He put his SD-machinery to work in order to investigate these incidents and in detailed reports he expressed his opinion against these acts. In 1939/40 Ohlendorf twice suggested to Heydrich to create a Jewish minority state (Affidavit by Dr. Ehlich, Doc. No. 10, Exhibit No. 33). Ohlendorf at that time met with a sharp repudiation. Moreover, von der Heyde confirms in his affidavit that Ohlendorf repeatedly and successfully used his influence at the competent Section IV for Jewish employees of the I.G. Farben without even knowing them. As for the rest compare also the affidavit by Frau Barlen.
Ohlendorf's attitude and conduct in regard to the Jewish question can only then be understood if one is familiar with his views about people and race which became the leading motives of his thinking and acting and therefore also of his activity in the SD. To this point I quote from the affidavit by Dr. Hans Ehlich since in his group this view of Ohlendorf had to be expressed more clearly:
"Ohlendorf had quite a clear fundamental conception of the people's character. To him nation meant a community of people of the same race shaped together by a common history, language and culture. To him folkdom was the expression of a nation's character and the outward forms of its national existence. The nation as a community, based on the changing relationship of the individual, and the people as a whole were to him the expression of the natural law of mankind, a divine act of creation. Thus, Ohlendorf saw in the various nations neither superior nor inferior races but the various tones of the creative symphony "mankind". He regarded race merely as a biological conception. To him the various nations were not superior or inferior but different in character. He therefore regarded as wrong and directed against the laws of mankind the domination of one nation with its principles of life over another nation. On the contrary he aimed to achieve an order of nations in which every nation can develop in accordance with its character and its possibilities and qualifications.
Neither did he consider a nation to be bound to a state organization. Ohlendorf frequently indicated, by giving the Polish people as an example, that a people can retain its national existence for long times without being organiz ed into a state. The Jewish people too, was mentioned by him as a proof for this fact. Therefore, for the purpose of solving the Jewish question he was of the opinion that the aim could only be achieved through creation of a closed Jewish territory in which the Jewish people were to create a state in accordance with their national character...." and conduct of those personalities of the Third Reich who were outstanding authorities in regard to this point.
If his assistant Roessner in the above, under paragraph 1) quoted affidavit describes Ohlendorf's aim as a will for the accomplishment of a way of life in accordance with the German and European character for the promotion of moral liberty and responsibility of the individual, and if he proves that this will was borne by a humanitarian thought taken from the depths of the nations, then these conceptions and motives of Ohlendorf are incompatible with the fundamental idea of race hatred and racial contempt as charged in this indictment.
Ohlendorf himself answered my question: Why did you instruct the SD to oppose, of all people, Reichsleiter Ley, Goebbels and Bormann ? I quote the answer: "Because these three men, as nobody else, challenged the moral value of the human being." The moral value of the human being and his inner freedom was the fundamental motive for his acting and thinking and to him it also meant the recognition and promotion of the human rights of every race and folkdom. 3.) Ohlendorf, as a result of his work in the SD, has also successfully employed this conception for the best possible treatment of the foreign workers.
The best proof for this is the memorandum prepared in connection with these questions concerning the treatment of the foreign workers, which was issued on 15 April 1943 by the Reich Ministry of Propaganda and the RSHA, the Reich Security Main Office. The points contained in this memorandum orginate from the reporting system of Office III. It was only due to the urgent representations of Ohlendorf that this memorandum was issued, that the respective authorities in the Party and State used their influence that injustices, chicanneries, insults and mistreatment towards these people were prohibited, that the barbed wire fences around the camps of the Eastern workers were removed and that otherwise a housing, fit for human beings, and a supply with food, was ordered. (Affidavit by Dr. Ehlich, Doc. Book I, Doc. No. 10, Exhibit No. 33. pages 46/47). 4.) The policy of violence, applied in the Ukraine by the Gauleiter and Reich Commissioner Koch, was repeatedly and continuously attacked by Ohlendorf after his return from Russia. As a result, he came into a serious conflict with Himmler to whom Koch had made a complaint. Himmler, at that time, instructed Kaltenbrunner the SD ought to be decimated and that at last it was time for the SD to discontinue its reports, otherwise its responsible chief would be put into custody. 5.) In a manner, similar to that against Koch, Ohlendorf also turned against the policy of violence applied by Terboven in Norway. In this case he changed from the indirect fight to the open fight against Terboven and also ordered the co-defendant Braune, who at that time was in Norway and previously active in the SD, to use all means in taking steps against Terboven's negative acitvity. With regard to the result of this order by Ohlendorf I refer to the evidence and the Final Flea in the case against Braune. 6.) As a result of his work in the SD, Ohlendorf was in strong opposition to almost all known representatives of the Third Reich, because of their conduct not only towards their own people but also towards other nations.
and requested the letter's dismissal from the SD. Goebbels prohibited the issue of the SD reports in the Ministry of Propaganda and accomplished that Himmler prohibited the "Reports from the Reich" because he regarded the strong criticism, practiced therein, as a spread of defeatism. and openly heedless drawing up of the SD reports; he was right in being under the impression that Ohlendorf and his assistants made themselves the mouthpiece of an opposition. Sauckel's policy with respect to the foreign workers was likewise strongly attacked by Ohlendorf as it is confirmed by the witness Dr. Michel. Because of the oppositional activity of the SD, Bormann at first attempted to get control over the SD. When, due to Ohlendorf's resistance, he did not succeed, he finally banned in 1944 all full time and honorary party functionaries from participation in the activities of the SD Interior Service and threatened to report to the Fuehrer.
The hostile attitude Himmler's towards Ohlendorf which is confirmed by various affidavits and also by a letter of Himmler, could be traced solely to Ohlendorf's activity in the SD Interior Service Office, III of the Reich Security Main Office (compare among others affidavit by Dr. Franz Hayler).
Moreover, Himmler's Chief Adjutant, Karl Wolff, makes a statement concerning Himmler's rejection of Ohlendorf.
Wolff testifies about the open conflict which broke out between Himmler and Ohlendorf in the fall of 1939 because of the system Ohlendorf applied in directing the Sd Interior Service. By order of Himmler, Wolff had had to request Ohlendorf to resign from his service in the SD since an agreement between him and Ohlendorf was not possible.
If I summarize the points of view concerning Ohlendorf's membership in the SD, the following picture in regard to this question will result and I am in the position to demonstrate this picture by quoting Prosecution Document NO-2875, Volume III D, page 56 and the following pages.
1934 in Kiel and 1935 in Berlin, because of his critical behavior towards National Socialist institutions, he nevertheless takes up again a suggestion by his former teacher, Professor Jens Jessen, and declares his readiness to accept a political-critical intelligence mission in the field of economy within the SD, which up till then had been unknown to him. This was Ohlendorf's only motive for entering the SD, and it cannot be disputed that it contained no criminal aims whatsoever. or the will to agree to criminal purposes. ing personalities of National Socialism, who did not want open criticism. Partly it was made impossible for him to work in the way he wanted. This caused him as early as in 1937/38 to endeavor his separation from the SD. However, he succeeded to dissolve his service relationship to the SD only as a full-time employee, on an honorary basis Heydrich, the Chief of the SD Main Office, forced him to say on, on the basis of the peculiar service relationship of fealty obligating only one side. Thus from 1938/39 Ohlendorf was only honorary director of the Main Office II, Economics of the SD Main Office. Warsaw in November 1939, was again prevented by Heydrich.
Court No. II, Case No. IX.
and soul. Already in 1937 Heydrich declared: "Nobody can leave the Security Police, unless we do not want him anymore. In this case however the road leads through the concentration camps." It is therefore wrong if the IMT puts the compulsion exerted merely under the pressure of the loss of an official position. Besides it is not possible at all to attribute such a motive to the defendant Ohlendorf, since, as I proved above, he had given up his position with the SD and since 1938 was forced against his will to continue as a member. III of the RSHA was put on a new basis inasmuch as the service with this office was considered war service and the members thereof placed under martial law. Every attempt, even as much as a request for leaving the SD was made punishable. The official compulsion to remain in the SD was the same as the obligation to which every soldier was subjected and which made any separation impossible without endangering body and soul. And contrary to the prerequisite assumed in the quotation of the IMT judgment that this compulsion was possible only through the martial laws and therefore losses its value because the person concerned was a voluntary member of the organization when the compulsive situation commenced, this fact is not true for the defendant Ohlendorf, since, as already pointed out, and which has been proven, he was since 1938 at the latest, only an involuntary member of the SD. feel assured by the evidence, the findings of the Court and the Prosecution that the possibility for exculpation granted in this point by the IMT-judgment and the statements of the Prosecution in the IMT-trial, is achieved for the defendant Ohlendorf, inasmuch as it is established, that according to what his superiors told him before he entered the SD 1) the purpose of the SD was the reporting on abuses and miscarriage of developments within the National Socialist Reich; that is the Court No. II, Case No. IX.
2) his motive for entering the SD and therefore the SS was a politic possible to him by Party organizations; also the opposite of 3) once this aim does not seem to him to be sufficiently guaranteed 1938 to be permitted to leave the SD.
Indeed he does leave full time employment with the SD.
A complete separation from the SD, however, is refused him.
But he is able to enter into a fulltime 4) As a compulsory member of the SD Office III he did not participate in criminal acts in the sense of Art.
6 of the statute, but on the 5) As member of Office III SD-Interior Service his retention in this criminal.
Also no concrete act in any form of complicity or Court No. II, Case No. IX.
6) On the other hand, Ohlendorf was aiming and working in the SD in 7) The defendant Ohlendorf, during the period that is of relevance outside the SD.
Theqquestion of his criminal membership with the 8) The Einsatzgruppen and Einsatzkommandos were not organizations or conditions for the criminality of organizations.
In particular the SS.
Therefore they did not establish membership in such an 9) His membership with the SD was at the start of the war and after 1938 not voluntary.
At the start of the war he had no service Reichsgruppe Trade.
So the causal connection is missing for
a) a service relationship within the SS or SD based thereon, and
b) its voluntary existence. 10) During his assignment in Russia his activity with SD Office III Court No. II, Casa No. IX.
that could be based on aiding crime in any form within his organization, the SD Office III of the RSHA that was declared to be criminal. ment is concerned, regarding the organizational connection of SD Office III with the Einsatzgruppe, I shall explain while dealing with the organizations and the activity of the Einsatzgruppen and shall then disprove the existence of such a connection.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will be in recess until 1:45.
(A recess was taken until 1345 hours, 4 February 1948.)
(The hearing reconvened at 1345 hours, 4 February 1948).
THE MARSHAL: Take your seats please.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Aschenauer, would you mind? Dr. Mayer wishes to make a statement.
DR. MAYER: Mayer for Braune.
Your Honor, I have a request to make to the Tribunal. It is that the defendant Braune be excused from the session tomorrow afternoon so that the defendant Braune will be able to have a discussion with a Dr. Rheinford who, as a prosecution witness, is staying in the witnesses' part of the prison here. This Dr. Rheinford was the legal advisor of the brotherin-law of the defendant, and the defendant wants to discuss difficulties concerning an inheritance matter of his which occurred because his fatherin-law died. I would be very grateful to the Tribunal if they would permit the defendant Braune to do this, thus enabling him to settle his private financial affairs.
THE PRESIDENT: The record will show the purpose for which the defendant Braune will be excused tomorrow afternoon from attendance in court. The marshal will make all necessary arrangements.
DR. MAYER: Thank you, your Honors.
THE PRESIDENT: You may continue Dr. Aschenauer. DR. ASCHENAUER: declares the SD - Department III of the RSHA - to be a criminal organisation, I consider it proper, going beyond the range of tasks of Department III under Ohlendorf's direction, to clarify several organizational mistakes which are contained in the IMT verdict and which according to general opinion are open to attack as individual findings among the reasons given in support of the verdict.
In the reasons in support of the verdict it says:
"The Gestapo and the SD were coordinated for the first time on 26 June 1936 by having Heydrich, Chief of the SD, appointed Chief of the Security Police, which was intended to comprise both the Gestapo and the Criminal Police."
(The Nuernberg Verdict, p. 102).
"Himmler.....in his capacity as Reichsfuehrer SS and Chief of the German Police, issued......his decree of 26 June 1936, which enrolled both the Criminal Police or Kripo and the Gestapo in the Security Police and placed the Security Police as well as the SD under Heydrich's orders."
Concerning this the following must be said :
1. The SD was not placed under Heydrich for the first time by Himmler's decree of 26 June 1936, but on the contrary Heydrich had already been in charge of the SD since 1932. He held this command without interruption from 1932 until his death in 1942.
2. Heydrich did not take charge of the Gestapo for the first time on 26 June 1936, but had already become Leader of the Secret State Police Department in April 1934.
3. Heydrich's appointment as Chief of the Fain Office Security Police on 26 June 1936, therefore, was not a transfer of the business of the Security Police to the Chief of the SD, but merely a further extension of the position he had held up to then as Leader of the Secret Police Department. The Main Office Security Police was merely the new organizational form of an already existing condition. Since, of course, the State Police force of the provinces had been under the leadership of Himmler and Heydrich since 1934, the centralization and nationalization of the police forces, which had already been carried out in fact, also required a suitable outward form.
Nor were the Gestapo and the Kripo "enrolled" in the Security Police, but rather the term "Security Police" was invented as a common, inclusive term for the Gestapo and the Kripo, which besides that also retained their old names of Gestapo and Kripo, independently. In spite of the newly created Main Office Security Police, the Secret State Police Department and the Reich Criminal Police Department were also kept as central executive heads for the Gestapo and Criminal Police respectively.
purely a matter concerning the police, as a result of Himmler's appointment as Chief of the German Police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior.
The SD was not affected by this. The SD Main Office had already existed since 1933; it remained independent as before. The reorganization produced no new situation for the SD with respect to the *---* Gestapo or the Security Police, since the SD Main Office and the Secret State Police Department had already been directed simultaneously by Heydrich in person since 1934.
In particular, however, no "coordination" whatsoever of the tasks of the Security Police and the SD, was now effected, nor was any attempt made to secure this by decree. Nothing was changed in 1936 in the SD's work as the Party's information service.
4. Likewise erroneous is the view of the IMT that the consolidation of the Security Police and the SD was in every way confirmed through the foundation of the RSHA by the decree of 27 September 1939 and that both were merged together in a single administrative unit. Also erroneous is the conclusion drawn from the foundation of the RSHA that the SD was now definitely established and active as counter-intelligence organization for the Security Police. which the IMT believed it was able to declare about the development of the SD in connection with the Security Police. the creation of the Main Office Security Police under Heydrich in 1936 the SD drew constantly farther apart from the work of the Gestapo in its range of tasks. To be sure, the SD retained its independent office in the SD Main Office; as representative of its Chief, Heydrich, it also had its own Staff Director who for all practical purposes was the chief superior of the members of the SD Main Office.
(Heydrich himself personally saw only a few members of the SD Main Office on official business, since after 1934 he had his offices in the building of the State Police.) Thus, the SD was also independent in its range of tasks, which were specified by a decree of the Deputy of the Fuehrer in 1934. But for the SD the legitimization of the Party applied only to an information service employed against the Party's enemies. And since in the meantime enemies of the Party and enemies of the State had for all practical purposes been placed on the same footing by the political and constitutional development of the Third Reich and by the creation of the Gestapo, whose principle task and purpose was to combat them, the State police naturally now endeavored, after its organization was definitely established, to concentrate in its own hands the informational aspect of its work on political enemies as well. The justification for this claim is easily discernable. To every investigating service it is obvious that cases to be prosecuted or investigated and its own informational work of investigation and prosecution cannot be separated from each other and that a competing information service is only harmful to its own work. Thus, during the period from 1936 to 1939 things develop to such a point in the SD that through the initiative of the leading State Police officials, Best and Mueller, the SD's original task, which was set for it by the Party as that of collecting information against its political enemies, is first limited and then finally taken away from it. In 1938/39 every tangible enemy information service in the SD comes to an end. A Central Department II/I of the SD Main Office, which up to that time, had done the work of collecting information about the opposition, is dissolved and, insofar as this had not already been done before, its work is transferred to the Gestapo. In the meantime, however, along with the SD's Party work of collecting information about the opposition, a service for collecting information about the various occupational classes had developed in Central Department II/II. It was a miniature copy of what I have described above concerning Department III, Domestic SD, of the RSHA. Its aim, purpose and activity were concen trated exclusively on a service for obtaining factual information of a political and critical nature.
ties and business relationships -- and these things alone are under discussion in this trial -- the founding of the RSHA by the decree of 27.9.1939, contrary to the opinion of the IMT, was not the final arrangement for a coordination, but rather the final arrangement for a partition between the respective tasks and activities of the Gestapo and the SD, which were definitely separated from each other. Henceforth the Domestic SD has sole possession of political and critical business assignments and the Gestapo has sole possession of the intelligence service and executive authority for combatting tangible political and criminal enemies of the State. And neither does the henceforth definitely fixed business assignment and activity of the Domestic SD offer any reason for the assumption that it was definitely established as a counter-intelligence organization for the Security Police by the foundation of the RSHA, nor is any attempt ever made to verify this pure allegation with documentary material. However,the allegation that the Sipo and SD were merged into an organizational, administrative unit by the RSHA cannot be brought into harmony with the actual situation, either.
Himmler's plan was actually to use the RSHA as an opening wedge towards a unified State Police Corps (SS, Sipo and SD). However, in actual fact, apart from the so-called assimulation of ranks the transfer of SS ranks to police officials, this plan remained more wishful thinking on Himmler's part, and the essential reason for this lay in the fact that the Party refused to permit any consolidation of Party and state functions, the supervision of Party tasks by state agencies or even the consolidation of State organizations and Party organizations, and did not abandon this opposition up to the time of the collapse. agency, nor even one which was known to the general public. It remained an internal, administrative structure of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD, which was recognized neither by the Party nor by the State, that is, the organizations of the Security Police and the SD were not merged into one unit; contrary to the assumption of the IMT the RSHA at no time became a department of the Reich Ministry of the Interior.
The Main Office Security Police remained the department in the Reich Ministry of the Interior for the Gestapo and Kripo, and the Secret State Police Department and the Reich Criminal Police Department were retained as before as structures of the Gestapo and the Kripo. Both signed letters to the general public and both drew up their orders within the Reich Ministry of the Interior under these official names.
separately dinanced by the Party, and just as before every position on the SD's TO sheet had to be approved by the Party. The pensions which were also fixed for SD members were not pensions of the RSHA but those of the Party. The founding of the RSHA brought no changes for the Party in its relations with the organizational structure of the SD. For the Party, just as before, the SD Main Office was the only Party organization of the SD. The RSHA did not exist for the Party. Neither should this fact be misconstrued, that the administrative business of the Gestapo, Kripo and SD appeared to be jointly managed in Departments I and II of the RSHA, for in reality separate groups were employed for each of the three branches in Departments I and II, which were staffed by men from these branches. Indeed, in the case of the Criminal Police, not even all personnal and administrative matters were included in the business calendar of Departments I and II of the RSHA. property and was managed separately. The RSHA was not a property holder at all. For example, the buildings and automobiles of Department III, Domestic SD, and of the SD Sections out in the country were Party property and not in any way property of the RSHA. different basic structure of the offices of the Security Police and the SD as irrelevant by referring to the Law for safeguarding the Unity of Party and State of 1. December 1933, then it must be pointed out that contrary to its programmatic title this law in reality only regulates the legal position in the State of the NSDAP, itsformations and its attached units. On the other hand, the law offers no reason for permitting separate agencies of the Party and of the State to become one unit. The presidency of a province does not become one and the same unit with the office of the Gauleiter through the fact that it is usually directed by the local Gauleiter in his capacity as Provincial President.
Likewise, the fact that young candidates for higher administrative positions in the Ministry of Justice, the internal administration and the Party were secured jointly from the ranks of law graduates entering government service as a profession does not make those offices become one unified authority or bring about a coordination of their respective tasks any morethan the partially joint training of the candidates for higher career positions in the Security Police and the SD offers any reason for unification of the Security Police and SD. Nor is this picture changed by the organization of the Security Police and the SD in the regional sphere and in the occupied territories. The IMT itself must admit that for Germany and the territories which were incorporated within the civilian administration of the Reich "the local Gestapo, Criminal Police and SD offices took separate forms". ("The Nuernberg Verdict", p. 103.) If it attempts to discount this actual,territorial and business separation by declaring that the separate officesswere nevertheless subject to the supervision of Security Police and SD inspectors attached to the staffs of the local Higher SS and Police Leaders, then in reply to this it must be said that, first, the inspectors did not belong to the staffs of the Higher SS and Police Leaders and, secondly had no real right whatsoever to issue orders to the offices of the Security Police and the SD. They did not even have any knowledge of the actual work of the local offices. Therefore, they were not able to coordinate the latter in their work, either, apart from the fact that they did not have any orders to do so. Police and the SD in the occupied territories too performed only a Security Service activity, receiving from Office III only such tasks as were in conformity with the area of jurisdiction of Office III. They too were not co-ordinated with the tasks of the Security Police. And if, as a measure of transition to independent offices of the State Police, Criminal Police and Security, only subordinate departments for the tasks of the Reich Main Security agencies were created, the reasons for this have been explained in the WANNINGER document, in every detail.
In no event one of these reasons may lead to considering a co-ordination of the activities of Security Police and Security Service an established fact. The question of the organization of the Einsatzgruppen in connection with the offices of the Reich Main Security Office will be dealt with later on, when the problems of the organization and the activities of the Einsatzgruppen will be broached, in as far as that question has not been dealt with already above. Here I only point out that the Einsatzgruppen must be treated as military units of a peculiar kind, apart from the other organization of the Reich Main Security Office, and are not apt to contribute to the support of the assertion that the Security Police and the security Service were co-ordinated within the offices III and IV of the Reich Main Security Office. Reich Main Security Office was working independently, autonomously, without consideration to, and co-ordination with, the Gestapo or Kripo. While Office III as a party office was busy with technical questions, with an intelligence service concerning the problems of the spheres of life, the task of the Gestapo was investigation into, and fight against, persons dangerous for the state in Germany and the occupied territories. Apart from that, the criminal police had the task of searching for the civilian offender -- as opposed to the political one -and of bringing him to punishment. after 1936, but especially by the year 1939, had the result of coordinating the tasks of the Security Police and Security Service. same chief. This fact of a personal union, however, was no peculiarity in Germany, but could be found in numerous places.
I need only point to GOERING as an example to make this plain. Now, as little as the simultaneous direction of the Reich Air Ministry, the Reich Forestry Office, the 4 Year Plan, and the Reichsjaegermeister Office by GOERING made for a co-ordination of the spheres of these offices, as little did that happen as between Security Police and Security Service by the fact of their joint direction by HEYDRICH. The "Chief of the Security Police and the SD" was only a letter heading of HEYDRICH's, but no authority or co-ordinated agency. The Reich Main Security Office, however, was no uniform authority of the Security Police and SD, which might have co-ordinated their activities, but rather a faction devoid of all reality, and devoid of all power of reformation for the independent structure and the spheres of tasks of Gestapo, Kripo and Security Service which in each case remained independent from other.
I have attempted to give the Court a picture of Ohlendorf's work and goals in the SD, as well as his attitude to human existence. I do not believe that anyone believes this man, who in spite of brusque rejection of his proposals by Himmler and Heydrich repeatedly insisted on a just trial for every last person in protective custody and on establishing the basic rights of the Jews, was capable of any intentions of racial extermination. For exactly this reason the question becomes urgent: under what conditions was the defendant Ohlendorf connected with the events in the East?
The main Counts of the indictment are Counts I and II (indictment pg. 5 and pg. 14ff), i.e. the charges that the defendants committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. of systematic murder of peoples and races.
In the questioning of the individual defendants the "Fuehrer Order" which initiated the measures against certain parts of the Soviet population on which the charges are based was mentioned repeatedly. Reference was made to the repeated defense and acknowledgement of this order by Himmler, Streckenbach. man troops all Jews, Gypsies, Communist officials, active Communists and all other persons who could endanger the security, were to be killed.
The only motive for this order, the "danger to security", was not only expounded in detail by Streckenbach in Pretsch and Heydrich in Berlin before the Einsatzgruppen left for Russia, but was also repeated by Himmler in Nikolajew in October 1941, when he again demanded the strict execution of this order.
When the defendant was asked in the witness box "Did you know of plans or intentions that sought extermination for racial or other reasons?" he answered:
"I expressly assure you that I neither knew of such plans nor was I called on to cooperate in any such plans.