The next page, approached from the middle of the first 31 July M LJG 5-1 paragraph:
"The election official ... did not throw the envelope into the voting box Immediately, but tried to push it under the paper and which is situated on the voting box to cover the slit so as to be able to open the evelope later at an opportune moment." another branch of the Security Service:
"To all Orgsgruppenleiters of the N.S.D.A.P. of the Kreis of Erfurt - Waissensee:
"On their appearance in your Ortsgruppen area for the purpose of carrying out their voting duty, the under-mentioned persons are to be specially watched and the Kreisleitung of Erfurt (Election Office SD) is to be notified immediately."
There are many names; and lastly:
"By order of the Kreisleiter, this matter is to be strictly confidential.
On the next page there is another report about a Jehova's Witness, Robert Siering, and his wife, "who appeared in a voting center on Sunday morning and deposited their vote after both had been advised of their duty to vote by the police in Griefstedt and had been threatened with the removal of their child in case on non-participation. D-902, which will become GB 542. On the first page of that exhibit we have a report sent to the Erfurt Branch Office of the Security Service, marked confidential. It is not clear who it is signed by. It is dated the 7th of April 1938, and reads as follows:
"After thorough and most careful examination in the area of the Ortsgruppe of Melchendorf and in the closest cooperation with the Ortsgruppenleiter, we have come to the following conclusion:
"The following persons will with 100% probability vote "No" at the forthcoming plebiscite."
31 July M LJG 5-2 "explanations" in the case of each.
"Explanation: 1) Wilhelm Messing (taken into protective custody in 1933 because of illegal activity for the Communist Party....", and so on.
"2) Walter Messing (also taken into protective custody in 1933 for slandering the SA." page. paragraphs on the next page:
"Guenther Hartung, 113 Johannesstrasse, Wallstrasse entrance, must be reported as being an enemy of the State and opposed to the plebiscite.
"Hartung must be described as a morally totally degenerate man and it is necessary to lock the same up in spite of his ago (70 years).
"Amongst other things, he referred to the German troops on their entry into Austria as loafers. Sufficient witnesses as to Hartung are available." with the plebiscite, I draw the attention of the Tribunal to the penultimate paragraphs "The wife of the 100% Jew Rielschowski, who was dragged along just before closing time of the plebiscite, voted "No", as can be proved."
translation, which describes how the votes were screened in another area by a ribbonless typewriter; and then again on Page 9 of the translation, another report:
"The labourer Otto Wiegand... was requested four times to record his vote on the day of the election and finally voted under force."
And the next report on the same page:
31 July M LJG 5-3 "the married woman Frieda Schreiner.
.. did not vote in spite of repeatedly being invited to do so. The above is a fanatic member of the former international association of Jehova's witnesses.
"The husbank, who has the same opinions and who was recently involved in criminal proceedings because of them, recorded his vote. To be sure, this was probably exclusively for fear of renewed arrest. to is on Page 11, whore there is shown an extract from the local newspaper recording the united German vote, which has been obtained by the Security Service with cooperation of the Leadership Corps in the way in which we have seen. would refer the Tribunal o a document which has already been put in, and it will be found on Page 91 of the small document book that Sir David handed to the Tribunal yesterday, Page 91 of that book, Pages 118 and 119 of the German. It is Document R-142, US 481. That, it will be seen, is a report again from the Security Service, but this time in Coblenz. I read the second paragraph:
"The high percentage of "No" votes, as it reads in nearly all cases, in the religious attitude of the population, irrespective of whether they are Catholics or Protestants...." My Lord, that in the original is the " Kreisgeschaeftsfuehrer", who is one of the staff officers of the Kreisleiter -- "the Kreisgeschaeftsfuehrer of the Kreis conclave gave assurance that it was mostly women who voted "No", or invalidly. As became known here, a supervisory control was ordered at several of the...."
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Griffith Jones, this is already in evidence, is it not?
LIEUTENANT COLONEL GRIFFITH JONES: Yes, this is in evidence.
THE PRESIDENT: I do not think you need go into it.
LIEUTENANT COLONEL GRIFFITH JONES: I am much obliged.
31 July M LJG 5-4 I only wanted to draw the attention of the Tribunal to it. found on Page 55 of that same document book, at pages 55 and then 54, the documents being PS 849, which is US 354, and 848, which is US 353. The two documents together describe how the party -
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Griffith Jonas, I do not think you ought to comment on documents which are already in evidence unless they are documents which the witness can throw light upon.
LIEUTENANT COLONEL GRIFFITH JONES: It is a little difficult to make the point which I would have made in cross-examining the witness on these documents if I only confine myself to the now ones without drawing the attention of the Tribunal to other documents which relate to the same matter.
THE PRESIDENT: If they are not now documents and you want to cross-examine the witness about them, you can put them to the witness.
LIEUTENANT COLONEL GRIFFITH JONES: Very well, sir. I will leave that subject now. this witness is the use of euthanasia, or mercy killing, and the part the political locators played in those matters. My Lord, this is a now document, D-906, which becomes GB 543. which are printed on the first page, again, item No. 2, Martin Bormann, the 24th of September, 1940, a letter from the National Socialist German Workers' Party, the Fuehrer's deputy:
"To the Gauleitung Franconia, for the attention of Kreisleiter Zimmermann:
"Your letter of the 13/9/1940 was given to me by Party member Hoffmann. The Commission which was working at Neuendettelsaus, is under the control of Reichsleiter Bouhler, or is acting on his orders.
"The text of the notifications of relatives is being vari-
31 July M LJG 5-5 ously worded, as I was once more assured yesterday; it can, however naturally happen some times that two families living close to each other receive similarly worded letters.
"It is natural that the representatives of Christian ideology speak against the Commission's measures; it must be equally natural that all Party Offices should, as far as necessary, support the work of the Commission."
Then I go back to Number 1 on that page. "Gaustabsamtleiter (Franconia) Sellmer -- "that was another staff officer, "handwritten note 1/10/40.
"Justice. Visit from party member Blankenberg, Berlin. Action begins in the near future. So far hardly any mishaps have occurred. 30,000 dispatched, Further 100,000 to 120,000 are waiting. The circle of those who are initiated is to be kept very small. If necessary the Kreisleiter is to be notified in good time."
Then it goes on, "The Fuehrer gave the order that the decree is ready. At present only clear cases, that is 100 % ones, are being settled. Later an expansion will take place. From now on, notification will be given in a..." it is not clear here in the print. Then at the end of the document, "Kreisleiter Sellmer must be informed." Erlangen dated on November 26, 1940 dealing with the elimination of mental patients.
"On orders from the Ministry of the Interior, signed Schulz or Schultze, a commission consisting among other, of a North German doctor and a number of students, appeared some time ago at the local sanitorium and nursing home. It examined the documents of the patients lodged in the institution". And then it describes how he examined the patients which were to be transferred to another institution on orders from the Reich Defense Commissar and "that a Berlin Transport Company was to carry out the transfer and the head of the institution was to follow the directives of was/ this company, which in possession of the list of names.
In this way 3 transports with a total number of 370 patients were in the meantime transferred to Sonnenstein near Pirna and to the Linz district. A further transport is to leave in January of next year. The head of the institution ..." And then it goes on for a few lines, and starts again, "Strangely enough various relatives received notification after the transportation that their patients had died. In some cases pneumonia and in others an infectious disease were given as the cause of death.
At the same time the relatives were further informed that it had been necessary to cremate the body and that, if they were interested, they could have the clothing of the deceased sent to them. The registry office of Erlangen was also informed by the institution of the various cases of death, and again either pneumonia or an infectious disease were given as the cause of death -- ilnesses which had no connection with the previous medical history, so that it is to be assumed that it is here a case of false statements. The population is terribly disturbed about the transfert of patients, because they connect it with the cases of death which are becoming known in rapid succession. They are speaking partly openly, partly secretly, about an elimination of patients for which there is no legal foundation. In these war times such unrest among the population has a doubly unfavourable effect. Moreover, the events described above give the church and religious circles cause to revive their attitude against National Socialism."
THE PRESIDENT: Under which, of the Article 6 of the Charter, does this come?
LT. COL. GRIFFITH JONES: It comes under "Crimes against Humanity"
THE PRESIDENT: Are they connected with war?
LT COL. GRIFFITH JONES: In respect, yes, because the purpose of this extermination of odl people was to rid the Reich of unproductive element I connot for the moment, give you the exact reference where that heppens. but it does appear among one of the documents. That is a hanwritten addition to the document in the hand writing of the ... I beg your pardon, it's an original extract of the situation abroad from the Kreisleitung of Erlangen.
The next document, My Lord, need no be dealt with at length. The point is that a Kreisleiter is involved and that it was general knowledge that there were mistakes in the notification of deaths, for instance, one family receiving two urns for one patient.
Number 5 on the next page is much the same. I draw the Tribunal's attention to the middle of the last paragraph, toward the end. "The doctor also informed me that it was well know that the Commission consisted of one SS Doctor and several subordinate doctors and that the 'ppatients' were not even examined and that they only pronounced their verdict in accordance with the medical history noted down."
a protest, or rather, an inquiry about the death of a relative. It's from a Mrs. Marie Kehr and I mention that because it also refers to another document PS 1969. No, it's a new document. It will become GB-544, PS-1969. I shall ask you to look at the second page of that document where you have a letter from the Reich Minister of the Interior to the Gaustabsamtsleiter in Nurnberg. He forwards Mrs. Kehr's letter and the importance of that document is at the bottom.
"In Ink. Ortsgruppenleiter Party Member Popp is of the opinion that one can inform Mrs. Kehr she is calm and circumspect." informed. looking at, D-906, page 6 of that document. The Ortsgruppenleiter in Absberg is writing about incidents which occurred on the occasion of the latest removal of mentally defective persons from an institution in that town. He writes to the Kreisleitung and incorporates a report of an incident which took place and I can only emphasize that there was public knowledge of what was happening. Weissenburg, Bavaria, reports about the same distrubances and that goes to the Gau Staff Offcie in Nurnberg. he is writing about the removal of patients from yet another sanitorium in another town, and on the top of the following page the Ortsgruppenleiter is involved. "Ortsgruppenleiter Reuschel is further more of the opinion that he should speak about the removal of the inmates, if possible at the next meeting of members, in order to give the facts and above all to squash the rumors that have arisen that the inmates would very soon be put out of the way, done away with, or poisoned."
Then at the bottom you see another handwritten note. "The organization leadership, that is, the political leaders on the staff of the Hoheitstraeger is to be informed." about. There is one general matter which if the Tribunal will allow me, I wish to ask a few questions about.
BY LT. COLONEL GRIFFITH-JONES: witness. In view of the documents that you have seen, did you yourself ever have any knowledge of this so-called mercy killing that was going on? being done away with. Thereup *---*s my duty, I immediately inquired of my Gauleiter and after a short time I received the information that this was not true and that in the future I was not to make such inquiries, which I had to see were senseless.
Q Why did you not have to make such inquiries? Leaders were cooperating in that system of murder?
A No, I never knew that; I never suspected that.
Q Now let me ask you about one other matter. You told the Tribunal yesterday that there was no Corps of Political Leaders, is that right?
Q That is not correct, is it? They were recognized officially as the Corps of Political Leaders, were they not?
A The Corps of Political Lead *---* was spoken of with the intention of teaching one man or another better manners on his appearance in public, and for that reason a reference is made to a corps of officers and students. They were to be an example. There was no official Corps of Political Leaders and there could not be any such corps because the men changed constantly and had to came from all parts of the population. political leader you became a member of that Corps, isn't that the position? appointed one could not become a member of it. Leaders in the official organization book of the NSDAP, are they not?
A I am convinced that you can do that. You have the book. I refer again to my oath and say that I have not had time to read this book carefully because my actual tasks were more important than reading this wishful dream.
I can not call it by any other name.
LT. COLONEL GRIFFITH-JONES: I have no further questions. BY DR. SERVATIUS:
Q I have a question oh Document D-897, the first one that was submitted; a letter from the Security Service, Branch Erfurt, signed by an officer of the Security Office. It is addressed to all consultants and Stuetzpunktleiter. The Prosecutor said that the Stuetzpunkt, which is here referred to, is a Party agency. Is this opinion correct if you road that the letter is addressed to all Referenten and Stuetzpunktleiter and is a letter of the SS? It can only be a Stuetzpunktleiter of the SD, for at that time within the political leadership there were no more Stuetzpunktleiter but only Ortsgruppen. Moreover, further on in this letter it expressly mentions the Ortsgruppenleiter.
Q Yes. It says there: "This matter is also to be carried out in close cooperation with the Ortsgruppenleiter of the Party." Is this letter addressed to a subordinate Party agency from a subordinate SS agency?
AAt the moment I don't have the letter here, but I recall that it was addressed to the subordinate branch agency and saying that they should contact the Ortsgruppenleiter. I noticed that the Ortsgruppenleiter was to be informed only one day before, while the others are informed two days beforehand and given information. channels of the Party or were the higher Party agencies skipped? should have been done by the higher Party agency. Party agencies knew nothing of this action of the lower SS agency?
DR. SERVATIUS: I have no more questions to put to the witness.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness may retire.
Will you call your next witness, Dr. Servatius?
DR. SERVATIUS: With the permission of the Court, I call the next witness, Wegscheider, on Ortsgruppenleiter.
HANS WEGSCHEIDER, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows: BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q Will you state your full name, please?
Q Will you repeat this oath after me:
I swear by God, the Almighty and O**scient that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.
(The witness repeated the oath.)
THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down. BY DR. SERVATIUS:
Q Witness, when were you born? 1933 to 1945, in Hirschdorf, near St. Lorenz?
Q That is in the Kreis Kemten, Allgrev?
Q And you were mayor from 1933 on?
Q You were a blacksmith and veterinary?
Q And, as such, you traveled a great deal in Allgrev? in Allgrev? Please make a pause so that a translation can be made.
Q How many people were there?
Q When did you enter the Party?
Q How did you become an Ortsgruppenleiter? 28th of March, '33, I was appointed Ortsgruppenleiter.
Q Did you take an oath?
A Yes. As Ortsgruppenleiter I took an oath once. oath twelve times. Is that a mistake?
Q How did you become the local mayor? At about the end of this month the community council elected a mayor, and I had not only the votes of the NSDAP, but also four votes of the Social Democratic workers' party and one vote of the Bava rian Peoples' Party, and thus I was elected May or.
Q As Ortsgruppenleiter, did you receive a salary?
Q What was the case of the Ortsgruppenleiter who were not mayors? in the hands of one man? probably there was no suitable personality. In ten communities of our Kreis the mayor and Ortspruppenleiter were the same person, and in the last analysis it was more expedient.
Q. How was your Ortsgruppenleitung made up?
A. First the Ortsgruppenleiter, then the propaganda organization, then the treasurer, a press office leader, then two Zellenleiter and about eight Blockleiter.
Q. What was the activity of the Block and Zellebleiter?
A. The activity of our Zellenleiter in the small country community developed into something superfluous so that in most of the Ortsgruppen they were abolished. The activity of the Blockleiter can be considered purely technical in that they did only auxiliary work.
Q. Did you consider the Block and Zellenleiter as political leaders and Hoheitstraeger (dignitaries)?
A. No, since the work of the Blockleiter in the small country communities was insignificant politically, they could not be called Hoheitstraeger.
Q. Why did you enter the party and why did you take over your office as Ortsgruppenleiter?
A. From the year 1929 and the years following, in the years 1931, '31, '32, and '33 and as I was a blacksmith by profession and had been closely connected with the peasants, I saw with my own eyes how German agriculture declined and I saw this decline year by year. In our district to a large extent we had joined the Bavarian Peasant Group and a few had gone with the German People's Party and a few workers who were in the community joined the Socialist Party and a few belonged to the Communists.
Q. Please give me your personal reasons, your very own reasons for entering.
A. I have already emphasized in my own district I saw this decline personally.
Q. They were social reasons?
A. Purely social reasons.
Q. And what was the attitude of the others?
What was the attitude of the other political leaders? Did they have other reasons for joining, perhaps the fight against the Jews or the acquisition on Lebensraum?
A. The need was equally intensive in all agricultural regions and I believe the attitude might well have been the same.
Q. What was the attitude of the Kreisleiter and teh Gauleiter?
A. The Gauleiters and Kreisleiters with patriots and I believe they saw their activity and their calling in the party as a means of doing good for the poeple and for the country.
Q. Mr. Witness, in the party program other aims are set forth as well, that is purely social ones, such as for instance the solution of the Jewish problem.
What was the attitude of the political loaders to that question?
A. In our district there were no Jewish nusinesses and there were no Jewish people there. Therefore, this question was not aburning one in our district. We hardly ever mentioned it or discussed it.
Q. Weren't there any Jewish people who dealt in cattle?
A. No, not in the country. In the city yes, there was an establishmend. Our peasants were active there; they sold there; they bought cattle there; they exchanged cattle there.
Q. Weren't there steps taken or what was the attitude in that regard?
A. No, for a long time after the assumtion of power our farmers traded there and they made their purchases of cattle there.
Q. The party program also contained a demand for settlement space. Was this to be carried out through conquest and did you receive directives which might be interpreted as leading to a preparation for war?
A. I did not receive any directives such as that and we, in the country, saw in this settlement problem the regaining or the returning of our colonies and we were of the firm conviction that this policy could be carried out in a peaceful manner.
Q. Did not the political leaders soon see that a large rearmament program was going on?
A. The rearmament, as such, we saw but little of that because we lived in the country.
At the Reichsparteitag, although I do not recall the exact year, we had seen that more airplanes and more tanks were present and were being shown and on the basis of that we gained the conviction that a country and a people like Germany would have to protect her borders for her own internal structure and we considered this rearmament a necessary evil.
Q. Were there not aims which could be realized only through wars of aggression, such as the slogan, "Away from Versailles" and "Germans unite"?
A. This point of the program, as well, was discussed with us and we saw the union of all German speaking peoples in line with a plebiscite and in line with the self-determination rights of the German speaking people.
Q. Were there not soon differences with the church because of the attitude of the party as to church matters? There were attacks on the church you know.
A. No, not in the country. Especially as to us in the country, we made no differences. Blockleiter and Zellenleiter were Catholics and in my particular district, together with my eight political leaders, I was active in church matters. The people who sang, the church musicians, perhaps there were thirty of them, were party members, male and female or they belonged to some organization, the youth group or whatever the case may be as it applied to them. That applied in my district and I believe the same conditions applied in other districts and communities as well.
Q. Did not the clergymen protest against the steps being taken by the party on the Jewish question and did not this lead to arguments and similar questions?
A. As I have already mentioned, there were no Jews in our locality. Therefore, this problem was hardly dealt with at all.
Q. Was there not unrest because of the seizing of political opponents and their being taken to concentration camps?
A. In our whole area I never had any knowledge of the fact that anyone was taken to a concentration camp. In my community, and I assume this happened right after the assumption to power, two individuals were sent to Dachau but what the reason for this was I do not know for at that time I was not mayor and I was not Ortsgruppenleiter.
My attention was called to this matter when in the year 1933 a woman, Mrs. Behr from Rottach near Kemten, came to me and asked me to do something for her husband, who had been interned at Dachau for some months and that I should make application for his release as it was not possible for her to cultivate her large vegetable garden alone.
Q. You need not give us the details. Just tell us what steps you took and what inquiries you made.
A. I made inquiry and for several months did not hear anything at all.
Q. Was he released?
A. Yes, he was released.
Q. Did you speak with him?
A. Yes.
Q. What did he tell you?
A. He told me: "I was treated farily well, the food and living conditions were quite good and the treatment as well."
Q. The Kreisleiter and Gauleiter, did both of these gentlemen agree with this more or less negative attitude or did they demand more severe measures against all who were not party members or people who had interests other than those of the party?
A. Gauleiter and Kreisleiter, both represented the view and had the attitude that severe measures should be rejected. Both of them at meetings always repeatedly made clear to us that we should set a good example and through our good example we should thus gain the confidence and the good will of the people.
Q. Were SA and SS units formed in your group or your community so that political opponents could be terrorized?
A. No. There were very few members of the SA and SS who were in the country. They were actually active in the cities. In the nearby and remote communities, such as Oberguensburg, for instance, the members of these two organizations were united into small units. Their activity was purely propagandistic.
Q. Was there a unit of the SS there too?
A. In Kemten there was a small SS cavalry unit but you can hardly call it a unit for this group had only eight or ten members and was active purely along propaganda lines.
Q. Did not the party press make known to you the party demands, such as, for instance, as to the Jewish question through "Der Stuermer" or through "Das Schwarze Korps"? Do you know both of those newspapers, "Das Schwarze Korps" and "Der Stuermer"?
A. Both of these newspapers exceeded the aims of the party program by far on these two points. The party program on these two points wanted to merely take the Jews out of influential positions. Apart from that these papers were hardly read in the country Q Didn't you have to tell yourself that activity of 31 July M LJG 8-1 that sort, naturally or by force, would lead to an aggressive war and to crimes against war, such as are the basis of the indictment today?
A No; this activity of Ortagruppenleiter or of Blockleiter, the activities carried on by these people were of such a nature that they would hardly lead to a supposition of that kind. Our work was purely socialistic; during the war, regarding the lynching of aviators who had made emergency landings, there was a letter of Bormann and Goebbels and there were directives given out over the radio and through, the press. Did you receive directives from the Kreisleiter in this regard? lynched in your territory?
Q What happened to them? flyer who had landed about a hundred yards behind my home. I took him in my home and took care of him and after--perhaps a quarter of an hour--he was taken by the police. In the month of March in the year 1945, although I can't tell you exactly today, four American prisoners of war had escaped from a camp at Eidrunk and the guard who had been stationed at a bridge at Hirschdorf, this guard had captured them after twelve o'clock and brought these four prisoners to me. taken in your region Allgaue?
A Yes, that was the general way we handled this. The population of Allgaue is--They are very good Catholics and we all are of the opinion that such prisoners of war should actually be treated as prisoners of war. were employed. Did you have directives about the treatment of of such workers, treatment which you might consider contrary 31 July M LJG 8-2 to human dignity?
entire matter of foreign workers, there were shout sixty of them, Polish and Ukrainian civilian workers, and this was an activity that was handled by the Ortsbauernfuehrer and in our area it was such that on matters of this kind, the Bauernfuehrer discussed these matters with me.
Q Didn't you hear about the fact that these workers were to sleep in a barn and were to receive their food there as well? were to sleep in a barn and were to receive their food there, that I never heard of; only the labor office gave each Polish worker a slip which was to be turned, over to our farmers, a slip on which it said that the Polish workers should not eat at the same table with the farmers and they should be at home at a certain hour. In discussing this matter with the Bauernfuehrer at that time, I told him this matter is not to be carried through, within our Gau. If the foreign worker involved behaved himself decently and did his work as well as a German worker, then he should, have the same rights, the same rights as the German worker would have.
Q Mr. Witness, on other things which you heard about the Party in the Reich, wasn't it that one would have liked to deviate from certain points and especially during the war? the country believed, we all believed in the Fuehrer's love of peace, for we all ourselves know that Hitler had lived through the horrors of the first world war and we were convinced of the will of peace, the will of peace had been emphasized to us again and again. leaders deliberately partook in terrorization in line with an aggressive war and the commission of crimes?