I also offer the next affidavit in the Document book page 51. That is Fendler Document No. 15, an affidavit by Elizabeth Custodius. I offer it as Fendler Exhibit No. 15. I also refer to the contents and, finally, I offer the next affidavit, page 55 of the document book by the witness Bernhard, Document No. 16 Exhibit No 17. I refer to the contents as well
Q. How long were you in Office VI, Herr Fendler?
A. Until the collapse, May 1945.
Q. While you were working in the SD did you ever have to fulfill missions or did you have to carry out acts which violate the internationally recognized rules of warfare or which might be considered inhumane?
A. No.
Q. Was your membership in the SD after the war broke out -voluntary?
A. No, I had been deferred for service in the SD; that is, at the beginning of the war I had received a note. In my pay book a note was contained that in case of war I was to serve in the SD. Not obeying this order would have been punishable by court martial; I beg your pardon, military law.
THE PRESIDENT: That is one time where court martial is correct. I think that is the first time it was used correctly and now you don't want to keep it.
A. Because at this service I could not leave this job voluntarily as has been described reportedly; your application to be released to the fighting forces was subject to punishment.
DR. FRITZ: Your Honors, the personnel file of the defendant Fendler in the Document Book III-C -- that is Document NO 4958, page 56 of the English, page 92 of the German text, Prosecution Exhibit 143 -- this persnnel file shows on the first page of the original some incorrectness concerning dates.
Inasfar as these inconsistencies are of importance here, I would like to address a few questions to the defendant Fendler.
Q. In the German Document Book the date of joining the SS is given 15 April 1947. In the English text they give 15 April 1933. In the photostatic copy of your personal file I cannot see any such entry. In your own affidavit, which is in Document Book III-C, Document NO-4144, Exhibit 142 of the prosecution, page 55 of the English text, page 89 to 90 of the German text, there it says on page 1 of the original under figure 2 -- and I quote: "In the year 1933 I joined the SS."
What is the truth of the matter concerning your entry in the SS?
A. May I correct the figure of a year here which was just given incorrectly? It says in the document book in German here not 1947 but 1937. In the year 1933, in the Forst/Niederlausitz I applied to be allowed to join the General SS. In the fall of 1933 I was tranferred into the SS Reserve as a candidate in Breslau because I had resumed my studies there in the meantime. As I have already mentioned, from 1934 until 1935 I served as a soldier. When I was released from the army I heard that my application for admission in the General SS had become obsolete because I had not done any service since 1933. I, therefore, was never a member of the Allgemeine SS, only when admitted into the SS formation called the SD in the Spring of 1936 I was admitted into the SS. The date of admission, therefore, is wrong both in the English and German; in the German document books and in my own affidavit it is missing and I want to add here that in 1944 I joined as a canidate.
MR. HORLICK HOCHWALD: If the Tribunal please, inasmuch as the date can be ascertained only from the exhibit, neither from the German nor from the English mimeographed copy, I would respectfully request that the Tribunal advise the secretary-general to bring the exhibit into the courtroom after the recess.
THE PRESIDENT: The secretary-general is so informed.
Q. Concerning your promotion to SS Sturmbannfuehrer in the German document book, this is not mentioned at all. In the English document Book this promotion is mentioned as 9 November 1944. In the photostatic copy of your personal file I also cannot find any such entry. I, therefore, ask you when were you promoted to SS Sturmbannfuehrer?
A. On 13 January 1945.
Q. Why did you apply in the year 1933 for admittance in the SS? A. At the time I was 20 years old and I had no political experience. I shared the hope of many Germans that the German people would be led towards better times and as a young person I decided to join this movement, being an idealist. Therefore, like many of my other sport comrades in those days, I had applied for admittance in this affiliation of the Party.
Q. Your were a member of the NSDAP since 1937?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you ever hold any office in the Party?
A. No, I was only a nominal Party member.
DR. FRITZ: Your Honors, I have finished my direct examination of the defendant Fendler.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will be in recess until one-fortyfive.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 1345 hours.)
(The hearing reconvened at 1345 hours, 13 December 1947.
DR. KRAUSE (DEPUTIZING FOR DR. RIEDIGER FOR THE DEFENDANT HAENSCH): witness Fendler concerning the fact that the witness belonged to the same Sonder-kommando, which later on, that is, in the year 1942, was under the command of Haensch for a time.
THE PRESIDENT: Please do. BY DR. KRAUSE (DEPUTIZING FOR DR. RIEDINGER FOR THE DEFENDANT HAENSCH):
Q. Witness, I understood you to say tat you belonged to the kommando right from the beginning of the Eastern campaign.
A. Yes, that is right.
Q. And you went with the kommando as far as Poltawa, is that right?
A. Yes, that is right.
Q. When the kommando advanced, did they also pass the places, Shitomir, Rowno, and Vinnitsa?
A. The Kommando 4B, while advancing in the time while I was with the kommando, only passed across Vinnitsa.
Q. When was this? If you do not know the exact time, please tell me approximately.
A. It must have been about the last week of July when the kommando arrived there.
Q. Did the kommando stay there?
A. Yes.
Q. And can you tell us approximately how long they stayed there?
A. As far as I remember -- the Reports of Events could not help me to reconstruct this -- it must have been the matter of eight to ten days.
Q. Do you know whether detachments of the kommando while advancing further stayed behind in Vinnitsa or in the vicinity of Vinnitsa?
A. No, certainly not. I know that the entire Sonderkommando 4B left Vinnitsa.
Q. Did Sonderkommando 4B while advancing to Poltawa, as you told us, did they always stay together?
A. How do you mean that, did they always stay together?
Q. At no stage of the advance were any detachments of the kommando left behind at any localities.
A. No, I do not know of that.
Q. At a later time, when they advanced further, were parts left behind in the rear Army territory?
A. No, I do not know that.
Q. In Vinnitsa or the vicinity of Vinnitsa, did the kommando have any connections with that town at a later time?
MR. HORLICH-HOCHWALD: If the Tribunal please, it would be necessary to specify this question a little bit more as to the time. I do think it is clear that the witness can only testify as to the time he was there and if he has information other than at the time he was there, he may state how he got it.
DR. KRAUSE: A moment please. The translation did not come through.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, what Mr. Hochwald has said is that you should indicate the period of time that you are asking about.
DR. KRAUSE: It always only the period until October 1941; that is about the time when the witness was with the Kommando SK-4B. I am not asking him about any other period.
THE WITNESS: Until the 2d of Oct. 1941, that is the day when I left the kommando in Poltawa.
Q. (By Dr. Krause) Yes, of course. The question was whether the kommando during your time, that is up to 2 October 1941, during their further advance, kept in contact with locations left in the meantime, Vinnitsa in particular.
A. I only remember that from Poltawa, which you just mentioned, an officer once travelled back to Kirowograd in order to talk to a confidential agent there with whom he had worked for a long time, in order to contact this man. A certain personal relationship had developed and that is the only case I remember. I cannot say anything concerning Vinnitsa.
Q. Thank you. Now a final question to you: Can you tell us to whom the tasks of the kommando were handed over as soon as the kommando left a certain garrison and went further cast?
A. Well, I cannot make a general statement about this. As I already said in my direct examination, the only person who had full command over the kommando was the kommando leader himself. Of course, it could occur that when the kommando was being transferred from one locality to another the kommando leader travelled in advance and that he gave a mission to one of the other officers to be in charge of the kommando while on route from one locality to another. That happened.
Q. The question which I put to you was this: If the entire kommando moved from one location, say, Vinnitsa, and if no one remained behind form the kommando there, who took over the tasks which the kommando had dealt with until then, in the location Vinnitsa which had been left, the security tasks in particular?
A. Vinnitsa is a special case. On the whole it was like this: When the kommando moved, no new forces followed who took over the tasks. If I may say so, a vacuum remained for the work, that is, during the time of my advance. This was general experience which I had in the assignment, there were two exceptions: One concerns Lemberg where Kommando 5, as has already been said, and Kommando 6 moved in after us. When they had moved in, we left Lemberg again and the second case is Vinnitsa.
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel, is this what you want?
DR. KRAUSE: Yes.
A. (Continued) The second case in Vinnitsa. Sonderkommando 4B was relieved by Einsatzkommando 6 in Vinnitsa.
Q. Thank you.
A. Or say I just add that I don't know whether it was the entire Einsatzkommando or whether it was only a detachment of 6. I don't know.
Q. A final question. Do you know whether, in the locations which you left, very soon commanders of the Security Police and the SD followed, or how much time elapsed before these commanders arrived there?
A. I cannot say anything about this from my own experience.
DR. KRAUSE: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any other defense counsel desire to crossexamine the witness? If not, Mr. Hochwald will proceed with the crossexamination for the prosecution.
MR. HORLICH-HOCHWALD: If Your Honors, please, before I start with the cross-examination, I would like to present to the Tribunal and to Dr. Fritz the photostat of the document which was in question this morning, the personal file of Fendler.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
MR. HORLICH-HOCHWALD: I shall ask Dr. Fritz to look through the magnifying class and tell the Tribunal whether he can read the entry.
DR. FRITZ (ATTORNEY FOR THE DEFENDANT FENDLER): Yes, Your Honor. My photostatic copy is so poor that I cannot see anything at all, but here I can see with the magnifying glass the date 15 April 1933. The figure "33" however, can hardly be seen.
MR. HORLICH-HOCHWALD: Does that satisfy the Tribunal?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, very well. The record will indicate what has transpired.
BY MR. HORLICK-HOCHWALD:
Q. Herr Fendler, you have just testified that in Vinnitsa Einsatzkommando 4B was replaced by Einsatzkommando 6, is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. Will you tell the Tribunal when that was?
A. I cannot tell you the exact date, unfortunately. It must have been in the last days of July, 1941.
Q. Thank you very much.
A. Or the beginning of August, possibly.
Q. When you entered the SD, that was in 1937, was it not?
A. 1936.
Q. 1936. Your decision to enter this organization then was entirely voluntary, wasn't it?
A. Yes.
Q. Am I correct in assuming that you were deferred for SD service when war broke out?
A. Yes, I believe that I was drafted even before the outbreak of the war. I do not have this any more and therefore cannot give the exact date.
Q. Is it correct, Herr Fendler, that you were deferred for this SD service for the simple reason that you already had been previously a member of the SD, is that correct?
A. That is possible.
Q. You do not know that?
A. I was never told this. I could only say concerning the general situation, the situation at the time. Even now when I look back at it, I believe that I an justified in drawing that conclusion because the Security Police had a lack of personnel and especially in war time the were interested in retaining and keeping their trained experts at their disposal.
Q. Can you tell the Tribunal whether other people who had not been active in the SD as voluntary members were deferred when war broke out to the SD service or whether that was only a measure which was taken in cases of people who already had been active in the SD?
A. I don't quite get that.
Q. Whether you know a case in which somebody was deferred for SD service when war broke out without having been a member of the SD previous to that time?
A. I heard that at the outbreak of war so-called honorary assistants existed, who were deferred for the SD because they could not be spared in the future work.
Q. But they had, as a matter of fact, already been honorary collaborators before that time, hadn't they, I mean honorary collaborators of the SD?
A. That was not necessary, Mr. Prosecutor. It wasn't necessary, If I may explain this, after the outbreak of war, it did occur that a man was declared indispensible from the SD. An economic chief, for example, could be accepted after war broke out. They were interested in has further colaboration and saw to it he was not sent to the front but would be at their disposal to work in the SD.
Q. That is not my question. The question was: Do you know if somebody, when war broke out or before war broke out, was deferred for SD service without having been a member or honorary collaborator of the SD previous to the outbreak of the war -- do forget what happened during the war. I am only asking what happened before the war, when you were deferred, at that time when you were deferred to the SD.
A. I did not hear of any such case, but I do not want to exclude the possibility.
Q. You have told the Tribunal that actually you never were a member of the General SS. You do not want to say by that that you never were a member of the SS, I presume, is that correct?
A. I merely wanted to say, Mr. Prosecutor, that I never was a member of the Allgemeine SS, the General SS, as you just said. When joining the SD, that is, the joining of the SS Special Formation called SD, I be came a member of the large organization SS, in that way only.
Q. When you were a candidate for the leading service, did you go to the training school of which the Defendant Schulz was the commander?
A. No.
Q. You never were a member of this school?
A. May I explain this briefly? I cannot answer just yes or no to the question. As a pupil I was never a member of his training school. The course for the candidates for the leading service had nothing to do with the general training at the officers training school. Only officials for the intermediate and lower service were being trained there, but it is like this that a few members of the leading service, while studying at the university in Berlin simply did not find an apartment. Therefore the Officers Training School used another building, which was not attached to the school, it was an apartment house. They put apartments at their disposal. If I may so say. we lodged there.
Q. Can you tell the Tribunal whether when you were sent home from your assignment in the East, whether it was with other members of the school at the same time and on the basis of the same order?
A. I believe so, yes, However, I must add immediately that apparently the date for reporting, 1 October, could not always be met because the individuals concerned heard about it too late, sometimes on purpose and sometimes accidently. Sometimes on purpose, because, as I have already said, the Einsatzgruppen kept the order back because they did not want to release the persons before they had been replaced.
Q. But it was on the basis of the same order, wasn't it?
A. Yes, on the basis of the same order about which the Defendant Schulz has already spoken.
Q. Herr Fendler, can you tell the Tribunal when did you hear first about the Fuehrer Order?
A. After the collapse, Mr. Prosecutor, in connection with the publications in the press concerning the proceedings in the IMT I heard about it that the Einsatzkommando were supposed to have killed certain groups of persons.
Only then after the indictment had been served when Mr. Ohlendorf indicated it and testified to that effect in the witness stand here in court I finally became certain that such an order did in fact exist and what the contents of this order were.
Q. During this time in the East and afterwards when you were in Department 6 of the RSHA you never heard, neither officially nor privately about the Fuehrer Order, is that correct?
A. Yes,
Q. You heard about an order which was given to you in Lemberg, if I understood your testimony correctly, by Hermann, who told all the officers in the Sonderkommando?
A. Yes, he did not hand it on, he announced it, if I may say so.
Q. He informed you about it?
A. Yes, he informed us about it
Q. He did not tell you at that time that there was an order by the highest commander who fixed the tasks of the Einsatzgruppen as to the executions of Jews and Gypsies, and A-socials. He did not tell you that?
A. No, not in that form, Mr. Prosecutor.
Q. What exactly did Hermann tell you during this meeting about the execution of Jews?
A. He said that as part of carrying out the general security tasks, of which the commandos in the East were in charge the severest measured would have to be applied against the bearers of the Soviet System. Here in particular I would like to say in the civilian sphere concerning the Einsatzkommandoes, the Bolshevist functionaries and the Jews were considered the most important bearers of Bolshevism.
Q. That was all he said?
A. In this connection he also explained several Wehrmacht regulations and that martial law would not be applied any more. I beg your pardon, there is something important I left out here, he said that mass executions would have to be carried out if necessary but in Sonderkommando 4B he would make all the decisions.
Q. What did you understand when you heard what would happen then to the Jews and the Communists on the basis of this order. Did you understand on the basis of this order that the Jews and Communists were to be killed?
A. I understand it to mean that they could be killed if the situation required it. In this case the situation meant the security. It was never intended nor did I understand it to mean that everyone of them was going to be killed, without examining individual cases.
Q. What did you understand, that the great part, or the greater Part of the Jewish Population was to be killed on the basis of this order?
A. No, I don't understand it to mean that, Mr. Prosecutor.
Q. What did you understand then by the word "necessity" which you used just now in your explanation. You must have had some idea what would make it necessary to kill these people, under which circumstances it would be necessary to kill these people?
A. At the time I didn't have a general conception of this fact. I thought that according to the circumstances, according to the local situation which the Sonderkommando found, orders which the commandoleader might receive from other agencies, would then have to be decided upon by him, and he would decide which of these persons would have to be killed. Q. I understand that. What I want to learn form you is whether you ever did entertain any idea under which circumstances the circumstances would and could make it necessary according to this order to kill the people. Did you ever have in mind if that or that would happen, it would be necessary to kill the people? Did you understand the order in that way, that they would have to have committed first a crime against the security of the German Wehrmacht before it would be permitted to kill them according to the order -the officer had to decide, that is what you said, but, I would like to know whether you had an idea under which circumstances an officer was entitled to order an execution of these people?
A. At the time I thought that a definite state of affairs would have to exist to justify the execution of the groups of persons concerned. That is what I thought.
Q. You mean by that, an investigation of a suspected person which resulted in the proof that he was guilty?
A. Yes, I had that conception.
Q. But you knew as a matter of fact that there was no trial contemplated; that on the contrary, any form of trial was excluded by this order?
A. I knew that, Mr. Prosecutor, but I may add here that there were two elements which caused strong reaction when we heard about this order. The first fact was that it would be the teak of the commando, as part of the Security Police tasks which they had to handle, to carry out the execution of persons captured who endangered the security, and the second fact was the realization that the procedure itself was considered too summary.
Q. Do I understand you correctly that you were of the opinion that there was an insufficient safeguard for the suspected person, as there was no trial, that his rights as a defendant were not sufficiently safeguarded. Is that what you want to say, that that was your opinion; was that your opinion?
A. That was my theoretical opinion, Mr. Prosecutor.
Q. This order about which we spoke just now you received in Lemberg, it was at the end of June, was it not?
A. In Lemberg, yes.
Q. It was the end of June?
A. Yes, approximately.
Q. Sometime later, during the other three months you were in the East, it was the general practice of the Einsatzgruppen to kill all Jews?
A I can not say this quite like that. I would like to give an explanation about this. During the assignment I heard, it must have been about the middle of August, when the Commando-leader returned from a discussion with the Einsatzgruppe Shitomir, at the time that he was rather shocked and depressed, and said that he had been reproached because the Einsatzcommando IV-B had carried out too few executions, and he, the commando-leader, when being thus reproached, had had the feeling that they judged the efficiency of a commando according to the figures of persons executed by the commando. efficient commander of Einsatzcommando, or Sondercommando, if many executions were carried out by his unit. Is that what you want to say, is it not? Einsatzgruppe. Herrmann. Was it the commander of Einsatzgruppe C?
A I am not quite sure of this. I don't know whether I just don't remember it, or whether he didn't even tell me at the time. I only know and I can only remember generally in that connection that he described the government expert Hoffmann as a savage who held such an opinion. alone, without the support of the leader of the Einsatzgruppe - that is right - to live such information to a Sonderkommando-leader, when Hoffmann was subordinate to the leader of the Einsatzgruppe, or would he have to have had the approval and even the order of the commander of the Einsatzgruppe. Do you think that Hoffmann alone could have done such a thing? gruppe Chief, nor Hoffmann talked to me about that sufficiently on the subject.
Am I correct in assuming that from that time on you knew the Jews and other undesirables were indiscriminately killed by the different units of the Einsatzgruppe and Einsatzgruppe C?
A No, I didn't know that much. tion you received from Herrmann in August? What did you think he wanted to convey to you?
A He didn't have any special intentions in this. He mereley expressed his worry.
Q How did you understand his expression? What did you understand by that when he told you that it was his impression that only such a leader was considered a good leader of a Sonderkommando who executed many people? Didn't you find out then that it was not a question whether somebody was builty or not in order to be executed. It was rather a question that somebody was for some reason undesirable, that would have been the reason for execution? Did you find it out then?
A No. May I explain this in more detail. I said already that the procedure as such was considered rather summary insofar as for the officer who decided in special cases had only the alternative either, the man is going to be shot, or he is not going to be shot, and I said, when Herrmann informed us of the order in Lemberg, it was said very unambiguously, or at least that is how I understood it, that it would have to be decided in each individual case. It was, therefore, up to the commando leader, and such an explanation by Herrmann I could only understand to mean that this scope of decisions was being handled in too generous a manner. form Shitomir, up to the time he returned to Berlin, which was in the beginning of October 1941, did you learn, as a matter of fact, that Jews were killed deliberately, and that there was no decision in any single case; that these people were just killed for the simple reason that they were Jews and for no other reason, and that there was, of course, no decision on the part of the officer necessary in the individual cases.
Did you learn that sometime during the time that you in the East?
A No, I'll just describe to you briefly what I heard after leaving the commando and returning to Berlin. During my trip back I stayed in Kiev for one right, and there I heard at the group - I can not say any more who told me, certainly it was not Hoffmann, that during those days in Kiev large scale executions had taken place, mostly of Jews. At the time this was based on the fact that this was a retaliation measure against the large dynamiting actions and arson which hand occurred after the Bolsievists left Kiev. Later on I heard in Lemberg where I also spent one night that a large scale shooting of Jews had taken place. At the time these shootings were also connected with another event, namely, the murders the Bolshevists had committed before leaving, about which the defendant Schulz has spoken. At the time I think there were 7,000 persons concerned who had been murdered in the prison by the Bolshevists, at the time. from Poltawa, or when you came to Lemberg on you way to the East with the group?
Q That must have been then one of the last days of June?
A Or one of the first days of July. The first days of July. Unfortunately I could not reconstruct this from the report of events, and I didn't have any other calendars.
executions according to you memory, which was in Tarnopol, is that right?
A No, I didn't say that, Mr. Prosecutor.
Q What was it?
Q Yes? more executions during the time that you were with Sondercommando IV-B but only in one case you knew how many people approximately were killed, is that correct?
A I remembered that, yes. I still remember the figure.
Q How you can remember that? carried out by Sondercommando IV-B in the time when you were with the commando, can you remember?
A May I think about it for a moment. I have had no time to prepare myself. There must have been six or seven instances. tely the three months you were with the commando? least some of these executions?
A Yes. I heard that these were saboteurs and looters. I also heard that Communist functionaries were being shot. I also heard that Jews were being shot, but I didn't hear that Jews were shot mereley because they were Jews.
Q Did you learn way these Jews were shot?
A No, not in each individual case. I assumed at the time they were shot because they had been connected in some events which endangered the security of the Army in the operational territory.
Q How many instances was it that Sonderkommando IV-B had done that?
A Seven. Seven, including the commando-leader.
Q Did you have personal contact with these officers?
A Well, I don't know to what extent.
Q were you on friendly terms with them?
A Not particularly friendly. It was a correct comradely relation.
Q Were you on friendly terms with Herrmann?
A No, certainly not. If I may explain this, the commando-leader Herrmann was a very secretive person, and rather a hermit who didn't look for company in others but avoided them. the time together with the seven officers, is that correct?
A One can not say this so briefly, Mr. Prosecutor. I travelled a great deal in order to deal with the jobs I had been given as an SD Expert. I had to contact as many persons as possible in order to receive the necessary information. It occurred that I was absent for one or two days, for example, on an occasion that I mentioned, as chief of an advanced commando; it also occurred that the others officers who were absent, because they were in charge of advanced commandos. other commandos, that Sonderkommando IV-B kept very much together. That you were not divided up into sub-units, and part-units, and, if such a sub-unit was formed for a special task, they immediately again returned after having carried out this special task, but if I understand you correctly the quarters of the whole commando was in one place, is that right? Either in Poltawa or in another place you have mentioned here?
A Yes; in general it was like that. often. Did never one ever tell you that it was the official duty of the Sonderkommando to kill Jews indiscriminately. I am not asking you now whether you got any official information about that. I ask whether you learned from one of your fellow officers, any one of them, if it was that way, was that the way?
Q No?
A No. No. different reports, you learned what the population was doing, didn't you?
A That depended. I would have been satisfied if I had been able to hear everything the population thought.
Q But you know more than other people, didn't you?
A I would like to say the following here. That it was very difficult in Russia to hear anything at all. The Russians were used to keeping very quiet about certain things, even more than it was the case in Germany. held about the activities of the Einsatzgruppe?
A no, I can not remember. If I may explain this. It really would have needed unusual courage by the Russians to tell us, after we had been there for about eight days, that they didn't like the way we treated them. had informers form the civilian part of the population, did you not, and they certainly told you what the other civilian part, who were not the informers, said about the Germans; did they not?
A May I say something about that, Mr. Prosecutor. In my SD work I could not use informers. An informer is a person who says something bad about another person or group. That is not what I wanted. Such a man goes to the police but does not go to a person who wants to gather information, say about economics or the administration of a city. I do think that part of the morale of the population is, undoubtedly, this part of their opinions. You must have known how the population reacted to the killings of Jews. There were people who certainly had an impression. It was a kind of terror and we know that in the Ukraine there were many anti-Semites. They were very likely happy that Jews were killed. There are documents before the Tribunal that show that, for instance, in the Crimea. So you would have learned how the population reacted to these killings, favorably or unfavorably. You never heard anything about this?
A I did not hear of any such cases. If I may explain this further, Mr. Prosecutor, I think this is owing to the fact that our general information was too incomplete. I do not doubt that these reports would have come to my knowledge, if I had remained in that locality some weeks or months and conducted regular information service with a permanent staff and confidential agents. But, in the eight days one may have stayed in one location this was not possible except for coincidences or chance but this did not occur as far as I know.
Q May I ask now something else. You were the second highest ranking officer in Sonderkommando IV-B, is that correct? not represent him, you were not this deputy, but that in everyone's sphere of work the designated expert had to decide for himself when the commander was not there. That means, in other words, you in SD matters and the men who was in charge of Department IV, in Gestapo matters, executivematters?