By 1934, Himmler, the Reichsfuehrer SS, had become the chief of these secret political police forces in each of the States in Germany, except Prussia and deputy chief of the Prussian Gestapo. In that capacity he infiltrated these forces with members of the SS until a virtual identity of the membership of the SS and the Gestapo were achieved. German Police, published in the Reichsgesetzblatt for 1936, Part I, pages 487 and 488, our Document No. 2073-PS, I assume the Court will take judicial notice of it, the new post of Chief of the German Police was created in the Ministry of the Interior. Under the terms of the decree, Himmler was appointed to this post with the title of "Reichsfuehrer SS, and Chief of the German Police in the Ministry of the Interior." SS, and head of all the police forces in the Reich, was no accident, but was intended to establish a permanent relation between the two bodies, and not a mere "transitory fusion of personnel." The significance of this combination of these two positions was referred to by Hitler in his secret order of 17 August 1938 on the organization and mobilization of the SS, our document No. 647-PS, which I introduce in evidence as USA Exhibit No 443, from which I now quote the preamble found on the first page of our document No. 647-PS, and at the beginning of the original order. I quote:
"By means of the nomination of the Reichsfuehrer SS and Chief of 1936, (Reichsgesetzblatt I, page 487), I have created the basis "With this step, the Schutzstaffeln of the NSDAP, which were under German Police."
the entire police force, designating two separate branches. (1) the regular uniformed police force (Ordnungspelizei, or Orpo) as they were called by their abbreviated title, and (2) the so-called Security Police, or as they became to be known for short under their abbreviated title of "Sipo". The Security Police were composed of all the criminal police in the Reich, and all the Gestapo.
This reorganization was achieved by the Decree assigning functions in the Office of the Chief of the German Police, published in the Reichsministerialblatt for 1936, pages 946-948, our Document No. 1551-PS, Of the Decree I assume the Court will take judicial notice. Gestapo, Himmler appointed Reinhard Heydrich who was at that time the Chief of the SD, and the SS Intelligence agency already referred to. Thus, through Himmler's dual capacity as leader of the SS, and as Chief of the Police, and through Heydrich's dual capacity as head of the SD and Security Police, a unified personal command of the SS and Security Police Forces was achieved.
But further steps toward unification were later taken. In 1939 the Security Police and the SD were combined in a single department, The Reich Main Security Office, commonly referred to as RSHA. The important point to be observed is this: The newly created Reich Security Office, the RSHA, was not a mere department of the government. It was simultaneously an agency of the government; organizationally placed in the Department of the Interior, and at the same time one of the principal departments of the SS, organizationally placed in the Supreme Command of the SS. This division of the SS is shown by the chart before you, RSHA being indicated by the sixth block from the left on the chart, but it was not merely the Gestapo and the Criminal Police which came under the sway of the SS. The regular uniformed police as well were effected. For, like the RSHA, the department of the Regular Police, the Ordnungspolizei, was also not merely a department in the Ministry of the Interior, but also simultaneously in the Supreme Command of the SS. Its position in the SS is indicated by the seventh block on the chart, on the left.
matter of the highest headquarters. It extended, down to the operating level. The Court will observe from the chart that the Higher SS and Police Leader in each region, who was directly subordinate to Himmler, had under his command both the Security police, SIPO, and the regular uniformed police, Ordnungspolizei, Also that these forces, the SIPO and the Ordnungspolizei, were not only under the command of the Higher SS and the Police Leader, but indicated by the blue line, were also under command of the RSHA, and the Department of the Regular Police. Thus, you have organizationally a unit of command over the SS and the Police. This organization was not the only way by which the unity was achieved. Unity of personnel was also achieved. Vacancies occuring in the police forces were filled by SS members. Police officials in the forces were able to join the SS, and schools were operated by the SS for the police, as well as for the SS officials.
These measures are described in Himmler's article "Organization and Obligations of the SS and the Police", our Document No. 1992-A-PS. They are also described in an authoritative book on the Police, entitled, "The German Police," the book published in 1940, written by Dr. Werner Best, a Ministerial Director in the Ministry of the Interior, and a department head in the Security Police. It bears on its fly-leaf the impramatur of the Nazi Party, and is listed in the official list of National Socialist Party bibliography, chapter 7 from that book is our Document No. 1852-PS. I offer this book in evidence as USA Exhibit No.449. the Police became identified in structure and in activity. The resulting situation was described in Dr. Werner' Best's book, which I have just offered in evidence, our Document No. 1852-PS, as follows. I quote from page 7 of that document, paragraph 5, from the original book, page 95, paragraph 3.
"Thus the SS and the Police form a unit, both in their structure and points of view".part of the functions assigned to it.
The working partnership between the activity.
That will be dealt with in the case against the Gestapo. In whole criminal SS scheme.
I shall not, therefore, consider here evidence Control over the police was not enought.
Potential sources of opposition could be tracked down by the SD.
Suspects could be seized by regime.
For this purpose, the concentration camps were invented. The illustrated in the moving pictures displayed about ten days ago.
The personnel.
Part time volunteer members of the Allgemeine SS were original have already described, were organized.
During the war, members of the initially undertaken when the camps were created.
The Tribunal will recal of mobilization.
It is unnecessary to repeat the evidence of wholesale brutality, torture and murder committed by SS guards.
They were not the his article, "Organization and Obligations of the SS and the Police, US Exhibit 139, our document 1992A-PS.
I quote from Page 7 of the transla tion, last paragraph; from page 148 of the original, third paragraph.
THE PRESIDENT: Did you say 439?
MAJOR FARR: It was Exhibit 439. It is our document 1992A-PS. I quote from page 7 of the translation, last paragraph:
"It would be extremely instructive for everyone, some members of the camp.
Once they have seen it, they are convinced of the fact that no one had been sent there unjustly; that it is the offal of criminals and freaks by Doctor Guett, exists than such a concentration camp.
There you can Jewish, and a number of racially inferior products.
All that is assembled there.
Of course, we distinguish between those inmates who are only there for a very long time.
On the whole, education consists of discipline, have, for the most part, slave-like souls; and only very few people of real character can be found there."
remark:
"The discipline thus means order. The order begins with these people living in clean barracks.
Such a thing can really only be accomplished by us Germans, hardly another nation would be as human as we are.
The laundry is frequently changed.
The people are taught to wash themselves been unfamiliar."
that callous jest was. He made no such pretense in his speech to his own Gruppenfuehrers at Posen, our document 1919-PS, US Exhibit No. 170.
I quote from Page 43 of the original, last paragraph; from Page 2 of the translation, the first full paragraph.
That is 1919-PS.
THE PRESIDENT: 1990?
MAJOR FARR: 1919.
THE PRESIDENT: Page 2?
MAJOR FARR: Page 2 of the translation, the first full paragraph, headed, "The Communists in the Reich":"I don't believe the Communists could attempt any action, for their German people in concentration camps:
I'll answer for that."
Certainly there was no "silly humanitarianism" in the manner in which the SS men performed their tasks.
Just as an illustration, I should like to examine their conduct, not in 1944 or 1945, but 1933.
I have four tion camp Dachau between May 16 and May 27, 1933.
Each report is signed the Public Prosecutor of the Supreme Court in Munich.
These four report:
Now, I don't want to take the time of the Tribunal to read that evidence if it feels that it is a minor point. The significance of it is this: It is just an illustration of the sort of thing that happened in the concentration camp at the earliest possible date, in 1933. I am prepared to offer these four reports in evidence and to quote from them, if the Tribunal thinks that the point is not insignificant.
THE PRESIDENT: Where are they
MAJOR FARR: They are right here. I will offer them in evidence. The first is our document 641-PS. It is a report dated 1 June 1933, and relates to the death of Dr. Alfred Strauss, a prisoner in protective custody in Dachau. I offer it in evidence as US Exhibit 450. I shall read a few paragraphs from that report, beginning with paragraph one:
"On May 24, 1933 the 30 year old, single, attorney at law, Dr. Alfred Strauss from Munich who was in the concentration camp Dachau as a prisoner under protective custody was killed by two pistol shots from SS man Johann Kantschuster who escorted him on a walk outside the fence part of the camp prescribed to him by the camp doctor.
"Kantschuster gives the following report: He himself had to urinate; Strauss proceded on his way. Suddenly Strauss broke away towards the schrub located at a distance of about 6 m. from the line. When he noticed it, he fired two shots at the fugitive from a distance of about 8 m. whereupon Strauss collapsed dead.
"On the same day, May 24, 1933, a judicial inspection of the locality took place. The corpse of Strauss was lying at the edge of the wood. Leather slippers were on his feet. He were a sock on one foot, while the other foot was bare, obviously because of an injury to this foot. Subsequent] an autopsy was performed. Two bullets had entered the back of the head. Besides, the body showed several black and blue spots and also open wounds."
Skipping now to the last paragraph of the report:
"I have charged Kantschuster today with murder and have made application for opening and execution of the judicial preliminary investigation as well as for a warrant of arrest against him."
That is the first of the four reports. The significance is that you have one after the other, committed within a short space of time, and in each instance an official report by the camp commander or the guard as to the cause of death, which was completely disproved by the facts.
Leonhard Hausmann, another prisoner in Dachau. It is our Document 6428-F and I offer it in evidence as U.S. Exhibit No. 451.
THE PRESIDENT: I don't think you need read the details.
MAJOR FARR: I will offer it without reading it.
The third report which I shall offer is dated 22 May 1933. It relates to the death of Louis Schloss, an inmate of Dachau and is our Document 644-PS. I offer it in evidence as USA Exhibit 452.
The fourth document, our No. 645-PS, dated 1 June 1933, relates to the death of Sebastian Nefzger, another Dachau prisoner. I offer this letter in evidence as U.S. Exhibit No. 453.
in the Spring of 1933, each by different SS guards, are but a few examples of SS activities in the camps even as early as 1933. Many similar examples from that period and later periods could be produced.
Indeed, that sort of thing was officially encouraged. I call the Tribunals attention to the Disciplinary Regulations for the Dachau Concentration Camp, car document 778-PS, which has already been introduced in evidence as U.S.A. Exhibit 247. I want to read the fourth paragraph of the introduction to those rules, a passage which was not read when the document was originally introduced. The fourth paragraph on the first page of the translation of the original is as follows:
"Tolerance means weakness. In the light of this conception, punishment will be mercilessly handed out whenever the interests of the Fatherland warrant it. The fellow countryman who is decent but misled will never be affected by these regulations. But let it be a warning to the agitating politicians and intellectual provocators - regardless of which kind - be on your guard not to be caught, for otherwise it will be your neck and you will be shut up according to your own methods." is to be noted, was the commandant of the SS Totenkopfverbaende. of the SS with relation to the camps. The entire internal management of the camps, including the use of prisoners, their housing, clothing, sanitary conditions, the determination of their right to live and the disposal of their remains, was controlled by the SS. Such management was first vested in the leader of the SS Death Head Units who also had the title of Inspector of the Concentration Camps. This official was originally a part of the SS Main Office (SS Hau*---* - represented on the chart by the second box from the left. camps was transferred to another of the departments of the SS Supreme Command - the SS Economic and Administration Department - commonly known as WVHA. That department is indicated on the chart by the 3rd box from "Concentration Camps" which in turn is broken down into "Prison, Labor, the left.
And the Court will note under the top box the breakdown Official Administration." from the Chief of WVHA. The letter is our Document No. R-129 and has already been received in evidence as U.S. Exhibit No.217. I shall not quote from that letter now. coincided with the change in the basic purposes of the concentration camps. Political and security reasons, which previously had been the grounds for confinement, were abandoned and the camps were frankly made to serve the Nazi slave labor program. The tribunal wall recall the evidence relating to that program which was presented last week by Mr. Dodd. I shall not burden the tribunal by dealing at any length with the evidence there introduced, except to summarize the principal facts bearing on SS responsibility which were demonstrated by that evidence. work the inmates of the camp harder. More inmates had to be obtained. Through its police arm the SS was prepared to satisfy this demand, as through the WVHA it was prepared to work those who were already in the camp.
THE PRESIDENT: Have you any figures you can give the Tribunal as to the total numbers in the SS and the total numbers who were employed on concentration camps? If you gave the total number of the SS and the total number employed in concentration camps, we should see what the proportion was.
MAJOR FARR: I think I can only give you these figures: I earlier quoted some figures from d'Alquen in his book published in 1939, in which he said the total strength of the General SS was about 240,000. That is the General SS. It was not at that time engaged in the guarding of concentration camps. The Death Head Units at that time consisted of some three or four regiments at the most. They were the guards; so that of the personnel who were employed in actual guard duty there were, in 1939, about three or four regiments.
no longer employed in that duty and that the members of the General SS took it up. How many were employed is something that is difficult to estimate. The concentration camp program was constantly expanding, and of course as more camps were added more personnel was needed. I can't give the Tribunal figures on the number of persons involved in guarding the camps, but one of the matters I think significant is this: we have not only guards but we have administrative personnel. We have the whole of of the WVHA, which, as I want to show by evidence, had complete control of the management of the con-centration camps.
The members of the staff office, WVHA, were derived from the General SS; so you have on the one hand the guard personnel, Death Head Units, up to 1939, and then you have after 1939 more guards from the Allgemeine SS. You have, after 1939, four guards from the General SS and also administrative personnel from WVHA.
I don't have the figures on how many persons were engaged in one or another phase of the concentration camp activities. It was widespread. You have, of course, the SD and Security Police involved in it in so far as they went out and seized victims. You have WVHA, the entire administrative personnel of that section, involved in it in, so far as they handled administrative matters. in the activity may be gained from noting the number of persons involved in a camp. I have a document, a report by WVHA, in August 1944, which reports the number of prisoners who were then on hand in the camps and the recent arrivals who were expected. That document is our Document No.1166-PS, which I will now offer in evidence as USA Exhibit 458.
THE PRESIDENT: I don't think we had better go into that tonight. What will you be dealing with tomorrow?
MAJOR FARR: Sir, I intend to offer evidence showing how WVHA was involved ant how other SS personnel were involved in the control of every phase of the concentration camp program. That is the first thing. The second thing is to point out the role that the SS played in the persecution and extermination of the Jews, not with a view to repeating the substantive evidence, to show that such acts took place, but to show how many parts of the organization were involved in that program. aggressive war and the crimes against peace, a relatively brief discussion, and then pass on to the role that the SS played in war crimes and crimes against humanity, set out in Counts 3 and 4 of the Indictment, and finally, the role of the SS in the colonization program.
THE PRESIDENT: Colonization?
MAJOR FARR: That may be an unfortunate word. Perhaps I should have said Germanization program, a program of resettlement, evacuation, colonization, and exploitation of the conquered territores. considered, and I shall endeavor not again to go into the substantive crimes which have already been shown to the Tribunal, but to try to show how almost every department-in fact, every department of the SS and every component-- was involved in one or more, and mostly more, of these crimes.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal hopes that you will be able to confine yourself to the reading of evidence which is not, cumulative.
MAJOR FARR: I have that in mind and I don't intend to do that except to show the figures and components of the SS which were involved in various programs,
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
(Whereupon at 1705 hours the hearing of the Tribunal adjourned to reconvene at 1000 hours, 20 December 1945.)
Military Tribunal, in the matter of:
MAJOR FARR: May it please the Tribunal, when the Tribunal rose yesterday, we were discussing the number of persons who might be involved in the concentration camp program with which the SS was concerned. Nothing better illustrates the Integrated character of the whole organization than the concentration camp program. administration and control of that camp program and dealt with the victims once they were in the camp. They were assisted by the Death Head units, who furnished the guard personnel for the camps, and subsequently by the Allegemeine SS, Which took over guard duties during the war. arm of the SS - because through it the victims were apprehended and taken to the camps. Thus the SD appears in the picture, the personal staff, the first department of the Supreme Command, sort of the top office of the whole organization, and naturally had much to do with the work of all subordinate departments. something to do with the concentration camp program, it is a question which I think it is impossible to answer. You may point out how many persons were involved in the Death-Head units, who originally furnished the guard details. You may estimate how many persons were in the Allgemeine SS, but to say just what percentage of the whole organization was involved in that program, is something, which I find myself unable to do.
THE PRESIDENT: Can you say that one or other branch of the SS provided the whole of the staff of the concentration camps?
MAJOR FARR: By the staff, I take it you mean guards at the camp, the guard personnel. You can't do that. For example, the Death-Head units originally started off as being the units which furnished all the guard personnel. Subsequently, their task was taken over by members of the Allgemeine SS.
THE PRESIDENT: Those are both branches of the SS?
MAJOR FARR: Both branches, yes. With respect to the camp commandants, for instance, normally all high ranking offices in the SS were members of the Allgemeine SS, so doubtless such personnel would be drawn from that branch. It is certainly not beyond question that some members of the Waffen SS may have been called on to act as guards in certain camps. I don't think that you can say that there is no component of the SS, which may not have had some of its personnel involved in the program.
THE PRESIDENT: That wasn't exactly what I meant. What I meant was: could you say that one or other branches of the SS furnished the whole staff of the concentration camps?
MAJOR FARR: I don't think I can say that. I think I could say this
THE PRESIDENT (Interposing): What other organization was it that furnished a part of the staff of the concentration camps?
MAJOR FARR: You mean an organization other than the SS?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
MAJOR FARR: I know of none.
THE PRESIDENT: Then the answer would, be "yes" then?
MAJOR FARR: I thought your Honor was asking if I could refer to any one branch of the SS, which was concerned alone with that. The SS, so far as I know, is the only organization, which played a part in the concentration camp picture, except at the very end of the war when I thin, as Colonel Storey said yesterday, some members of the SA were also involved as guard personnel of concentration camps.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Do you know the total personnel at the end of the War?
MAJOR FARR: Of the entire SS?
MR. BIDDLE: Yes.
MAJOR FARR: That is something you would have to estimate. I quoted to the Tribunal yesterday the figures that d'Alquen gave as to the strength of the Allgemeine SS in 1939. He said then that there were about 240,000 men in the Allgemeine SS. There were at that time about 4 regiments of Death-Head units, several other regiments of the Verfuegungsgruppe, a few thousand personnel involved in the SD, so that I should say in 1939 you had about 250,000 to 300,000 members of the SS. With the outbreak of the war, the Waffen SS was built up from a few regiments of the Verfuegungsgruppe to about 31 divisions at the end of the war, which would probably mean that the Waffen So, by 1941, had had soma 400,000 to 500,000 persons involved. I take it that 400,000 to 500,000 members of the Waffen SS would be in addition to personnel of the Allgemeine SS, who were subject to compulsary military service in the Wehrmacht. So that, if I had to estimate, I would say that probably some 750,000 persons would be the top figure of personnel, who had been involved in the SS from the beginning, but that is an estimate.
MR. BIDDLE: Then you have no breakdown to show how many of those were civilians, clerks, stenographers, soldiers and so on?
MAJOR FAR: No. When we are talking about SS members, we are not talking about stenographers who worked in the office, who were not members of the SS. By SS members, we mean personnel who took oath and appeared on the membership list, either as a member of the Allgemeine SS, the Death-Head unit, or the Waffen SS. I would think that my figure of 750,000 was a figure including members of the SS, Allgemeine SS, the Totenkopfverbande, and the Waffen SS. WVHA in 1942, which was coincident with the shift in the basic purpose of the camps, which, theretofore had been concerned with custody of individuals for political and security reasons. Now the basic purpose of the camps was to furnish manpower and I now want to point out to the Court the agencies of the SS, which were involved in that manpower drive.
was issued in 1942 shortly after the transfer to WVHA of concentration camp control, directing Security Police to furnish at once 35,000 prisoners qualified to work in the camps. That order is our Document 1063-PS, and was received in evidence as US Exhibit No. 219.
35,000 prisoners was, of course, merely the beginning. The SS dragnet was capable of catching many more slaves. I offer in evidence a carbon typewritten copy of a directive to all the departments of the SS Supreme Command, issued from Himmler's field headquarters on August 5, 1943. It is our Document No. 744-PS. I offer it as U.S. Exhibit 455 That directive appears on page 2 of the translation. It implements an order signed by the Defendant Keitel, directing the use of all males, captured in guerilla fighting in the East, for forced labor. The Keitel directive appears on page 1 of the translation. the translation. The Tribunal will note that it is addressed to every main office of the SS Supreme Command. I read that list of addressees of the directives:
"(1) Chief of the personal staff of Reichsfuehrer SS.
(2) SS Main Office.
(3) Reich Security Main Office (RSHA).
(4) Race and resettlement main office-SS (5) Main office, ordinary police (6) SS economic administrative main office.
(7) SS personal main office.
(8) Main office SS court (9) SS Supreme Command - Headquarters of Waffen SS.
(10) Staff Headquarters of the Reichcommissar for the consolidation of (11) Main office center for Racial Germans.
(12) Office of SS Obergruppenfuehrer Heissmeyer.
(13) Chief of the guerilla-fighting units."
the chart, is a recipient of that directive. The next addressees are the I continue to quote the body of the directive:
"I order, that all young female prisoners, capable of work are to be "Childred, old women and men are to be follected and employed in the somen's and children's camps, established by me, on estates as well as on the border of the evacuated area."
this time 100,000 Jew from Hungary. The Tribunal will recall the minutes of the Defendant Speer's discussion with Hitler on April 6 and 7, 1944, Hitler's statement that he would call on the Reich fuehrer SS to produce The last source of manpower had not been tapped.
To Jews, deportees, war.
It was through the SS that the conspirators squeezed the last drop already been introduced in evidence as U.S. Exhibit 179.
The statement is R-124, the next to the last paragraph on page 13.
That appears in Volume 2 of the Document Book.
I quote:
"Speer: We have come to an arrangement with the Reichsguehrer SS as soon as possible so that PW's he picks up are made available for our pur poses.
The Reichsfuehrer SS gets from 30 to 40 thousand men per month."
camps on 25 September 1944. I offer in evidence the letter referring to his appointment.
It is our Document 058-PS. It is U.S. Exhibit 456. It will be found in Volume 1 of the Document Book.
That letter is a cir 1944 and signed "M. Bormann". I quote, beginning with the first paragraph of that letter:
"1. The Fuehrer has ordered under the date 25 September 1944:
'The suctody of all prisoners of war and interned persons, transferred to the commander of the Reserve Army from Ocotober 1, 1944.
'" (a) and (c), I quote:
"2. The Reichsfuehrer SS has commanded:
(a) In my capacity as Commander of the Reserve Army, I transfer the affairs of prisoners of war to Gottleb Berger, SS-Lieut.
General, Chief of Staff of the Volkstums."
Skipping now to sub-paragraph (c):
"(c) The mobilization of labor of the prisoners of war will be tween SS-Lieut.
General Berger, and SS-Lieut. General Pohl.