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?
DR. HOFFMANN: I Agree, only about the protective custody. On that protective custody, I want to ask the witness again. BY DR. HOFFMANN:
Q Was it protective custody?
A No, they weren't arrested, but it was only an evacuation.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, the word that came through was that they were accommodated, and then came some geographical terminology which I was unable to catch, but I assume that in some way they were assembled and put into a restricted locality. You, please correct me if I am wrong on that interpretation.
THE WITNESS: No, the order was to the effect that the remaining ones should be accommodated with the people of the same race, or, in this case, half-Jews, and families in Mecklenburg - the two German provinces, that is in Mecklenburg and Brandenburg, in the interior of the Reich, they should be accommodated there as free people.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, Then after that you received a message that you were being relieved, is that correct?
THE WITNESS: First of all, relieved of my duties. Later on investigations were carried out, but I was actually dismissed from the service of the SD and the Security Police. Then there was a level investigation.
DR. HOFFMANN: May I say, Your Honor, in order to clarify this, a in Germany an official was first of all suspended if he was charged with anything. That means he is not allowed to enter his office and carry out his functions, but whether he is to be dismissed or not, that was established later on, based on investigations. First of all he was suspended, then proceedings were instituted against him for military disobedience, and this is also contained in his personal papers which are submitted by the prosecution.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Then we do understand that the witness describes his eventual release on September 20, 1944, to his uncooperative attitude in connection with the Half-Jew order?
THE WITNESS": Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I just wanted that clear. The Tribunal will be in recess for fifteen minutes.
(A recess was taken.)
( The hearing reconvened at 1125 hours.)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. HOFFMANN:
Q. Mr. Nosske, in order to clarify your dismissal from the SD, I want to ask you a few brief further questions. After you were suspended from office, was a procedure started against you?
A. Yes.
Q. Where did this procedure take place?
A. In the investigation office of the government counsel, police and SD, who had his office in Potsdam.
Q. Did the investigation office interrogate you?
A. Yes, the investigation officer senior government counsillor, Dr. Hussmann, personally interrogated me.
Q. Was your lack in willingness of cooperation in Duesseldorf and Wesel, the main reason for this, or the disobedience against the higher police and SS leader?
A. The most important reason was the refusal to obey the order, but I couldn't help noticing already in Wessel that the inspector looked for reasons in order to find further charges against me, for a procedure.
Q. And your cowardice when the enemy approached was the reason for this?
A. Yes, this and several other things were the reasons which made me be regarded as unsuitable to continue to be in the security police.
Q. Did you have to take off your uniform?
A. When I returned to Duesseldorf, a few days later, a teletype message came that I was dismissed from the security police and the SD. Instructions were given to the office that I hand in my service papers and that all articles belonging to the state which I had received from the SD, including the uniform I had to surrender, and I know that they had been taken from the equipment store of the SD.
Q. In your opinion you were actually dismissed from the security police and the SD.
A. Yes, I was actually dismissed from the security police and the SD.
Q. And for the rest of the war, what did you do?
A. I was with the frontal troops as a private. I had been dismissed from the security police and the SD and had been released for the army at the same time, and then tried with the districe commandor to be called up as soon as possible. Only during the second discussion did I hear that I was not to be drafted into the army but into the Waffen SS; since I had to be afraid that within the Waffen SS I might be under immediate orders from Himmler again, I objected to this and referred to my teletype message. Who officer told me that didn't matter at all where I was drafted to, probably they only needed people in the artillery in the Waffen SS.
Q. In any case, you were a private until the end of the war at the front?
A. Yes. At first I was sent to the reserve regiment Number 5 in Prague; and afterwards so the fourth reserve Army in Olmuetz, and in the middle of November, with 300 men of the reserve, I went to the front in Hungary.
THE PRESIDENT: I want to ask you whether you got into the Waffen-SS or the Wehrmacht.
THE WITNESS: Noo in the Waffen-SS. I was drafted into the WaffenSS. I came to the Seventh Battalion of the artillery regiment of the SS Division Death Head and was assigned to the advance observer and take part in the combat near Budapest, throughout Hungary and in Vienna and Lower Austria and was taken prisoner when we capitulated. BY DR. HOFFMANN: you were not drafed into the army but drafted into the Waffen-SS. is that not a reason to assume that you were not actually dismissed, but they only wanted to degrade you?
A No, this had nothing to do with it. I was drafted into the Waffen-SS together with members of free professions who never had had anything to do with the SS or the Security Police.
Q You mean to say this was the general manner of drafting? DR. HOFFMANN: Your Honor, I would like to discuss a number of documents concerning the activity of the defendant Nosske as Einsatzkommando leader and which have been submitted against him.
THE PRESIDENT: Do so. BY DR. HOFFMANN: page 54 of the German document book, Document 2841. I will give you this document. DR. HOFFMANN: Your Honor, the Tribunal will remember this is the Harvesting Action which the defendant Nosske has already mentioned once. is mentioned. I ask you now -
THE PRESIDENT: In my book it is ninety-four.
DR. HOFFMANN: Yes, ninety-four.
BY DR. HOFFMANN:
Q I will ask you about this document. Did you carry cut this execution? detachments of whom a chief was in charge of the harvesting affair. the Hitler order or for other reasons? sabotage which had been carried out there. He had come to this locality some time before. When he started the organizations he had taken the necessary measures and had then gone to other localities. A few days later it was reported to him that the harvesting action in Babtschinzy did not get on. He, therefore, returned to Babtschinzy and found there that it actually was so, and from statements from the people who were willing to work he heard the further connections. It was as it is mentioned in this report, and beyond that he told me that the people who did these things had posted guards to stop people from going into the fields, and machine parts which were needed in order to repair machines they took away and buried them. Strict measures were taken because of the emergency; notices of the army were published, and he carried out the investigations and found that there were come of them that were Jews who had only come to this area some time before quite recently, in fact, for the N.K.W.D, and he had then decided to short those persons.
Q But you only heard this?
A Yes. He reported this to me orally, and afterwards he gave me a written report which was about three times as long as the statement here.
Q How, witness, isn't it surprising that the saboteurs should have been only Jews? There were others there, too, weren't there?
A Yes, of course. I don't know whether the leader made his task that way because of the attitude among the population and the attitude which existed among the people because of the Fuehrer Order against the Jews.
also might have been carried out because of the Hitler Order?
A Yes. This might have played a part in the deliberations, but according to his statement I had the impression that he shot people who had been convicted by him.
DR. HOFFMANN: Your Honor, I now come to a new document, Document Book 3-D, page 72 of the English, the document NOKW-634. prisoners and the shooting of Russian soldiers. in this document. I remember this event insofar as it was reported, and at the time I had returned from the hospital to Nikolajew. I travelled to this territory in order to meet the commando, in particular in consideration of the report that several members of the commando had been lost and dispersed and had not found their way back to the commando. I found the c mmando in some villages where also Ethnic Germans had been evacuated. The incidents themselves I did not witness myself. They had happened days before, but I had the impression that it was as it is described here. This written report originates from the subcommando leader. I myself did not get the impression that any shootings had occurred. On the contrary, I met a battalion commander, Back, who had lost part of his costal battery because of these landings, and by his staff interrogations were carried out of a number of prisoners and parachutists who had been taken prisoners. One considered them to be of great importance in order to find out what aims the Soviet Russians had and what objective they were after. killed prisoners of war in violation of international law? The Prosecution says that this report says that eleven parachutists were made harmless and they conclude that this means they were killed:
the impression that these parachutists had been killed. It says here expressly they were finished off or they were taken prisoners. That means that prisoners was shot who had thrown a hand grenade. All the others were prisoners, and it is said at another place that they were handed over to the army as prisoners. Rendering harmless in in this connection, as we mean it, never means killing. It does not mean killing.
THE PRESIDENT: Do I understand, witness, that you say that that phrase never means killing?
THE WITNESS: No. In this connection. The way it is put makes it quite clear that it cannot mean killing because it says here expressly what happened to the prisoners. It does explain that the prisoners were handed over to the army. Apsry from that only a few were taken by the commando and the others were taken prisoners by the army themselves.
THE PRESIDENT: But you are only offering that interpretation insofar as this particular document is concerned?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: What was meant by the phrase. "Apart from these parachutists which Kommando 12 took care if"? What do you mean by the phrase, "took care of" have?
THE WITNESS: Apart from these taken care of or made prisoner by Kommando 12. I presume you refer to this paragraph?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, that is right.
THE WITNESS: There it says in the German text, "Apart from these parachutists taken care of by the Kommando 12 themselves" or taken prisoner by them. "Taken care of" here means they were killed, That is only one man who throw the hand grenade, and it says here expressly the others were taken prisoner.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we have it in the English that it must have been mere than one because the plural form is used of the word "parachutist". It says, "Apart from these parachutists" which would mean more than one.
THE WITNESS: This sentence has been put very badly because they referred two verbs to several persons. It would have been easier to say, "Apart from the one killed and the others who were taken prisoner." According to the German sense, it is understood this way.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, it certainly isn't understood that way in English.
THE WITNESS: Well, I don't know English well enough to judge this. For us there cannot be any doubt that the difference is made here between "taken care of" and taken prisoner", and if we say ourselves that "apart from these people taken care of", we should have to say, "apart from the person taken care of and the prisoners". In the one case it is singles and in the other case it is plural, and that is what the German language does not clearly express.
THE PRESIDENT: If you tell us, witness, that "to take care of" means to kill, then the entire clause. "Apart from these parachutist which Kommando 12 took care of", you can only conclude that Kommando 12 killed more than one parachutists. German text and give us how direct interpretation now from the German text.
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Would you please do that? Do you have that, Miss Juelich? The German?
The Witness: In the following sentence, too, to a certain extent, it is mentioned again what Kommando 12 did because there it is mentioned that the army, too seized parachutists who had been taken prisoners. In this connection, too, the work "prisoner" is again "taken prisoner", and afterwards the conclusion is drawn that this figure was taken care of. That means they were made harmless and they could not take part in further combat.
Apart from that I already said that a number of parachutists -- I meant when they were being interrogated by the staff. Of course, I cannot say that there were just these persons because I did not see the previous ones, but I certainly would have hoard of it if any shootings had taken place. And importance was attached to the fact that these persons were kept alive because of the information onecould get from them.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, let us go back now to the sentence which aroused the original query as to the phrase, "these parachutists". and then indicate that you will give us the translation?
THE INTERPRETER: "Apart from these parachutists" in plural.
MR. WALTON: I offer a suggestion that the photostatic copy be submitted to the translator so that there will be no doubt.
THE PRESIDENT: That is a very good suggestion. Do you have it there?
MR. WALTON: It is in the archives of the court now, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you have it with you, Mr. Knapp?
MR. KNAPP: No, I don't have it, Judge.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, suppose we now read it as it appears in the German mimeograph production, and then later on we can compare it with the photostat, in order to save time.
THE INTERPRETER: I will read it as it is. "Apart from these parachutists which Kommando 12 took care of, respectively took prisoner and which were transferred to the Wehrmacht, the Kommando participated in the seizure of four more parachutists, taken during 22 September during the commual combing of the area north of Neu-Annental."
THE PRESIDENT: I now address myself to the interpreter and ask whether the translation which she has given agrees with the translation as it appears in the document before the Court?
THE INTERPRETER: Yes, it is quite correct.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.