in front of mo. This morning Dr. Boehm is going into these matters in far greater detail than they were gone into before the Commission. As I understood the order of the Tribunal, it was that counsel should not repeat what was gone into before the Commission, but should select the important points and deal with them and give your Lordship and the Tribunal an opportunity for judging the witness and seeing his merit and capabilities. this very extended examination in controversion of the Tribunalls ruling.
THE PRESIDENT: Nor, Dr. Boehm, unless you observe the orderes of the Tribunal in this matter the Tribunal will have to stop the examination of this witness. You must consider that. you will observe the orders. Otherwise, as I say, we will stop the examination of this witness.
(A recess was taken)
DR. BOEHM: Mr. President, at the suggestion of the High Tribunal according to which witnesses are to be heard upon topics which were not discussed before the Commission, I took this suggestion to heart, but the questionnaire which was submitted to the witness has been extended a little bit for the points Seger had discussed, and just at the very last minute we learned that the witness Diehls had deposed an affidavit to the same matter which this witness had to depose on, too. At the time when this witness was before the Commission, the questionaire and the affidavit deposed by Diehls were still unknown at the time.
THE PRESIDENT: There was no objection about his being examined about the affidavit. That was not dealt with in the Commission before. We do not want you to go over all the details which were gone over before the Commission
DR. BOEHM: I have perhaps ten more questions to put to the witness, Mr. President. I shall ask the witness to be as brief as possible. BY DR. BOEHM:
Q. During your capacity as Commandant of Oranienburg, was there any supervision on the part of the State concerning this camp?
A Yes. The Camp of Oranienburg was supervised by the President at Potsdam, Police President Count Helldorf and high officials of the Prussian Ministry of the Interior.
Q Did the Kreispolice authority have any right to supervise?
Q Did they actually control and check? inspect Camp Oranienburg? Did they have an opportunity to visit it and to talk with the inmates? at Oranienburg. Those who participated were the Foreign Press, the Home Press and private citizens who were politically interested. That is so abroad Then a larger number had an opportunity to talk with them quite freely and Openly inside the camp and at the work places of the inmates. only what you were told to show, and that you would conceal everything else?
A That is correct. That was put to me and thereupon I saw to it that those concerned could open the doors which they wished to open in Oranienburg. There was nothing to hide. There was nothing to be concealed. The people concerned could form their own opinion, their own judgment. They had the opportunity to do so.
A The accommodations of the inmates were very good. That is evidenced by the increased weight of the inmates. Apart from that everything was done which was necessary or required to keep the inmates in condition in line with human dignity.
They even had their own canteen where their daily heeds could be met.
Q Now, just a few questions about the penal camps in Emmsland. How did these camps arise, Strafgefangenen Lager? of Germany. This was caused to a large part through the large social need which was prevalent in Germany at that time. It was particularly the wish of the Minister President Goering, at that time, that inmates partake in the large cultivation projects along the Emms. The SS was charged with setting up certain mammoth camps so that the inmates could be collected for their cultivating work, but this generous Christmas amnesty declared by the Minister President made this problem problematical and the possibility was made that from now on, criminals could be brought into these camps. That did take place. Emnsland?
A No. That was a camp put up by the state. It was completely under the Reich Ministry of Justice. criminal elements. Is that correct?
Q I should like to now put a final question to you. How many SA men were used in the concentration camp at Oranienburg for supervisory purposes and to work for the German Police? at the height of activity, perhaps 90. personnel, the guards?
AA far as I know, Dachau was a pure SS Camp. SA was never active in Dachau.
DR. BOEHM: Mr. President, for the present I have no more questions to put to this witness.
BY MR. BARRINGTON:
Q. Witness, you probably know it already, but if you do not, you may take it from me that in the last eight months this Tribunal has heard a great deal of evidence about concentration camps. Do you deny, now, that even in 1933 concentration camps were regarded throughout Germany with terror?
A Mr. Prosecutor, I did not quite follow the question. I do not quite understand it.
Q I will state it again. Do you deny that even in 1933 concentration camps were regarded by people throughout Germany with terror? horror therewith for the taking away of freedom. That forces him to make a statement like that. There was no reason at all, at that time, to be afraid of internment.
Q You have spoken, this morning, about the Reichstag deputy, Mr. Jarnot Seger. He wrote a book on the Oranienburg concentration camp. I am not going that book, but do you remember that the title of it was "A Nation Terrorized"? "A National Terrorized." Do you remember that title?
A No, Mr. Prosecutor. Oranienburg? camps at Wubbethal or Hohenstein?
A I cannot make any statements in that connection. I never knew Wubbethal, and as far as, Hohenstein is concerned, I know only this much -- that there the sharpest steps were undertaken when abuses were discovered and later on I learned that the leading men of the concentration camp Hohenstein were punished with penitentiary sentences and so forth. cases to about half the sentence? Don't you know that?
A No. That is unknown to me.
25 and that the official report about it said that they were not all who took part in the excesses, but only the most prominent ones? Did you know that?
A I do not know the particulars. I know only that at that time severe steps were taken. in Wubbethal and in Hohenstein? You knew about it at that time, did you not camps were run by the SA? Is that right?
A No. I did not know that either.
Q You did not know they were run by the SA?
A No. I did not know that.
Q. Witness, I want you to look at a document -- which is 787-PS, My Lord, in Book 16-a, at Page 16. That is a letter written by Dr. Guertner, the Reich Minister of Justice, to Hitler, and he describes at the beginning of the letter the mistreatment of prisoners in Hohenstein, including torture by a drip apparatus. If you look towards the end of the letter -- I should think it is about ten lines from the end -- you will see they are talking about the principal SA offender, one Vogl -- "By his actions he supported the convicted SA leaders and men in their needs."
A. Mr. Prosecutor of course in the period of one brief minute it is not possible for me to read a document which is five pages long. I should like to explain in this connection only that I learned afterwards that energetic and severe measures were taken against the SA men and against the SA leaders who had perpetrated crimes there. I should also like to point to the fact that while Minister Dr. Guertner himself was the one who took me over into his penal institution, he did not make general those things which he set forth as an isolated case in his letter to the Fuehrer. were sentenced accordingly in each case.
Q. Witness, if you say you do not know what went on in Hohenstein and Wubbethal at that time, let me ask you this. You knew Guertner fairly well. Did you not ?
A. Yes.
Q. You knew Kerl fairly well, did you not ?
A. Yes.
Q. Kerl was Lutze's uncle, was he not ?
A. (No response).
Q. Wasn't Kerl Lutze's uncle ?
A. I know that there was some connection of relationship. However, I do not know what that was.
Q. And he was a very fervent Nazi, too, was he not -- Kerl ?
A. Oh, yes.
Q. Did you not talk with him about these concentration camps, these other concentration camps ? You were the commandant of the first concentration can at Oranienburg. Didn't you talk to him about the others that were springing up, the other concentration camps ?
A. No.
Q. Did you talk to Guertner about them ?
A. There was no reason for that, either.
I should like to explain in this connection that it was just the Pruss* Minister of Justice, Kerl, who, after numerous visits to Oranienburg, select me on the basis of the fact that Oranienburg seemed to be cleanly headed, and at that time ha used me as the commandant for that post.
Q. We will come to that in a minute. I am suggesting to you now that it was just because of the interest that Kerl took in you, and he did in fact appoint you to your position with the Strafgefangenenlager, later. It was just because of that I am suggesting you might have talked the whole problem out with him. Did you or did you not ?
A. Only in so far as it applied to the camp Oranienburg.
Q. I see.
A. I remember -
Q. Did you talk to Count Helldorf, the Police President, about the genera problem of concentration camps ?
A. Only in so far as it concerned Oranienburg. In this case, however, extensively.
Q. I see. Now you say that none of these terrors and atrocities went on Oranienburg; is that right ?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, I have here an affidavit which Rudolf Diehls has sworn this morning since you started your evidence, and I will read a little of it to you, and you can tell me if it is true or not.
MR. BARRINGTON: My Lord, this is Document 976; it becomes GB 595. BY MR. BARRINGTON:
Q. Rudolf Diehls says :
"I received from various individuals, various complaints about illtreatments by SA men in concentration camps. I learned that SA guards had badly ill-treated the following persons in the concentration camp Oranienburg : Mr. Ebert, son of the former Reichspresident, Ernst Heilmann, the leader of the Russian Social Democrats, the Reichstag President, Paul Loewe and the Oberpraesident Lubaschek."
Then he goes on to say :"I myself have gained confirmation of these ill-treatments on the occasion of an inspection tour through the Camp Oranienburg. At that time the commandant was SA Leader Schaefer. For a short time, conditions improved after my interference; then they deteriorated again I myself did not succeed in removing Schaefer, since he was backed by the SA leadership."
Is that true or is it not ? Did you men ill-treat Mr. Ebert, Mr. Heilman, Paul Loewe, and Lubaschek ? Did they ill-treat then or did they not ?
A. May I please be permitted to give an explanation in this connection ?
Q. Say yes or no.
A. (No response)
Q. Kindly give an explanation.
A. I cannot give an explanation in this form. Mr. Loewe was never an inmate of Oranienburg; Mr. Lubaschek, to my knowledge, never was an inmate at Oranienburg. Here Mr. Diehls is decisively mistaken. It is true, however, that the son of the Reich President, Ebert, was an inmate, and it is al true that Mr. Heilmann was an inmate there. But in this connection, I should like to explain that both of those gentlemen. Ebert as well as Heilmann, were mistreated by other inmates after they had been brought in; and I personally saw to it that they were taken from that circle of inmates who had abused them, and that they were segregated.
Ebert himself was dismissed very soon; that is, after a few weeks of his interment. He and Heilmann did not complain to me personally about the mistreatment, the abuses given by co-inmates. Those are things that I heard, and I took steps immediately to prevent those things from happening again. your endeavor in the Oranienburg Concentration Camp to try to give the inmates a life consistent with human dignity. Do you remember saying that to the Commissioner, "a life consistent with human dignity?" And is that the kind of life you gave to Ebert and Heilmann?
A (No response).
Q I presume the answer is yes, is it not?
A Mr. Prosecutor, I cannot answer this question as simply as you want me to. I did not give an explanation just now according to which Heilmann or Ebert might have been subjected to conditions inconsistent with human dignity. I remember having said that they were not submitted to further mistreatment by other inmates.
Q I did not ask you what you said just now; I asked you what you said before the Commission. And you said before the Commission that you endeavored to give the inmates a "life consistent with human dignity", did you not ?
Q Do you remember saying it or not? with human dignity ?
Q You did ?
had any connection with human dignity. They, of course, led a life like the life any other inmate would have to load in a camp of that sort-
AAnd it may be quite understandable, Mr. Prosecutor. prominent persons in considerable numbers, according to your own evidence, and you said that you wanted to give them all a life of human dignity. But let us not waste any time on this. Let me show you your own book.
MR. BARRINGTON: My Lord, that is 2824-PS, and it is United States Exhibit 423. That is the book written by the witness, entitled "Oranienburg Concentration Camp", published in 1934. BY MR. BARRINGTON: a sarcastic vein about the people who came into the camps. Do you see the very short passage where you say--and I think this sums up perhaps your whole attitude as to the object of your camp: "The moment had at last come when our old SA men could refresh the memory of some of those provocateurs who had been especially in the foreground politically". Do you. see that?
A (No response.) in your book; but do you see the passage? It is marked between brackets. the memories of some of these provocateurs? I thought you said just now that it was the other inmates of the concentration camps who refreshed their memory. It is your own SA men, is it not, who refreshed the memory of abort and Heilmann?
A (No response.)
Q Well, you wrote it, you know ? Let me refresh your memory a bit. Turn to Page 173.
MR. BARRINGTON: My Lord, I am sorry that these passages have not been translated. I only had then looked up this morning.
THE PRESIDENT: You ought to let him answer the other question you put to him on Page 133.
MR. BARRINGTON: I beg your Lordship's pardon. I did not realize he wanted to say something. BY MR. BARRINGTON: on Page 123. Will you?
A Yes, yes. This sentence, Mr. Prosecutor, is taken out of context. In order to understand this sentence quite clearly, one would have to read the entire paragraph. The way it is taken out of its context--and please understand me correctly -- in your sense--that is in the sense of the prosecution, of course-text. Tell us what the sense of the context is.
A Of course, Mr. Prosecutor, I cannot tell you about the whole chapter after you submitted this one sentence to me. But I should like to tell you one thing, that when I spoke of conditions consistent with human dignity, I meant that to be completely unambiguous, and that the sentence which is taken out of context does not prove the opposite.
13 Aug M LJG 9-1 Perrin
Q Well, I will leave that passage then. Will you now turf to page -
THE PRESIDENT: What do you mean, what is the context, what is the context from which it is torn? What do you mean by "refreshing their memories" purposes, I would like to re-read some of those matters which I do not completely recall in this book. In order to answer this question, I will have to read over a little bit, then I can give you an answer.
THE PRESIDENT: You are saying, are you not you don't know what you mean by "refreshing their memories"? passage not very far away from that. Just turn to Page 25, Page 25, and you see a passage in between brackets there. "Rarely have I seen such marvelous educators as my old SA men some of whom were themselves of proletarian origin and took on with extraordinary devotion these communist swashbucklers who acted in a particularly insolent manner." Isn't refreshing the memory of the provocateurs the same thing really as the education -- the marvelous education which your old SA men gave to them? What is the education, if you don't know what you mean by "refreshing their memories", what did you mean by "marvelous education?" What did you mean by "marvelous education
A Mr. Prosecutor, what you wish me to say, that is something I can feel. You wish for me to tell that I should explain that mistreatment actually did take place. I imagine I understand you correctly, but in this connection -
THE PRESIDENT: Answer the question, please. The question is: What did you mean by the education that you last spoke of? Now, an education through mistreating or similar exercises -
13 Aug M LJG 9-2 Perrin passage in brackets. "To conceal Page 23, have you got it?
Q To the effect, "To conceal the fact that some of the prisoners had not been treated too gently, meanwhile, would be stupid as well as completely impossible to understand; impossible to understand insofar as such treatment was in accordance with an urgent necessity." it was the urgent necessity of net treating the prisoners too gently? Are you going to say it was purely disciplinary treatment? It is the same page as the first bracket I road, you knew, from the same page as "refreshing their memory". well, I will leave that passage and turn now to page 173. you an answer, Mr. Prosecutor. Here in this bock I wrote quite freely and openly about matters, and I do not wish to deny there were very few isolated cases that it was necessary when an innate when acted in a certain way, would have to be treated accordingly; and I have no reason to concesl now, and I do not do it in my back cither, that people who made noise, of course, were treated accordingly in order to bring back order. to a nazified Germany in 1934, weren't you? Turn to page 173-In this connection, I should like to explain also -
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal would like to know how you treated them. You said in certain cases inmates had to be treated accordingly. "accordingly"- meaning, I suppose, not too gently, is that what you meant?
A My Lord, the question can be answered this way; If an inmate received brutality, and 'there were cases like that, if he believed it was justifiable brutality, it was my duty to call attention to the fact with emphasis that he did not have the right to do so at that moment. the Tribunal what you have, particularly have against Ebert and 13 Aug M LJG 9-3 Perrin Heilmann.
What was your complaint against them that needed treatment? ment, in the sense, for we had no reason whatever for it to treat them specially, and they were not treated specially as I have already explained, but -neither one of them can say that they were treated differently then any of them, I know nothing differently.
Q Lot's see what the normal fashion was. Turn to Page 173. Have you got Page 173, read the part in brackets?
Q I will read the translation: "And then next day, in fatigue dress, Ebert with a shovel and Heilmann With a room, ready for work in the force with of the camp. Nothing was as beneficial to the prisoners in the camp as the sight of their prominent personages as they went to work the same way. They were put on a per with them." That is what you call the same treatment, the normal treatment, was it?
A Mr. Prosecutor, as an inmate of the camp, in order to save his own clothing, he received fatigue clothing. Trousers and coat, each one received that; and we did not give any exception to Heilmann and Ebert. Apart from that as far as I remember today, both of them asked for participate in manual labor, and a request which was granted them. a cripple in a concentration camp, don't you?
A No, no, I don't know that. as a result of orders issued originally by Goering, did you not, as minister of the Interior for Prussia? That is where your orders came from, through SA channels?
13 Aug M LJG 9-4 Perrin Looking after the camp under you were put there under the orders of the police, and that they, in fact, became deputy policeman for the purpose, is that your evidence?
Q Tell me this. Why do you suppose that Goering chose SA men to do this job? was it because the ordinary police would not do it?
A No, Mr. Prosecutor, A little bit ago I stated that the police forces at our disposal were not sufficient in order to secure both matters set down by the fuehrer in the carrying through of a non-bloody revolution; and for this purpose, the Prussian Ministry of the Interior used the selected SA non for the auxiliary police. are you telling the Tribunal that if the ordinary police lad been used in this concentration camp at Oranienburg, Rubbetal, and Hohenstein, are you telling the Tribunal that the so excesses would have occurred if the ordinary police would have run then? would you even had the so isolated incidents that you talked about if the ordinary police would have run then?
A In Oranienburg, Mr. Prosecutor beginning from the first day onward, there were police officers housed at Rubbetal. I don't know, but I should like to say, that no SA men or leader who participated in an isolated case in excess did that because of orders on the strength of orders, but rather he did it of himself, but with no command, no order protected him, and his action did not protect him from punishment which was noted out to him. Oranienburg for the very simple reason that the SA alone could be relied on by the Movement to run it on sufficiently brutal lines. Do you agree, or don't you?
13 Aug M LJG 9-5 Perrin ordinary police at that time, let me read you a short passage from a speech he made on the third of March, 1933, which must have been just exactly about the same time that he gave the order to found Oranienburg Camp.
MR BARRINGTON: My Lord, it is document 1856-PS; it is in document book 16 A at page 28 and it is USA 437.
Q (Continuing) Now this is what Goering said just at the time that he was ordering Oranienburg to be started by you. He said:
"Fellow Germans, my measures will not be crippled by any judicial thinking My measures will not be crippled by any bureaucracy. Here I don't have to give justice; my mission is only to destroy and exterminate, nothing more his struggle I shall not conduct with the power of any police; a bourgeois state might have done that. Certainly I shall use the power of the state and the police to the utmost, my dear Communists, so you won't draw any false conclusions. But the struggle to the death, in which my fist will grasp your necks, I shall load with those down there--these are the Brown Shirts," Did you ever hear or read that speech at any time?
It doesn't look as if Goering thought much of the ordinary police when he ordered Oranienburg to be started, does it?
Are you telling the Tribunal that after that speech Goering intended to cr*-* a camp which would be mild and humane and just, as you tried to describe in you evidence?
A I do not know this speech, Mr. Prosecutor, but I can see here that it was given on the 3rd of March, or it was allegedly given on that date. ned. a sentence: brutal, SA Concentration camp, but that late in the summer of 1933 you decided to use it as a show camp to demonstrate to foreign countries how mild and just the concentration camp system was. Is that right or wrong?
A No, Mr. Prosecutor, that is not true; it is not true in any way. Today, under the present circumstances, it would held the most weight if I said publicl that I could call as witnesses here the first inmates who were under my leader ship at that time; that is, I could call them to show that I was not ready to create a model camp only for the purposes of outward appearences.
A decent running of a camp like that was an inner need for me. I should like to ask you to take cognizance of the fact that this is not a phrase dictated to me by reason, Mr. Prosecutor, but rather it is a matter of my innermost feelings.
I came through a political struggle, which was very serious in Germany. It was not unknown to me that through the creation of the prototype of a martyr one's own position is not strengthened, Therefore, in a logical manner, I could not is any way be interested in the establishing of martyrs, and I was not interested is that.
Q Now, didn't you write your book as part of this idea of having a show c to convince foreigners? Isn't that part of the idea of your book? It was written to convince foreigners any way, was it not? You said so to the Commissioner, you know.
A Quite true; quite true. I beg your pardon, but I should like to complete explanation. I said at that time just what I am saying now. and I cannot call them anything else-- to refute them as a matter of duty. That, in my opinion, was my right, a right which I wanted to have for myself.
Q who commissioned you to write this book? Was it Goering? Did Goering suggest that you should write this book?
Q Did you consult Goering?
A No. I believe that Mr. Goering perhaps, is seeing me for the very first time today; and I am seeing him for the first time at this distance, we never discussed these matters with each other.
Q Did you consult the Prussian Ministry of Justice when you wrote your book?
A No. I have already stated unambiguously, Mr Prosecutor, that I did not discuss this book with a third party in any way, but rather, that I wrote it when a terrific number of these newspaper reports had been submitted to mc, and that, for my own self, I wanted to justify Oranienburg and I felt myself obligated to put that forth.
Q Now tell me about these newspapers reports. Were they adverse criticisms of Oranienburg only, or of other camps? Was Oranienburg the only one they criticized? Perhaps it was.
A These articles? I did not quite get the first part of your question, Mr. Prosecutor. and which required refuting. Were they adverse to Oranienburg only, or other a camps? myself with those articles which dealt with Oranienburg; I could not know anything about other camps.
Q I did not ask you that. Were there any other articles about other camps? Did you see any articles about other camps?
A I do not recall that. I received only those articles which concernes Oranienburg.
Q Who sent then to you then? Goering? strata of the population and also from foreigners who were interested in having no take notice of their press abroad. newspaper, the English paper, was it not? and you reproduced it is your book. The article was very Oranienburg.
Mr. BARRINGTON: My Lord, there are extracts from that article in document book 16-A, at page 31, and it is documentment numbers-2824-A-PS.
Q (Continuing) I just want to point out to you to or three short extracts, because I am going to suggest to you then they were perfectly true--this is at page 110 in your book, I think:
"We got to Oranienburg concentration camp we had to tried to sit down was beaten. Each of us got a small mug of confect and a place of black board, our first food that day.
Then, a bit further on :
"Prominent prisoners were beaten more often them the others, but everyone got his full share of blows."
and a little further on :
"They also sometimes rubbed black shoe polish into the prisoners all over, and checked up next day to see if it had all been washed off."
and further on again :