Q. Is it true that the Reichs Cabinet continues to pass and promulgate laws through the Enabling act without formal action by circulating the laws among the Reichs Cabinet members ?
A. It is true.
Q. many laws were passed by the Reichs Cabinet through this circulation provision in the year 1939 ?
A. No, I cannot answer that.
Q. In the year 1939 alone the Reichs Cabinet passed the following laws
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Kempner, you can state what the fact is.
DR. KEMPNER: If I told you that they passed 67 laws, would you say that is the correct statement ?
WITNESS: I assume so, but if you say so, Dr. Kempner, it is true.
BY DR. KEMPNER:
Q. Do you know that the Reichs Cabinet had also the duty to approve the Reichs budget, because they had to approve the budgets of all ministires ?
A. Yes.
Q. Would you say that the members of the Reichs Cabinet were informed about the things which were going on in Germany because they had to approve the budget of all ministries ?
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Kempner, you are asking the next question a little too quickly. We did not hear the answer come through. The witness said there is very little to be derived from the budget or something of that sort.
DR. KEMPNER: Will you repeat the answer to the last question ?
WITNESS: I believe that very much can be determined from the Reichs BY Dr. KEMPNER:
Q. You know that the Reichs budget had special provisions for concentration camps ?
A. No, I did not know that.
Q. When you were the acting Minister of Justice, did you have anything to do with the anti-Jewish legislation ?
A. I believe that during the period in which I was active, one law or decree was issued in the year 1940 as far as I can recall, concerning conditions that effected Jews.
Q. Do you remember that you yourself made up legislation, together with the defendant, Dr. Frick, to sterilize all half Jews in Germany and the occupied territories ?
A. No, I do not recall that.
Q. I could show you a letter from the official files, which bears your signature and you might be able to refresh your memory by reading this letter. This will be my last question.
DR. KEMPNER: This will become US Exhibit No. 923.
BY DR. KEMPNER:
Q. Do you remember now that you put your signature under this terrible document ?
A. Yes, I remember; yes , I remember it.
Q. Do you remember that the Party and that the defendant Frick proposed to sterilize all half-Jews ?
A. Yes.
Q. And you remember that the various cabinet members, like the Defendant Interior, Dr. Frick (attention of his Secretary of State), that the Foreign Office (attention Under-Secretary Luther) got copies of this legislative proposal ?
A. Yes.
Q. And you remember, on Page 1 of this document, that this legislative proposal to sterilize all half-Jews should be submitted to Hitler ?
A. I did not quite understand the question ?
Q. Do you remember that your and Dr. Frick's proposal should be submitted to Hitler ?A. (No response)
Q. Yes or no ?
A. Dr. Kempner, I beg your pardon, I still have not quite understood your question.
Q. Was it not true that this proposal should be submitted to Hitler ?
A. I believe so.
Q. And you remember what Hitler said ?
A. No, I do not remember that.
Q. Is it a true statement that if your Secretary of State Freisler told you that if Hitler does not like this sharp measure of the Reich Cabinet at the present time, he will postpone it until after the war ?
A. I do not remember that. Q. You regret deeply your signature under this law ?
A. I can say yes. I should like to add only one thing. At that time, it was a serious struggle to obtain this limitation which was in the letter.
Q. But you regret deeply these crimes; is that correct ?
A. I regret greatly that I signed this.
DR. KEMPNER: That is all.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, D. Dix.
DR. DIX (Counsel for the defendant Schacht): Your Lordhsip, I ask the Tribunal to permit me to ask three questions of the witness. Of course, these questions arise from the cross-examination of Dr. Kempner, because the answers to these questions themselves concern the interests of the defendant Schacht directly, and because the charge against the Reich Cabinet is not being discussed, but in the period known to the Tribunal, Schacht was a member of the Reich Cabinet. For these reasons, I ask the Tribunal to make an exception and to permit me, after the cross-examination, although I am hot a defense counsel for an organization, to ask questions of this witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Go on. BY DR. DIX:
Q. Dr. Schlegelberger, for the dismissal of a minister, was Hitler's signature necessary ?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you recall that not immediately after 1933, but later, perhaps only during the war, Hitler expressly prohibited Reich Ministers from handing in their resignations ?
A. I may say the following : An order was issued changing the German Civil Servant's law. According to this law, every official had the right to be released from his office. This right was abolished during the war. It was decreed that the dismissal did not have to be given. And as I recall, Hitler actually did not accept resignations of ministers.
Q. Now, my third and last question : As State Secretary, you answered something on this question about the dismissal of the former minister, Elz von Ruebenach.
You said, yes, he resigned. To examine your memory, may I point out that we heard here from Goering on the witness stand a modified version of this event which agrees with the recollection of the defendant Schacht. Of course, I do not have the transcript of the Goering case before me. I can only give Goering's testimony from memory. But I believe that I shall present it essentially correctly. According to the testimony, this difficulty developed from the wearing of the Golden Party Emblem by the various ministers, including Elz von Ruebenach. When Hitler, with the idea of pleasing the ministers, had given him this Golden Party Emblem he made some remarks some to the effect of whether he was entering upon any confessional obligations. Hitler was annoyed at this, and then it came about that Elz von Ruebenach was dismissed. It was not exactly a resignation on von Ruebenach's own initiative.
I believe that I reproduced Goering's testimony correctly.
A. I know these events only from reports which I received from others. I myself was not present at the incident. I have no reason to believe that the defendant Goering, who was present, did not describe the things as they actually happened.
Q. You say you knew the story only from reports; that is, oral reports from Mr. Guertner, for example ?
A. (Nods head).
Q. Do you still recall these reports, more or less ? Or does what I have just said refresh your memory ?
A. No; I recall vaguely that according to Mr. Guertner's report, Elz von Ruebenach had said something about confessional obligations, and that the Fuhrer was annoyed at that, and the conflict had resulted from that incident. I can recall this matter now. I have no reason to doubt the correctness of an eye-witness.
DR. DIX: That is all.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn now. (The Tribunal adjourned until Saturday, 3 August 1946 at 1000 hours).
3 Aug M LJG 1-1
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Siemers, you have an application, I think, to make. Haven't you been told about it?
DR. SIEMERS: No.
THE PRESIDENT: You wanted to apply for the witness Vice Admiral Buerkner; and also another request, that you should visit Vice Admiral Buerkner, and for three documents, a Pocket Book of the Fleet for the years 1908 to 1914 and a handbook of Seapower and Prestige at Sea for the years 1903, 1912, and 1914; and thirdly, a historical work on the German navy.
DR. SIEMERS: Yes, your Lordship. That is correct, Mr. President. I made these applications for information purposes.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, that application is very late in the day and the Tribunal has already indicated that they propose only to hear or to grant applications for witnesses and document for very special reasons and therefore they would like to hear you as to what the special reasons are.
DR. SIEMERS: Mr. President, I cannot yet see how far anything in the course of the testimony of the General Staff will be necessary and some of these are documents which I would like to look over and that is why I made this application. I think and believe that I will not need to make any further applications to the Tribunal except in so far as I need to for myself in the course of the trial.
THE PRESIDENT: You are asking to go on a long journey to see Vice Admiral Buerkner before any evidence is called which makes it necessary.
DR. SIEMERS: As far as I know, Admiral Buerkner is in Ansbach.
THE PRESIDENT: Isn't It a fact that Vice Admiral Buerkner was here when he was summoned as a witness for the defendant Jodl 5 Aug M LJG 2 and that then he was not called and therefore left Nurnberg?
DR. SIEMERS: Mr. President, I hoped, too, that it will not be necessary to have him for the testimony for the General Staff was just taken before the Commission and there are several questions which I would like to discuss because these are matters which in the earlier testimony for the individual defendants had not arisen.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will consider the application.
DR. SIEMERS: Thank you, your Lordship. I would like to add one thing, Mr. President. I had previously asked and I had been told by the General Secretary that no difficulties would arise from this and if I wanted to speak to Admiral Buerkner again I could probably speak to him and so I did not think at the time that there would be such great difficulties and I request the Tribunal, as far as possible, to give no the possibility of doing so.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will consider the matter.
THE PRESIDENT: Does counsel for the Reich Cabinet want to re-examine this witness ? BY DR. KUBUSCHOK:
Q. Witness, a letter was shown to you yesterday, a letter which you had written to Reich Minister Dr. Lammers. How did you come to write that letter ?
A. From this letter to Dr. Lammers, I gathered the following : On the 6th of March, at the request of the racial officer of the S.S.,conversation took place concerning the handling and the treatment of half Jews. I no longer know where the conversation took place. In any case, it was not in the Ministry of Justice. In this conference, propositions were made which I found absolutely impossible -- the half Jews should, with out differentiation be handled as Jews and deported to working camps in Poland. In order to prevent decisions which I found absolutely unbearable, I turned to Reich Minister Lammers. I would like to stress, here, that the Ministry of Justice in this matter, so to speak, was only active on the perifery. These proposals included forced divorce which perhaps was very necessary, but only secondary when we consider the general problem.
Q. Yesterday, another letter from you was submitted to you. It was dated April 5, 1942. It was submitted to various party officers. The contents of this letter seems to be connected with the conversation of March 6.
A. When I consider both letters, I can only say the following: apparently, I had written to Reich Minister Lammers and not found the necessary support from him and I wanted, under all circumstances, to prevent the proposal from being achieved, I found that complete denial was not possible. I had to make a positive proposal in order to limit as far as possible the number of people to whom it would be applied; therefore, I proposed to exclude, completely, the following application of the rule, that is to say, the second class, mixed persons, these who had only one non-alien grandfather and those products of mixed marriages of the first degree who were not capable of being assimilated, and thirdly, the mixed ones of the first degree who had partners in marriage who were half Jews, There remains, therefore, only a limited class of mixed persons.
By virtue of sterilizing them, they could be prevented from further producing mixed persons. Therefore, I also oppose the compulsory divorce. I wish also to repeat, today, what I said yesterday at the conclusion, I regret deeply that on account of the circumstances of the time and the forces at work at the time, I could not make a better proposal.
Q. Yesterday, in the cross-examination, you asked about the retirement of Minister Dr. Schmidt. Is it correct that the retirement of Dr. Schmidt came as a result of health reasons; that he collapsed and fainted at a conference ?
A. That is what I was told.
DR. KUBUSCHOK: That is all. I am finished.
THE PRESIDENT: Witness, with reference to your letters to Dr. Lammers, which I understand were of the 6th of March and the 6th of April, the about which you have just been asked -- you remember them ?
WITNESS: Yes. I remember them, I remember the letters.
THE PRESIDENT: The conditions in the working camps in Poland were, rilized ?
WITNESS: That is my opinion
THE PRESIDENT: The witness may retire.
THE PRESIDENT: I call, on Dr. Pelckmann, counsel for the SS.
MR. ELWYN JONES: If your Honor pleases, before Dr. Pelckmann calls his witnesses, I have an application to make to the Tribunal with, regard to the witness Sievers who gave evidence before the Commission. came to Nurnberg. They are from Himmler's files. Some of those documents are letters written by this man, Sievers, himself. All of them relate to the work of an important component part of the SS, namely the Ahnenerbe, the SS ancestry Heritage Research Organization of which Sievers was the head executive.
for War Purposes. My application is for leave to cross-examine Sievers before the Tribunal upon these documents. I make this application in view of the very great importance of these documents. In my submission their contents should go upon the record of this trial, I do submit that the documents should be put to Sievers personally, In my submission they wholly controvert the testimony he gave to the Commissioner, and I imagine the Tribunal itself may well want to question Sievers. It is in any event, my intention if you will allow me, to put these documents in. I do not think it will take much mere time if I put them to the witness himself.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness, of which you are speaking, has be called before the Commission, I understand ?
MR. ELWYN JONES: Yes, My Lord.
THE PRESIDENT: But he has not be called before the Tribunal nor applied for ?
MR. ELWYN JONES: No.
MR. PRESIDENT: He is still in Nurnberg ?
MR. ELWYN JONES: Yes, My Lord.
THE PRESIDENT: He is not one of the witnesses who has been granted to Dr. Pelckmann ?
MR: ELWYN JONES: No sir, he is an additional witness.
THE PRESIDENT: I see.
MR. ELWYN JONES: Dr. Pelckmann opposes my application
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Very well. We will hear you upon that now, Doctor.
DR. PELCKMANN: Your Lordship, I regret that I must oppose the request of the Prosecutor for permission to cross-examine. I would like first and foremost, to say, clearly, that I do not wish, in any way, to prevent the clarification of the case of the SS and the question of Sievers. My reasons are based upon the following : In no case can the cross-examination take place before the Tribunal, Sievers is not one of the witnesses I have asked to question before the Tribunal.
If he is questioned, he should be questioned before the Commission. I must oppose it for reasons of procedure. The prosecution has for months, and perhaps years, been in position to see a very large quantity of material which has be seized. It has also been in the position, by organizations such as the CIC and the Intelligence Service to question witnesses who had been in camps for over a year. For a long time they have been in position to prepare the cross-examination before the Commission. The Prosecution, should not, in my opinion, because of these very grant advantages which it has compared to the Defense Counsel, be allowed to do this. However, I will withdraw my objection if my request which I made months ago, to be able to have access to the Documentation Offices of the Allies and look also for rebuttal material there were granted to me now. I will consider it fair then in case the Tribunal accepted, also the application of the Prosecution.
I would then at least be in a position to find rebuttal material amongst the documents, and I would withdraw completely my opposition when it would also be granted to me on the ground of the rebuttal material found in this way to continue the questioning of witnesses before the Commission, as nor the Prosecution has requested in the case of the witness Sievers. One can see that this case which the Prosecution has been handling, by investigating further the material, has been able to produce more documents against the SS, and should it not be granted in this case that the defense should have the chance to find save rebuttal material.
DR. DODD : Mr. President, before the Tribunal rules on this application, I would like to make one statement. This is the second time, at last, that Dr. Pelckmann has inferred that because he has been denied access to the document room that there is something oppressive about it as regards the defense. what is on that document room, and we know perfectly well there is no document there that rebuts any evidence that has been offered in this case, and if there were, it would have been made available to this Tribunal and to these defendants. I think it is fair to say that we rather resent this implication from the defense at this stage of these proceedings.
DR. PELCKMANN : May I add something to this? In my document book there are documents which I have found either in written material which has not yet been seized, or else in documents which I, after an exact description and definition, was able to obtain through the general secretary and through requests of my own. to indicate exactly that documents in such cases can be requested when I have not beforehand exactly like the Prosecution been in a position to go through the entire mass of material, and that is the point which I stress.
We see in this case how the Prosecution, contrary to the defense, and especially that of the organizations, is able to collect material.
THE PRESIDENT : We have already heard you say that, and we fully understand the point. should be produced for cross examination here. That witness has already given evidence before the Commission, and in the opinion of the Tribunal, it is of importance that his evidence should be given fully, should be brought to light fully before the Tribunal. As these documents have only just cone into the hands of the prosecution, the Tribunal thinks it right that the documents should be put to the witness. It is the most convenient and the shortest course that they should be put to the witness before the Tribunal.
As to Dr. Pelckmann's objections that the defense are not being treated fairly with reference to the investigation of the documents, the Tribunal thinks there is no foundation for this complaint. It would not be proper to allow the defense to have what is in the nature of a fishing investigation into the thousands of documents which are in the hands of the Prosecution. If the defense can specify any document that they want, they will begiven a view of that document. which is helpful to the defense ought to be disclosed to them. That is the practice in the English courts, at any rate, and Mr. Dodd has informed the Tribunal now that if there were any document which were in any way helpful to the defense in the Prosecution's document room, it would be made available to the defense.
DR. PELCKMANN : I would only like to any, your Lordship, that I did not say that the Prosecution was no fair in this matter, but in this case I would consider it fair if we had the opportunity.
THE PRESIDENT : I am explaining to you why the Tribunal do not think it is possible that the defense counsel should be allowed to reve*** about in the Prosecution's document room.
DR. PELCKMANN : I call witness Freiherr von Eberstein. stand and testified as follows :
BY THE PRESIDENT :
Q Will you state your full name?
Q Will you repeat this oath after me : will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.
(The witness repeated the oath.)
TEE PRESIDENT : You may sit down. Co ahead.
DR. PELCKMANN : I will be very grateful to Your Lordship if the interpretation could be organized in such a way that technical definitions and professional terms could be, as far as possible, given in the German, because very often confusions arise in the interpretation. In the SS organization there are so many special definitions which it is difficult to keep apart in an interpretation.
THE PRESIDENT : Well, the Tribunal thinks that it would be convenient to them if both the German denomination and the English were given -- or the other language were given.
BY DR. PELCKMANN : of the general SS? SS? a pause, just as I am going to trying to make a pause after each answer. In 1928 dit the SS have its own chief, or was it under the chief of the SA?
A In 1928 the SS was under the SS leadership. The head was at the time Captain von Pfeffer. Himmiler was at the time not head of the SS. The SS was under a certain Haiden, an Oberstabchef.
Q Was there an organization special for the SS? capacity? That is to say, in addition to your other profession, or was it your chief capacity?
A I belonged to the SS besides my profession. I was a civil servant until 1934.
3 Aug M LJG 4-1
Q As an SS fuehrer, did you have any salary?
A No, I had no salary as an SS fuehrer; and I lived on my own fortune. Then later I had a salary of about a hundred raid fifty marled every month as a civil servant.
Q Was that as a civil servant? in the SS?
Q What were the reasons for your entering the SS? What reasons did you give? ber of the SS because I had already been in the party some years; and a value was given to my collaboration and that is how I came into the SS.
Q Were you in the World War? War.
Q What was your rank in 1930 in the SS?
Q What was your rank in 1933? the aims and activities of the SS before and after 1933 ?
Q You are a member of the German mobility, Witness? nobility belongs to the respectable classes of the population. How does it happen that you became a member of an organization which, according to the belief of the prosecution, is criminal? keeping with the tradition of my family; and so when I became a member of the party and of the SS, I felt that I was fulfilling a patriotic task; and also before 1933 there were a great 3 Aug M LJG 4-2 number of aristocrats and no labors of German princery houses who were members of the SS.
Q After 1933 was this movement ever stronger? gen became a member of the SS, and Prince Von Brauschweig, Prince Lippe-Biesterfeld, General Graf Von Schulenburg, and many others. became a member of the SS?
DR. PELCKMANN: I point out to the Tribunal the document Number 5, which will later be handed in. the membership of such prominent personages has undo an impression on members of all classes in Germany? certainly. "If such good people belonged to the SS and worked for its aims, then it seems certainly that these aims must be good and legal." Do you mean that in this way?
A Yes. In any case I am of the opinion, and it was the opinion of my comrades, that one could at no time take it for granted that the organization followed criminal aims. violence, and were these not among its aims?
A No. As its very name says, "Schutzstaffel," "protective troop," this branch of the party was set up in order to protect the leading personalities. In general, I would like to point out also that already in. 1930 Hitler, in the trial of the army officers, said that this revolution was planned to cone through legal ways and that is how he expected to achieve power, through elections; and so he became Chancellor of the German Reich.
3 Aug M LJG 4-3 in the year 1933 when you were in Thuringia, the number of members, and other such details. 1929 in Thuringia. As far as the Reich Party Rally in 1929 was concerned, we had in all Thuringia approximately forty-five or fifty SS. As the Reichsparteitag there were SS men from all Germany, approximately seven hundred non. In 1930 there were election fights in Thuringia, which necessitated a commitment of a large number of SS men in order to protect the speakers. Some of these SS non were known to me: and I had to say which SS man had to accompany which speaker. This protection was necessary on account of the very difficult political struggle; and one had to be glad when the men came back safe and sound in the evening without having been wounded. of the party? Will you please speak slowly because the interpreters are having difficulty. An order of the highest SA Fuehrung said that it should never have more than ten per cent of the numerical strength of the SA.
Q Where were you in 1933?
Q And in what position? is the biggest one there.
Q How many SS non were at the time under your orders?
A That was after the taking of power. There must have been ten or fifteen thousand of then.
Q What area did this number cover? SS in these years?
3 Aug M LJ G 4-4 that the National Socialist Government had come to power; and a large number of people wanted to show their loyalty to the now state. Secondly, after the party in May, 1933, had ordered that it would take no more members, many wanted to become member of the groups, such as SS and SA, and then later become members of the party. Then also there were others who sought the sport and the camaraderie of young men and were not so politically interested. The reasons were very diverse. members carefully investigated, and was the old prerequisite for acceptance, which was loyalty and decency, later on maintain* and increased?
A Yes. In March 1934, Himmler requested an investigation of all SS members who in 1933 had become members, a very thorough re-examination; and this went on until 1935. At that time fifty to sixty thousand members throughout the Reich were released from the SS. to be admitted as a member of the general SS?
A No. I said so already. It was in no way necessary.
the SS, as the Prosecution suggests, was the heart of the Nazi regime, an organization because of its attitude to life, was organized in such a way that one could conclude that at the time of admission the strictest formulas and requirements would be applied? party in itself, that is to say the Hoheitstraeger. The Hoheitstraeger were the leading men, a privilege which they maintained until the end. That was the heart of the regime. There were certain requirements for admission into the SS.
Q But what were the requirements of selection? and also of a personal nature and they led a respectable life, that they should not be people without occupations and who did not want to work. These were the principles involved in the selection.
Q How about the unemployment situation? racial prerequisites, build, that is to say they had to show what their origin was and so forth? basis but rather on other circumstances which you have described? largest Oberabschnitt of the General SS, did you know of any actions taken against Jews? of the so-called boycott of Jews in 1933 and 1934. Did you not, together with your men, participate in this at that time? against the Jews. In Dresden, when I heard about these matters I sent out a memorandum to my men and forbade them from participating.