a criminal organization, and there are certain prerequisites according to which the defendant can be convicted of membership. Therefore, I attach particular value to this, without, however, of course giving directives to the Tribunal as to how to judge this particular case, but in any case the statement of the defendant will show that he himself left the RSHA because of this particular event, Therefore, it seems of importance to me to explain this event in all detail, especially as the story is very unusual, and, of course, it would have to be investigated in order to determine the credibility of the story, whether it is correct that the Higher SS and Police Leader ordered the murder of a number of thousands of people at the last minute and whether the defendant objected and was punished for that, Whether this is correct or not seems of great importance to me in judging the defendant.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Hoffmann, we ruled, not too long ago, that what defense counsel deems relevant is relevant to the trial so far as the Tribunal is concerned. We will allow you to discuss anything and everything with the exception of the social life of the penguins in the Antarctic zone, and in some instance we will allow that too, if you make a special request to discuss it.
The only limitation we make, Dr. Hoffmann, is that you do not go into too much detail on things which are not immediately mentioned in the indictment. Now, this is relevant, not only because you say so, but because it is part of the res gestae of the whole activity of the RSHA and indirectly an aftermath of the Einsatzgruppen. We only request that you endeavor to hod a tight rain on the witness and see that he does not gallop off into fields of unnecessary detail.
Q What did you do to prevent this order form bring carried out? fuehrer Mueller, and I informed him about the content of the order of the Higher SS and Police Leader, including the reason that was given to us, that this measure was necessary for the security of the frontal sector, and in case the country would be occupied by the enemy these people would have to be prevented from carrying our reprisal measures on the German population. I explained that this order could not be carried out, and I also said that the security was not regarded as endangered by myself.
Q Did you receive a reply to this?
A No, for the time being I did not. I was reminded again --
Q By whom?
A By the inspector, to report about the places. When, however, I did not report to him about the places, he turned to my executive officer, Colonel Preckeln behind my back - Preckeln, the name isand asked him to find the places. or what happened? type message was received from the office chief of office IV.
THE PRESIDENT: You said Saturday the 16th. Give up the month.
THE WITNESS: 16 September, 1944. The following teletype message was received. I remember the first sentence of this teletype message. It started "It is incomprehensible to me how ameasure of this kind can even be considered without the knowledge of the Higher SS and Police Leader was challenged, and it said that it only went into effect if contact with the oriental offices could no longer be maintained. BY DR. HOFFMANN:
THE PRESIDENT: Who sent this telegram?
THE WITNESS: Office Chief IV, Gruppenfuehrer Mueller, of the RSHA.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, did that then close the incident?
THE WITNESS: No.
THE PRESIDENT: Proceed.
THE WITNESS: Concerning the security, it said in the teletype message, further directives would be issued. I called my collaborators into my office and I told them of the order I had received a few days ago, and of the answer I had received from the RSHA; they should be prepared for further directives coming from Berlin. They were received in the night of Sunday, the 17th of September, 1944. They were to the effect that he make half-Jews able to work should join certain units of the Organization Todt, an auxiliary organization of the Army in this particular case, should, as I say, be assigned to this organization. The others should be accommodated with people of the same race in Mecklenburg and Brandenburg. BY DR. HOFFMANN:
" Did you actually experience the carrying out of this order when you were Chief of the State Police Office in Duesseldorf? ing Wednesday the directive was received that I was dismissed. been a reason that you were relieved from your office? took place in the sector Arnhem-Wesel. The inspector ordered me, after I had given him preliminary reports concerning the situation, to go to Wesel immediately with ten to fifteen people as reinforce ments.
I did that on Sunday afternoon, and we arrived just when these Allied landings took place. There were no German troops and there was no front. The enemy remained there, but he advanced at various points, and crossed the German-Dutch border, and I, myself, was forced to withdraw two guard units, staffed with four to five men.
Q Witness, did you do that?
Q Did the Higher SS & Police Leader object to this withdrawal? as disobedience.
Q What happened to you in September 1944? was received by the Chief of the Security Police, Kaltenbrunner, I would be relieved immediately from my office. The successor was on the way, and I would have to report to the personnel office.
THE PRESIDENT: When was that, please?
THE WITNESS: That was the 20th of September, 1944.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Hoffmann, in order that we may be certain that we understand this episode about the half-Jews, is it correct that the Higher SS and Police Leader, or rather the inspector in the witness' area, informed him that all Half-Jews had to be executed, half-Jews in the area and partners, that he protested, that eventually he contacted the RSHA department involved. He received a teletype message to the effect that it was incomprehensible that an order of this kind could be issued and much less executed without knowledge of the RSHA, that finally this order was in some way limited in its affect so that all able male Jews in that area were to be required to work in the that Organization, and all others were to be put into protective custody. Would you please correct that very brief summation of this episode?