Q. Beyond the executive and the administrative officials, were there other categories of Gestapo members ?
A. Yes; there were technical officials, and beyond that there was a large number of people who worked for wages who worked in the office.
Q. What percentage of the entire personnel was made up of these who received their wages and other people who were hired ?
A. Depending on the particular year, this percentage varied from 35 to 40 percent.
Q. Did the employees and hirelings know what tasks were carried out by the executive members ?
A. As far as the people, for instance typists or other people like that, were needed, they only learned of the single action affecting them without being notified about the incidents connected with it.
Q. Did the Gestapo pay especially large salaries to its employees ?
A. No; the salaries were given out according to the various civil service laws, and they were so small that it washard to replace officials.
Q. And where did you get your replacements for the Gestapo ?
A. according to the law, 90 % of the candidates for executive and administrative services had to be taken over for candidates from the Protective Police candidates who wanted to make police work their life work. Only perhaps 10 percent of the new officials, according to the law, could be taken over from other agencies.
Q. Did the candidates from the Schutzpolizei choose to work for the Gestapo of their own will or not ?
A. The members of the Schutzpolizei had to put down their name on a list, at. Potsdam, and without their being asked, they were assigned either to the Secret State Police or to the criminal police.
Q. How were the candidates for the executive positions trained ?
A. These candidates were trained in a Fuehrer school, which was a school for experts of the Security Police. The training courses, to a large extent were the same for the criminal police as well as the Gestapo, and they were trained in the various offices and agencies.
Q. Were the officials who were in office indoctrinated politically, and were they influenced politically ?
A. No. It might have a plan of Hitler's at about the year 1935 that the Rasse und Siedlungs Hauptamt, (The Main Office For Race and Settlement of the SS) take ever a general training program. As long as I was in office, that is, up until 1940 this did not take place.
Q. Weren't the officials of the Gestapo to carry through their tasks according to political views ?
A. No; it would have been most undesirable if a law official used political judgment and had made his own political decisions. The official was to act only according to the general official directives and the orders of the superiors without interfering in politics himself in anyway.
Q. And what is the coordination of the Gestapo officers and the officials to the SS ?
A. That meant -
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Merkel, Are you summarizing the evidence that has been given before the Commission ? I ask that because, you see, we do not want to have it all over again, We have a written summary ourselves. We have the evidence taken before the Commission, and all we want you to do is to bring out the really important points and to call the witness before so that we may see them and form our opinion of the credit and hear them cross-examined in so far as it is necessary. We do not want to go through all the evidence over again that has been given before the Commission
DR. MERKEL: Yes, indeedn, Mr. President; and for that very reason, from the beginning, I asked for only two witnesses. The examination of this witness was to be directed by me in such a way that an essential summary would be given by the witness at this point summarizing those things that he has already deposed.
MR. DODD: Mr President, I think we have gone in to much more detail than we went into before the Commission, into matters that have been inquire about here before the Tribunal. I think counsel may be under some kind of misunderstanding, because before the started his examination, I asked him about howlong he thought he would be.
I thought he was being whimsical when he told me betwee four and a half and five hours, since he took only two hours or so before the Commission. I fear that if he has in mind a four and half or five hour examination when he took only two or two and a half hours before the Commission, then he must be under a misunderstanding as to what is in the minds of the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: I hope, Dr. Merkel, we have made it quite clear what we want. You have only got two witnesses. We shall no doubt read the evidence before the Commission of those two witnesses. We want to see the witnesses in order to see what credit is to the attached thereto, and we want to give you the opportunity of bringing out may particularly important points. We do not want to go through the whole thing over again.
DR. MERKEL.: Yes, indeed, Mr. President. BY MR. MERKEL:
Q. What is meant by the coordination of the Gestapo officers and official; to the SS ?
A. That meant that the official, because he was an official of the Gestapo, was taken over into the SS and received SS rank commensurate with his position.
Q. Was only the Gestapo to be assimilated ?
A. No, the officials of the criminal police were to be assimilated as well.
Q. When and how did the Reichsicherheitshauptamt, the Reich Main Security Office, originate ?
chief of the Security Police, Heydrich, in exploring the war situation, tried to merge his various departments into one. Up to that time, the Reich Ministry of the Interior had opposed, and the SS had also opposed, this unifying move. Gestapo?
Q Weren't there any legal directions in this regard? of the police decree of 1936, there was a sentence that the Secret State Police system was to administer the concentration camps. Himmler, however, never carried out this directive, for he wanted the status quo to be maintained, that the director of the camps was directly subordinate to him. concentration camps the health and life of the inmates was being endangered? during that time, the attitude of the officials of the Secret State Police was not such that the life and health of the inmates was being endangered in one concentration camps. The officials had contact with the inmates' families, who were looked after by the Secret State Police, and they had to see that the people who liberated and might work for them kept contact with them, and from their activities they could gather a picture of life in a. concentration camp. or purpose was the final one?
A No; but the work of the Gestapo had no final aim which was to be achieved. Rather it was to carry out and fulfill the orders or regulations and the tasks which were put to them from day to day the general police measures which were expected of them? out actions which were not provided for in a general regulation. It was merely an instrument for the carrying out of the matters which were foreign to the police.
I might say it was misused and abused along these lines. In the first case of this type, I should like to remind the Tribunal of the arrest of perhaps 20,000 in November of 1938. This is a measure which was not necessary from the police point of view, and would never have been carried through by the Secret State Police of its own initiative if it had not received this order for political reasons from the government. arrest 20,000 Jews?
A No. From my own experience I know that Heydrich, who was then the chief of the State Police, was completely surprised by these measures filed with him, when but a few meters from the hotel where we were staying a Synagogue went up in flames. We did not know a thing about it. Thereupon, Heydrich rushed to Himmler, and received orders there, which he transmitted to the agency of the State Police.
Q And how did the so-called intensified interrogations take place?
A Concerning the Verschaerfte Vernehmungen (intensified interrogation methods), Heydrich gave out a decree in the year 1937, which I saw for the first time after it had been issued, for I was not called in on such matters, as an administrative official. Thereupon I questioned him about this, calling him to account.
Q What reason did Heydrich give for this decree? permission from higher authority to issue this decree, that this measure was necessary to prevent conspiracy activity on the part of inimical factions against the state. But on the other hand, confessions were not to be arrived through methods comparable to the "third degree", and he called attention to the fact that foreign police agencies used such measures. He emphasized, however, that he had reserved for himself the right of approval on every individual case in the German Reich. He considered any abuse quite out of the question. plan, prepare, and unleash wars of aggression?
A No. I believe I may be able to say that, for I, as head of a department in the central office, did not know anything about it. Then the more petty officials could not have known it, either.
Q Was the Gestapo prepared for war commitments?
A No. On the one hand, in a material way, it was not armed. It especially lacked arms, vehicles and signal material. There was, on the other hand, a possibility of calling in police reserves. The entire matter was in the guinea pig state of construction. Buildings were put up so that you could not in any way say that the Secret State Police or the Security Police was ready for a burden of that nature.
Q For what purpose were the Einsatz Commandos set up?
31 July A LJG 22-1 agreement with the High Command of the Wehrmacht so that in occupied foreign countries, fighting units would agree to protect them and also, so that in the occupied countries the most elementary measures could be taken.
Q And to whom were they subordinate? were subordinate to the military commanders in chief with whose units they marched after the operation was concluded. Their subordination varied according to the administrative system which was in operation in the area. That meant, if a military chief or a Reich Commissar were set up, the higher SS leader was subordinate to this superior head, and the Einsatz Commandos were subordinate to the Higher SS leaders.
Q And how were they comprised, these Einsatz Commandos? Security Service of the Criminal Police. During the war, however, personnel had to be supplemented by members of the regular order Police, others who belonged to the Waffen SS, and employees of the various areas themselves, so that finally the officials of the secret order police were only 10% of the entire membership. police commissions? but they were security police units of a special kind. of the Einsatz Commandos?
A Yes, especially in Denmark. I had occasion to watch and observe the activities of one of these Einsatz Commandos and I am also informed about conditions in Norway as well. Commandos in Denmark and Norway, for instance?
which were committed there, very very frequently objected to the 31 July A LJG 22-2 directives that they received from central agencies, measures which would have led to severe treatment of the population.
For instance, they were against the use of the Nacht Und Nobel decree; against the use of the Kugel decree; and against the use of the Commando decree. They rejected and they fought other measures and rejected them. For instance, the Security Police were against the deportation of Danish Jews. We fought it in Norway. The Commander of the Security Police and the Reichs Commissar Terbeven told me that the severe measures which the Reichs Commissar Terbeven suggested again and again were fought against, and sometimes they were taken up with the central office in Berlin who prevented these measures. This finally caused a break between Terbeven and the Police.
Q Did you yourself *---*casion suggest the deportation of Jews from Denmark?
A No. In frequent reports the course of the year 1943, I was very much against these measures and I sharply rejected this measure. On 29 August 1943, when the State of military emergency was set up in Denmark, the deportation of Jews was ordered by Hitler and there, once more, I objected. But, when the Foreign Office confirmed that the order had finally gone out, then I demanded that a state of military emergency be maintained as long as the action was going on for I expected unrest and this demand of mine that the action take place through the state of military emergency was misinterpreted to the effect that I wanted it. I actually sabotaged it by informing the Danish politicians of the date that this was to take place so that they could do the necessary, and it was brought about that 6,000 Jews could flee and only 450 were arrested. In this manner the Security Police helped me. The Command or of the Security Police could have reported me because he knew about it, and this action would have cost me my head.
participate in the deportation of workers to the Reich Area?
31 July A LJG 22-3 deported from Denmark to the Reich as far as I know. The Security Police in other areas as well did not help in any way. hostages? Was that the Police, or who was it? the shooting of hostages in France, as a regulation, came from the Fuehrer's Headquarters. The military commanders in chief who had to carry out this decree, until 1942, were against this measure, and General Otto von Stuelpnagel, because of his conflict with the Fuehrer's Headquarters, had a nervous breakdown and had to leave the service. The new Hither SS and Police Leader, Obert, when he took over the office, assured me that he also was against these measures. tell me who decreed the harsh treatment in the occupied territories? in each case, gave decrees like that.
Q And what was the characteristic point in Hitler's decrees?
A I found this to be especially characteristic in Hitler's decrees that in the most astonishing way he dealt with details which the head of a State and Aommander-in-Chief of the Armed forces would not be aware of in a normal manner, and that these decrees always, so far as they applied to occupied territories, were governed by a deterring effect and contained intimidations to accomplish something without taking into consideration that the other side had to be considered.
Q And how did he react to objections? ing of his attitude.
Q Does your book, " The German Police", have an official character?
31 J uly A LJG 22-4 also facts?
A No. In parts the tendencies which were prevalent at the time it was set up were pictured as being quite complete, for I checked the tendencies to the briefest points and at the time of the publication of the book these would have met with difficulties.
Q Doesn't the following facts lead you to believe that a certain arbitrary tendency led into the security police measures that the chief of the German police could take measures beyond the ordinary decrees described to him? occupation of Austria and the Sudetenland, it meant that the Chief of the German Police by law would have the authority to issue police decrees in these regions.... measures which might deviate from the laws existing there by the transferring of authority by single acts were not to be taken either illegally or arbitrarily.
Q What was the existing police law? with the promise of the National Socialist conception of right and with the conception of legality in Germany. After the year 1933 the power to give laws, to make laws, was transferred to the Government gradually. A State law arose to the effect that the will of the head of the State would establish law. This principle was recognized in law for these were worked according to which a large state lived for years. You cannot characterize that by anything definite in customary law, and on this basis, the police law developed in the State in the same way. A law of decrees, laws of the President, and in February, 1933, the barriers which the Weimar constitution had put up were done away with and the police had quite a bit of a scope. This was regulated through numerous Fuehrer decrees, orders, directives, 31 July A LJG 22-5 and so forth which, since they were decreed by the fuehrer's authority, by the head of the State himself, were considered existing police laws and had to be considered as such.
how would you look at that? strange to the police, and quite foreign to the police, and which did not originate from the acts of the police and which were not necessary from the police point of view. But, if the police received such orders from the head of the State, or in the name of the head of the State, them of course, they were considered as valid police laws and such individuals had to take it upon themselves that it was an obligation to carry out a decree.
Q. Did you wish to justify these measures when you -
THE PRESIDENT: It is five o'clock now, Can you tell the Tribunal how long you think you are going to be with this witness?
DR. MERKEL: I have just two more questions. Perhaps just a few more minutes, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. BY DR. MERKEL:
Q. Did you wish to justify this opinion and this attitude when you said in your book that it was not a question of law but a question of fate, when the government was setting up the law?
A. No. In that passage in my book I meant to give a political warning to the State leadership, which was particularly to this effect: That his tremendous amount of power to set law arbitrarily -- for at that time we could not look forward to an International Military Tribunal -- that any such tremendous power would have to tempt fate, and that anyone transgressing would be punished by fate; and I am sorry to say that I was quite right in my warning.
Q. But if the members of the Gestapo recognized the decree which they receive to be criminal, what would you think about their actions then?
A. In that case I have to state that they acted in an express state of emergency, for during the war the entire police system was under the military penal code and any official who refused to carry out a decree or order would have been sentenced to death in a court martial.
DR. MERKEL: I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 1 August 1946, at 1000 hours.)
DR. GAWLIK (Counsel for SD): Mr. President, may I be permitted to put three questions to the witness Best ?
THE PRESIDENT: What special reason is there why you want to put questions to him ?
DR. GAWLIK: I wanted to put these questions to Dr. Spengler, a witness who has been granted me but who has not arrived and because I cannot reach this other witness I would like to put the questions to Dr. Best instead.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, in view of that special reason we will permit you to put the questions but it is not to be regarded as a general rule.
DR. KARL RUDOLF WERNER BEST -- Resumed BY DR. GAWLIK:
Q. I should like to confront you with a copy of a decree of the 11 November 1938. This is document PS 1638 and I should like to refer to page 4, dealing with the Gestapo and SD. In this decree it says :
"The security Service of the Reichsfuehrer SS and the information Service for the Party and State, particularly for the support of the Security Police, has to fulfill important tasks." of this decree ?
A. Yes.
Q. Does this decree represent the actual relationship between the Security Police and the SD ? Does it represent that relationship correctly ?
A. In those years there were experiments constantly going on with the SD so that the setting up of tasks as to the SD changed frequently. At that time, when the decree mentioned was issued, the general chief of the Security Police and the SD, Heydrich, was interested in having the SD have insight into the state offices and agencies.
In order to fulfill and realize that aim and to give reasons for it and to justify it, the formulation of this decree was chosen. In fact and in truth the setting up of tasks to be put to the SD, whose, model was to be the large foreign services, and especially the English intelligence service, developped in such a way that the SD was not to be an auxiliary or branch of the police but rather a purely political information organ of the state leadership, for the exact control of its political ramifications.
DR. GAWLIK: I have no further questions, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Does the Prosecution want to cross examine? BY LT. COMDR. HARRIS:
Q. Dr. Best, do you realize that you are one of the two witnesses who have been called, out of possibly hundreds, to represent the Gestapo before this Tribunal?
A. Yes.
Q. And you realize that your credibility is very important, do you not?
A. Yes.
Q. You understand as a jurist of long standing the significance of the oath that you have taken?
A. Yes.
Q. You stated yesterday, I believe, that your publication, the "German Police", was a purely private book and had no official status? Is that correct ?
A. I said that we were concerned with the purely personal private work which was carried out without any contact with my superiors and without the knowledge of my superiors, and it originated in that way. My superiors -- at that time Heydrich and Himmler -- only knew of this work when the completed work was submitted to them.
Q. The question is whether this book of yours was or was not an official publication in any respect. Was it or was it not?
A. No, it was not an official publication.
Q. I ask that the witness be shown the Ministerial Blatt of 1941, page 119. a circular of the Reich Ministry of the Interior referring to your book and you will note that it states that "the book is for offices and officials of police, state, Party, and municipal administrations. This book represents a reference work which can also serve as, an award for worth officials. It is recommended that this book be avquired especially also by the libraries", and then the distribution is to various supreme Reich authorities.
You see that there, do you not, Dr. Best?
A. Yes, indeed, and I can say the following in that connection: This recommendation was some time after the appearance of the book. The recommendation was published without my having prior knowledge of that fact, and this recommendation is not to be evaluated any differently from any other recommendation of other books which had already appeared and which subsequently would be recognized as good and usable books, but I should like to emphasize again that before the publication of this book, I had not talked with the agency who later published this recommendation nor with my superiors. I had not talked with either of these parties in any way beforehand.
Q. Now I want to invite your attention to your book, D.r Best, and particularly to page 86 of it. the pre-existing political police agencies, and you will find that you say in your book as follows: I am now quoting.
"In order to build up an independent and powerful political police force, the might of which had not hitherto existed in Germany, regular officials of the former police force, on the one hand, and members of the SS, on the other hand, were brought in. With the uncompromising fighting spirit of the SS the new organization took up the struggle against enemies of the poeple and the state for the safeguarding of the National Socialist leadership and order". not, Dr. Best?
A. To that I should like to say that the part which was taken into the organization was very small, and I said yesterday that a certain number of employees were taken in, and then later from the candidates who applied for the regular career of the Secret State Police further members of the SS were added, so that the picture given in my book is completely correct, but the ratio in figures is not mentioned, and I can say again today that the number of the former officials -- those that were taken over from the pre-existing system such as the Protective Police, and candidates -- that was the larger number as compared to the number taken in from the SS.
Q. All right. You said yesterday that you opposed the use of torture by the Gestapo in connection with interrogations and that you called Heydrich to account about that matter, did you not?
A. Yes, indeed.
Q. Did you call Heydrich to account, as your superior?
A. Yes
Q. But you did not prohibit Heydrich from continuing his practice of using torture in interrogations, did you?
A. I was not in a position to prevent my superiors from taking and carrying out measures and decrees which he had recommended, and in addition to that, I was in no way affected with the execution in the Secret State Police, for I was an administrative Official and, consequently, was not competent if Heydrich demanded measures like that or approved of them. I can only say that in the small branch of the Counter-Intelligence which I headed as a Commissioner for a short period of time, I prevented the use of this method.
Q. I want to pass briefly to your experiences in Denmark, Dr. Best, and by way of preliminary I wish to refresh your recollection as to the testimony which you gave before the commission on the eighth day of July 1946. This appears on page 2412 of the English transcript:
"Question: Have you met Naujocks?
"Answer: Naujocks was in Copenhagen once.
"Question: And what was his task in Denmark?
"Answer: He did not give me any details. I only know that he asked me to provide a connection for him with the Research Office in Copenhagen.
Question: Anyway, you have no idea why Naujocks was in Copenhagen, do you?
Answer: I imagine that he was in Denmark on matters pertaining to intelligence service duties.
"Question: And if he were to state and even to testify that he discussed the matter with you, you would say it was only a lie?
"Answer: I would say that I could not recall and that in my memory he is retained as an intelligence service man." Commission, did you not, Dr. Best?
A. Yes
Q. And when you gave thos answers you knew that you were telling a deliberate falsehood under oath, did you not, Dr. Best?
A. In the meantime --
THE PRESIDENT: Answer the question. Do you or do you not know whether you were telling the truth then?
A. My statement was not correct. In the meantime I had seen the transcript of Naujocks, and then I was able to recollect exactly that he in a general way had told me about his mission. Even today I do not recall details, however.
Q. Well, no, just so that you will remember that interrogation and that you had with Dr. Kalki of the Danish Delegation two days later on 10 July 1946, I am going to ask that you be shown the written statement which you corrected in your own hadnwriting and signed with your own signature. Now, I invite your attention to the paragraph, Dr. Best, in which you state as follows:
"Now that I know that Naujocks has testified as to his connection with If I did not testify about this earlier, it was because I did not know whether Naujocks had been captured and had confessed regarding those things. It was contrary to my feelings to drag him into this thing before the facts were know to me."
You gave that statement, did you not, Dr. Best, and that is your signature on there?
A. Yes.
Q Now, Dr. Best, you knew very well when Naujocks came to you in January of 1944 that there was planned to be carried out by the Gestapo terroristic measures against the people of Denmark, because you attended the conference at Hitler's headquarters on 30 December, 1943, at which that plan was worked out, didn't you? Hancke, the higher SS and police leader for Denmark, General von Hannecken, the military governor for Denmark, Hitler, Himmler, the defendant Kaltenbrunner, the defendant Keitel, the defendant Jodl, and Schmundt. You reported those names in your own diary, didn't you? counteract murder and sabotage against German interests in Denmark the Gestapo was to go up to Denmark and to carry out ruthless murders and to blow up homes and buildings as a countermeasure, don't you? Hitler gave commands against contradiction which I and Hancke made against these plans.
Q Yes. Hitler gave the order to Himmler, who gave it to Kaltenbrunner, who gave it to Mueller, who sent the Gestapo into action, and you know that those murders and that this wilful destruction of property was carried out in Denmark as a result thereof, don't you? about some of them. For example, you remember when these thugs blew up a streetcar in Odenne, killing and injuring the passengers in it, don't you? protested against the use of this method, in that I made -
THE PRESIDENT: You haven't answered the question. The question was, did you know that the streetcar had been blown up.
THE WITNESS: I do not recall the individual cases, and therefore I do not recall for what special reason I made my protest. But I do know that I protested in many, many cases.
BY LT. COMMANDER WHITNEY HARRIS:
Q Now, Dr. Best, I know that you have a very short memory, but I would have thought that you could have remembered from the events that you recited on 10 July 1946. If you will look at your statement there that you gave to Dr. Kalki, you will find the following: "I used on such an occasion the blowing up of a streetcar in Odenne, for instance." Don't you see that there, Dr. Best? The statement that you gave on the 10th of -
A Where is that? Where do I find that, please?
A Wait just a minute. That is a wrong translation. I said the blowing up of a street train in a street. That meant that on the street along this street, several houses were blown up. It wasn't a car, but rather a train of houses, a group of houses.
Q Now, Dr. Best, you also remember the murder of four doctors in Odenne, which you protested because those doctors had been pointed out to you by National Socialist circles as being German sympathizers, don't you?
A Yes, and apart from that, that was not the only reason. I called attention to the increased senselessness of these measures, for I had determined that some of these physicians were friendly to Germany. sympathizers in Denmark, wasn't it? There were so few. Now, to whom did you make your protests against this murderous activity of the Gestapo? ministry superior to me.
Q Your protests went to the defendant Ribbentrop, didn't they?
THE PRESIDENT: Commander Harris, have we reference to any document which records the meeting of 30 December 1943?
LT. COMMANDER WHITNEY HARRIS: Yes, sir. This is in evidence through the official government report of the Danish delegation, exhibit RF901.
THE PRESIDENT: RF921?
LT. COMMANDER WHITNEY HARRIS: 901, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.