THE PRESIDENT: Has the speech of Himmler, dated 15 March 1940, already been put in evidence.
COLONEL SMIRNOV: As far as I Know, Mr. President, no. At any rate, I do not know this speech.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Now Dr. Gawlik. BY DR. GAWLIK:
Q. Witness, do you still have document USSR 509 ?
A. I have no documents at all.
Q. Witness, please look at page 1. What was the task of these Einsatzgruppen which were to be employed in Czechoslovakia ?
A. I do not know; I had nothing to do with the preparation of this task.
Q. I said please look at page one.
A. "To secure political life and to secure national economy", it says on page one.
Q. Was this a completely different task which later in 1941 was given to Einsatzgruppen A,B,C, and D in the East ?
A. I do not know the tasks in the East very well either because I had nothing to do with them but as far as I am informed, the Einstzgruppen in the East certainly had nothing to do with safeguarding the national economy. The Einstzgruppen in the East had to secure the rear army area.
Q. Please look at the chart. the organization of these Einsatzgruppen A. The handwritten one or the printed one ?Q. The second one.
With the aid of this chart, can you answer the question whether these Einsatzgruppen belonged to the organization of the SD ?
A. You mean the chart that says "Staff SS Grupenfuehrer Heydrich", at the top ?
Q. Yes, that is the chart I mean.
A. No. that was not an organization of the security service but was something completely new.
Q. Regarding the tasks these Einsatzgruppen had, these Einsatzstaebe belonged to the tasks of the security service.
A. I do not know the tasks which were assigned to these Einsatzstaebe. In this case, the assignment on page one said the national economy is not a task of the security service; it is not an information service and safeguarding of political life has nothing to do with the information service.
Q. A part of the organization of the SD was used by these Einsatztaebe -- Can you answer the question with the aid of this chart ?
A. As far as the chart shows, parts of the organization were not used but only individual members of the security service, just as the State Police and individuals, just as later in the Einsatzgruppen in the East may have been the case. This can be compared with being drafted into the Wehrmacht.
Q. Were the individual members of the security service, by being assigned to the Einsatzstaebe, were they removed from the activity of the security service ?
A. Yes, of course. Then they had completely different tasks. I can only make this comparison: If a judge is drafted into the army, then he no longer carries on his activity as a judge.
Q. Among the members of the security service, particularly the members of the subordinate agencies, the directing of branches, by the use of this Einsatzstaebe, was it generally known to them ?
A. In no way.
Q. Now, I come to the second document that deals with the letter of the Aussenstelle IV. What was a "Blockstelle" ?
A. In the structure of the security service, the term "Blockstelle" did not exist but, nevertheless, it is possible that branches organized subbranches and used this term; in general, under a branch was called an "Observer" (Beobachter).
Q. What was the staff of a bran Aussenstelle in general ?
A. According to the period and according to the significance of the branch, it differed considerably.
On the average, it was about 1943 or 1944 -- there were one or two regular officials in a branch and a large number of honorary workers and the head of the branch was often a honorary official or sometimes a regular one.
Q. Was the Blockstelle above an Aussenstelle or was it subordinate to it A. Above the Aussenstelle was the Abschnitt and certainly not a Blockstelle and as I said before, the individual Aussenstelle in part selected terms which were not established by an organization with observers (Beobacht) Q Did Amt III issue any orders established in this document ?acting on his own initiative ? I mean the head of the Blockstelle ?
A In case Himmler did make this speech, that would be true. I cannot imagine Himmler saying that he expected this from these men.
Q I am not speaking of Himmler. I am speaking of the head of the Aussenstelle.
A But the instructions are the speech of Himmler. Do you mean the instructions in the first sentence to give especial attention to Poland? The head of the Blockstelle in Mogilnow will of course care for the Poles in the same way as ha cared for the Germans. But of course he was interested in the general mood of the Poles, and he reported to the main office, Roman Numeral III-B.
THE PRESIDENT: Was this shown in cross-examination ?
DR. GAWLIK: I have a few more questions in connection with the question which the Chairman asked yesterday at the end of the session.
THE PRESIDENT: You are putting in some document which has not been referred to before.
DR. GAWLIK: Mr. Chairman, the document was submitted yesterday by the American prosecution.
Q THE PRESIDENT: I beg your pardon.
A WITNESS: I have here the English text of the document.
Q Please look at page 45 now. Among the Einsatzgruppen A, B, C and D, were there Commanders of the Security Police and the SD ?
A No, that is something different. The Einsatzgruppen were mobile units, which advanced together with the Wehrmacht in the rear Army area. The Officers and Commander were Officers in the Civilian Administration. An area was taken in a civil administration, and an Officer was set up.
Q How was the Einsatzgruppen A, B, C, and D organized ?
Q What names did these Einsatzkommandos have ?
A These Einsatzkommandos have no names at all, but as said yesterday, they were numbered from 1 to 10, as far as I can recall, or 11 to 12.
Q Please look at the distribution. Where it says that the Chiefs of the Einsatzgruppen A, B, C, and D, are to receive copies for the Commanders of the Security Police and the SD.
A No, that is wrongly translated. It should be the Kommandeure of the Security Police and the SD. The Kommandeure of the Security Police and the SD were under it. To make it more clearly, the Einsatzkommandos was not lead by a Kommandeure of the Security Police and the SD, but by a Commander of Einsatzkommandos of 1, 2, 3, etcetera. In the section under civil administration, as in occupied France for instance, there were agencies of the Kommandeure, the Security Police and the SD. That was different.
Q Who were the officers superior to the Kommandeure ?
Q Who were their superiors ?
Q Who was the superior of Einsatzgruppen A, B, C, and D ?
A That cannot be answered in one word. The Chief of the Einsatzgruppen had two superiors. In the first place, they were assigned to the Army group in question, and had to take instructions from the Chief of the Army group. On the other hand, they received instructions from the Chief of the Security Police and the SD. That is the very reason why I said yesterday that they were entirely unique and different.
Q Now I ask you again. If the Kommandeur and the Security Police and the SD did not belong to the Einsatzgruppen A, B, C, and D -
THE PRESIDENT: Hasn't all this seen the roughly gone into before ? I mean, we have the document. We have asked the witness a number of questions and he has given his answers. You are now asking him the same questions over again.
DR. GAWLIK: Mr. Chairman, I only have one more question in regard to the copies.
THE PRESIDENT: Ask your one question then.
Q Why did the chiefs of the Einsatzgruppen A, B, C, and D receive copies for the commanders of the Security Police and the SD, if they are completely separate organizations ? for the same purpose, or, as I assume, this was not a clear way of expressing it.
I had a German copy yesterday. Various words were used for the Kommandeur. Sometimes it was Commander and sometimes another word, Befehlshaber. Completely different words. I had a German copy yesterday.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness can retire. Dr. Gawlik, your next witness.
DR. GAWLIK: With the permission of the court, I call as the next witness, Dr. Roessner.
DR. HANS ROESSNER, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows: BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q Will you state your name, please ?
Q Will you repeat this oath after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, 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. GAWLIK:
Q When were you born ?
Q Please describe briefly your professional career ? the German language, and literature, then English and German theology. From '36 I was assistant at the University of Bonn. In. 1939 to '40 military service I. 1940 deferred for the University of Bonn and emergency service in the Reichsicherheitshauptamt, AMT III.
Q Since when have you been a party member ?
Q What office did you have ?
Q. Do you know of the tasks, methods and aims Group 3-C ?
A. Yes, I know them.
Q. Please wait a little before you answer. In addition, do you also know of the tasts, methods and aims of Amt. 3 ?
A. Yes, I also know these, because they were fundamentally the same as those of Group 3-C.
Q. What were the tasks and aims of Amt. 3 from the time since 1939 ?
A. Amt 3 was an internal German information service. It had ideological aims and tasks itself and worked independent from the domestic German sphere of life, that is to say it took up important questions of domestic German life in various fields, such as economics, culture, administration of law and others as far as information service was concerned and in particular attempted to sum up criticism on the part of the population regarding mistakes inside developments, etc., and to report on them.
Q. Please rive a few examples by way of explanation ?
A. For example, every week and sometimes daily, Amt. 3 reported on the opinion of the population on German propaganda to the agencies concerned. In 1943 for example, Amt. 3 through its reports prevented the closing of German Universities in spite of German's warfare.
Q. The prosecution has submitted, on page 11 of the English trial brief, that Amt 3. did the police tasks in all phases of German life. Bid Amt. 3 carry out police work ?
A. In all, Amt. 3 never had any police tasks.
Q. Did the SD Amt. 3 have the practical task and the fundamental aim of giving information through its information center on actual and possible opponents of the Nazi movement. This refers to page 17 of the trial brief.
A. No. Amt 3 was not the information service on opponents, but on the German domestic life.
Q. That was the purpose of the information service reports of Amt. 3 ? In particular, was the man pursuit to support the leaders of the party and state as part of a conspiracy to keep them in power ?
A. No. Amt. 3 never had such a task and did not set up such a task for itself. The task of the information service of Amt. 3 was to create an extensive picture of the domestic questions of German internal life and to present them uncamouflaged.
Q. Did the members of Amt. 3 know that the leaders of the party and the state were participating in a secret plan for the purpose of committing crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity?
A. To my knowledge, the members of Amt. 3 did not know anything about this. All the material collected by all members of Amt 3 is evidenced to the contrary.
Q. Can you answer this question of the members and honorary members of the subordinate agencies?
A. Yes.
Q. Did the close collaborators of the chief of Amt. 3 know of such a conspiracy?
A. No. Not even the closest collaborators knew anything about this.
Q. On what is your knowledge based for your answers to the last few questions?
A. I often participated in internal Gruppenleiter conferences with the chief of Amt. 3.
Q. Were the tasks and aims of the domestic information service known to all workers even in the subordinate agencies?
A. Yes, the tasks and aims were known to the workers and honorary workers of the subordinate agencies. They were continually announced in the individual meetings.
Q. On what is your knowledge based by reason of which you have answered my last question?
A. From numerous individual conferences and meetings where I myself announced the aims and tasks of Amt. 3.
Q. In the reports made on a situation, were the names of the persons mentioned?
A. No, not usually, since the SD was not interested in the names of individual persons, but in typical examples of questions regarding the sphere of life.
Q. In giving personnel data, was the aim pursued, to bring persons into influential state position, who would not oppose the execution of a plan for war crimes, crimes against peace and crimes against humanity?
A. No, Amt. 3 did not present such data and reports of the SD were kept separate from the reports on this situation. The SD, Amt. 3 gave personnel data, but did not have permission to pass judgment on people. That was the sole task of the Hoheitstraeger the party.
Q. What was the purpose of giving out information on personnel data by the SD ?
A. This was to substitute the political judgment and purely specialized judgment of the individual party officers and departments and present if possible a total picture of the personality, character, ability, political attitude and personal life independent of any departmental point of view or power or political interest.
Q. The prosecution describes the tasks of the SD as follows: The task consisted of taking necessary steps to destroy or make harmless the opposition Does this correspond with the actual facts and ideological aims of Ant. 3 from the period since 1939?
A. No, by no means. I have already emphasized the fact that Amt. 3 was not an intelligence service for gathering news about opponents.
Q. When did Amt. 3 give up this task?
A. Amt. 3 never had this task.
Q. The prosecution further submitted that the SD had an extensive spy net that would spy on the German people in their daily work, on the streets and even in the sanctified halls of church. This is on page 66 of the English trial brief and states that the SD conducted such an extensive spy net work as described.
A. During the whole period of its existence, Amt. 3 never in the internal general sphere of life worked with spys or a spy net work. The spy net work would have contradicted all the aims of this internal German information service.
Q. Did the SD for its tasks use only regular officials?
A. No, they were by far the smaller percentage. The work of the internal SD was dependant upon the big staff of honorary workers from all parts of the country and all professions.
Q. Can you give any figures?
A. I cannot give accurate figures, but in the last few years we estimated the honorary workers at about 10,000. They worked on a complete voluntary basis and a large part worked on their own initiative for the internal SD.
information service for internal German spheres of life chosen? interests he would give clear and objective information on questions relating to his field, on questions relating to the population amongst whom he lived any other concerns and critical statements of the population with which he came in contact. In addition, he had to be a person of decent character.
Q Did these agents have to be members of the party?
A No, by no means. It was even worse not to have a large or at least a percentage of non-party members amongst these agents of the SD so as to get a complete and independent picture of the total situation within Germany from some of these agents.
Q Did the agents have to be members of the SS? according to my estimate, still less than of party members.
Q What were the tasks of these agents?
A The tasks varied. In Amt III we had agents who were to give general information on the mind, conduct and opinions of the population and on urgent questions during the course of the war years. Then we had another type of agent who were to give information on the professional workers and on question relating to the specialist fields, on which they were able to comment and which they understood.
Q What was the task of the SD Arbeitskreise? were called together for conferences and these Arbeitskreise were absolutely free and frank; the opinions on technical questions and measures of the party, and measures of the state agencies were expressed. These were discussed and this criticism was then sent to Ant III in Berlin. The main prerequisite was absolute objectively and absolute frankness and criticism.
Q Did the agents or the Arbeitskreise work under any special cover? This question refers to the trial brief, page 16.
A I do not know what you mean by the expression, cloak of secrecy. I can answer these agents never acted under any special personal secrecy and these Arbeitskreise, which I just mentioned, had no special obligation for secrecy.
They were publicly known as such.
Q Were there, aside from the obligated agents other agents of the SD?
A Yes. In the last few years of our work there were representatives of the various occupations and part of the population, who on their own initiative came with some criticism, some positive suggestion to the SD, in order, on the basis of a personal confidence in the SD, to be able to turn over its worries to it. It deals with the decree concerning political prisoners and the turning over of prisoners of war to the Gestapo. It is the first point of the Indictment VI (c) against the SD.
Was the SD competent to execute this decree? had no executive power.
Q Can you give any further explanation of the individual documents? One document mentions the chief of Amt III. The document of the Wehrmacht also refers to the Gestapo. decrees? deportation of citizens of the occupied territories for forced labor? competent.
Q Did the SD have the power to inflict punishment on forced laborers? This question refers to page 1941 of the English transcript.
Q Did the SD, through its reports, contribute to deportations?
A No, quite on the contrary. Ant III repeatedly contradicted the negative effects of such measures.
Reich? III did not have.
Q Now, I show you document PS 205. This is a memorandum on the general principles for the treatment of foreigners employed in the Reich. Did the SD have any part in the drafting of this memorandum? this memorandum. It made its material available in the formulation of a positive treatment of foreign workers. This material, which was used in this memorandum, corresponded to the basic principles of the domestic SD in the treatment of national questions in the European area. memorandum? of that section.
Q Did the SD, Amt III have the right to make confiscations? This question refers to the part of the Indictment, VI (c) and to the trial brief.
A No, the SD had no right to confiscate. This also would have been an executive task. and private property, the SD domestic information service?
Q On page 51 of the trial brief, it says, referring to document 071-PS:
"In connection with the planned confiscation of scientific, religious and art archives, an agreement was reached between Rosenberg and Heydrich on the basis of which the SD and Rosenberg were to cooperate closely in the confiscation of public and private collections." defendant Rosenberg, his agencies or any of the deputies?
A No. This document is again the customary mistake as between the Security Police and the SD. Such cooperation if it existed would have had to be known to me since Group 3C would have been competent for it.
DR. GAWLIK: Mr. Chairman, I now come to my last point. Shall I begin it?
THE PRESIDENT: Have you any questions to ask upon it? It looks as if you had, so perhaps we had better adjourn.
DR. GAWLIK: There are 34 questions.
(A recess was taken until 1400 hours.)
AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1400 hours, 2 August 1946.)
HANS ROESSIER _- Resumed BY DR. GAWLIK:
Q. We come now to my last point, the Persecution of the Church, the Trial Brief paragraph 7(b). I ask the Tribunal to turn its attention to the fact that the SD was said to be active only until the 12th of May, 1940, on page 60 of the English Trial Brief. My taking of testimony limits itself to the activity up to 12 May 1941.
THE PRESIDENT: Wait a minute. Which does that mean, May 1940 or May 1941?
Dr. GAWLIK: The 12th of May 1941, page 64 of the last but one section of the Trial Brief, where it is said that the political handling of the Church was divided between the Gestapo and the SD and from that point on was taken over entirely by the Gestapo.
Q. Did Division 3 c 2 handle church questions?
A. No.
Q. Did any other office in Division 3 handle church questions?
A. No. Since the foundation of Amt III, no church matters were handled in this office.
Q. What was handled in Amt III?
A. In Amt III, Group 3 c, only general religious matters were handled in various realms of life.
Q. In what manner would matters regarding religious life be handled?
A. The principles of the handling were the same as for any other sphere of life. It was the task of Amt III to watch all proposals and movements of the religious in the German population in the Reich and to report on the opinions of these groups and send reports in.
Q. The Prosecution has stated that the persecution of the churches was one of the fundamental principles of the SD and Sicherheitspolizei.
Did the SD do this with the Gestapo?
A. As responsible head of a department I can say that no such common plan existed.
Q. Did the SD on its own initiative have any such program?
A. That would have been against all the principles of our task.
Q. Did the SD, Amt III, practically handle any activities of the churches?
A. No.
Q. Did the SD, Amt III, get from the Gestapo any directives to persecute the church?
A. Between the Gestapo and Amt III there was a complete material and organizational division of labor.
Q. Did the SD get from any other offices of the Administration, directives to persecute the Church?
A. No. The SD worked all on its own in this sphere, independently. No offices of the Party or of the State were allowed to give any objectives to the SD in this matter.
BY DR. GAWLIK:
matter of their attitude toward the church, and through any pressure made to leave the church? trary to our fundamental motions right to the end. There was a large number of regular and honorary officials who were members of the Christian Churches and who remained so. The head of Amt III left the Protestant Church in 1924. tions? This question is relevant to page 48 of the Trial Brief. there any counseled aims, hidden aims or secret investigations. As head of the department, I would have had to known of them if there had been any.
Q I submit to you the prosecution document PS 1815. Will you look at Page 59 of this, please? only up to 29.
Q Will you lock at Page 1? transferred to the Gestapo on orders. Was this order given on the ground that tasks of the organization and aims and activities of it in the sphere of the church affairs were the same in AMT III of SD and AMT IV of the Gestapo?
A No. This order was given for entirely different reasons. AMT III and AMT IV were entirely different offices. Transfer of the former SD employees to the Gestapo would have taken too long, and for that reason this planned transfer was undertaken in the form of an order. It was to save time and to save work.
Q Will you now see page 29 of the prosecution document? That is Number 18. Will you look at the first two sentences of that? Can it not be seen from that, that the SD handled church matters in collaboration with the Sipo and Gestapo?
ticipate in this discussion. At the time of this conversation in 1942, AMT III, according to the order of separation given, was not allowed in any way to handle such matters.
Q Will you now lock at Page 1 and Page 2? On the basis of these two pages, the prosecution has suggested, also on page 58 of the Trial Brief, that the handling of such matters had to be divided between the Gestapo and the SD, and that the SD files on such opposition had to be transferred to the Gestapo, but the SD should retain material concerning church influence on public opinion. Will you make a statement on this? tion, had never handled church matters. The material that had to be given on the basis of this order to AMT IV was general informational material which it was not proper to maintain for the police tasks of AMT IV. In general, the order was formulated by AMT IV and it took into consideration, as a result of the different points of view, AMT IV. with the church and task of the spheres of life should go together, hand in hand; is it not evident that collaboration of SD and Gestapo was a common aim when the struggle against the church took place? task of the struggle against the church. What is formulated here, in this matter, is a personal desire of an inspector, who, whether in the matters of the Gestapo or SD had any factual right to give orders.
Q Turn now to page 24. Especially note, now, Paragraph 1 and 4 where it says, "I am looking for orders given out in the sphere of struggling against the church in order to intensify it." Also note the half sentence immediately afterwards, that it has already been achieved in this manner. Does it not seem from that that the SD had informational services of its own in this sphere?
A No. What I see from that is exactly to the contrary. The order in front of me is dated August, 1941, that is to say, after the order separating the two services.
The SD on the basis of this order of separation, gave over to AMT IV informational service. In general, the order was given to a large number of police organizations and it cannot be simply a matter of one single case.
Q Will you lock at page 27. What can you say as to this order of the inspector in Dusseldorf?
A. I must point out first that this is only a personal desire of the inspector and he had no power for this. He had no power to give orders in these matters. Practically, such a desire could never have been achieved because from the various tasks it was completely impossible to carry it cut so that Amt III and Amt IV should have common confidential agents for certain matters. Each confidential agent of the SD would have refused immediately to undertake police tasks on the side.
Q. On the basis of your activity, what can you say on the scope of the files which, as a result of the separation, were handed over to the Gestapo.
A. That will vary according to the way in which it was handled in the various offices. A good informational service would have had more material which would have been given to the G stapo.
Q. On the basis of your knowledge, were the documents handed over by the SD of any use for the police tasks of the Gestapo against individuals?
A. No, they certainly were not, as the informational attitude toward the problems of church and confessions on the part of the SD was entirely different. It was never organized on the basis of individual cases.
Q. According to your knowledge, were the files that were handed over then actually handled by the Gestapo?
A. I can not make any statement in detail on this, but a large part of the partial, as far as I could see, was never handled any further, as it had no opportunity of being used for police tasks.
Q. Did Amt III of the SD have the fundamental task and aim of persecuting the church or preparing the general persecution of the church, or did it work at all for the persecution of the church? That is to say, in the period between 1939 until the order of separation of 12 May 1941?
A. No, Amt III never at any time had such a practical task set forth, nor did it ever work toward any such aim.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Gawlik, you remember that you told us before the adjournment that you had come to your last point.
DR. GAWLIK: Yes. I have only about six questions left to ask. BY DR. GAWLIK: