When Hitler's policy toward Jewry up to 1941 aimed only at the elimination of the Jews from Germany by emigration and later evacuation, it gained in sharpness after America's entering the war. In April 1942 Hitler ordered the "final solution of the Jewish question", i.e., the physical extermination, the murdering of the Jews. The proceedings have shown in how terrible a manner this order was carried out. The tool which was used by Hitler and Himmler for the carrying out of that order was SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Adolf Eichmann, who, with his Jewish department, in an organizational manner belonged to Amt IV of the RSHA, who however actually had an entirely independent and autonomous position with the Gestapo. The preparation and carrying out of the order to murder the Jews was kept strictly secret. Only a few persons knew the order to its full extent. Even the members of Eichmann's office were left ignorant on the order and learned of it only gradually. The evacuation and the transfer into the extermination camps was carried through by Eichmann's Sonderkommandos. They were composed of native police, almost exclusively regular police. The police were not permitted to enter the camps but were replaced immediately upon arrival at the railroad station of the point of destination. In the camps themselves the circle of persons carrying out the murder orders was kept small. Everything was done to conceal the crimes. Wisliceny and Dr. Hoffmann, is supplemented in a surprising fashion by the evidence of Dr. Konrad Morgen. He declared that three persons were charged with the extermination of the Jews, Wirt, Hoess and Eichmann. Stuttgart, known as "Murder Commissioner for terroristic investigation methods", had for his special task his headquarters together with his staff in Hitler's Chancellery. His task was at first the mass extermination of insane persons in Germany, then, secondly, the extermination of Jews in the Eastern countries. The Commando which was set up by Wirth himself for the purpose of extermination of Jews was known an "Action Reinhard", and was extremely small. Before the beginning of the action Himmler personally took the oath of the members, and declared explicitly that any one who would say something about the action would be put to death.
This Commando Reinhard stood outside any police office. It did not belong to the Gestapo and wore a uniform and carried the credentials of the Security Police in order to allow members of this Commando free circulation in the rear of armed forces. This Commando started its activities with the extermination of Jews in Poland, and extended later on its diabolic work to further work within the Eastern territories, by setting up of special extermination comps in inconspicuous places. By a hitherto unknown camouflaged system those camps were run by Jews themselves. The fact must be stressed that it was the Security Police of Dublin, which reported to the RKPA Wirth's misdeeds and thus enabling the discovery of these hideous crimes. This fact corrects the testimony of Hoess, who declared that the extermination camps of Maidanek and Treblinka had been under the orders of the Security Police. In fact, they were under Wirth.
According to Dr. Morgens testimony, Auschwitz was made a center of mass extermination of Jews by Hoess at a later date. He is said to have been called an unworthy pupil by Girth because of his methods.
According to Dr. Morgen's testimony, the organization Eichmann, was separated from these two Kommandos. That task consisted of deporting of European Jews to the concentration came. According to witness Wisliceny, Eichmann had personally full powers and was personally responsible for the carrying out of the extermination order. He established special Kommandos in the occupied countries. Though economically under the Chief of the Security Police, they could not receive any instruction or orders from them. was done in such a way that only very few people of Eichmann's surroundings knew about it. In this way and furthermore by the use of Jewish collaborators, the knowledge of those killings was restricted to very few Germans and thus the secret maintained. details in the organization of the extermination program, but one thing is clear beyond any doubt; the Gestapo As a whole did not participate in this horrible mass murder and with very few exceptions, could and did not knew anything about it. The few leading persons who knew about it, such as, Eichmann, Mueller, Himmler, kept strictest silence about their tasks and intentions, and in death, they took their secret with then.
This is confirmed most clearly by Dr. Morgen's testimony. For hew could the limitation of knowledge to the above mentioned group of persons be made more evident than by the fact tint the criminal police itself started investigations and discovered the crimes and that oven the Chief of the Security Police and Nebe were astonished, while Mueller seemed to have been informed, as his behavior indicated. But this being the case, how can it be assumed that the minor Gestapo official knew about the secret? I ask you to take note of the statements. I continue to page 73 Roman Numeral Four. collective organization have been accused by the Prosecution. As to the question whether the crimes as far as they were permitted by Gestapo-men have to be blamed onto the entire Gestapo, I finally come to the following result, so far as I did not arrive at it when dealing with individual crimes. to the existing laws. The fact that the Gestapo officials during the twelve years' of the existence of that institution essentially carried out quite normal police work is not sufficiently taken into consideration. The working day of most of the Gestapo officials was occupied with official business which is in no way in reference to the crimes alleged here. Third degree interrogations were only carried through by a small fraction of the officials; the decree with reference to that was in the safe of the departmental chief marked "Secret Reich matter". Therefore, the average working day of the Gestapo officials presented a completely different picture as is imagined. Furthermore, the officials by the exploitation of the traditional duty of obedience nave been used for measures by the highest governmental posts which went beyond the actual aims of the Gestapo. Thereby it is of decisive importance that only a small part of Gestapo officials participated in these tasks alien to police duties.
since the most serious accusations against the Gestapo refer to its activity in the occupied territories, it follows that only a comparatively small percentage, at most 15 % of the executive agents, but not the Gestapo as a while, can be charged with it. special importance whether the aims, tasks and methods of the organization or group were public knowledge. The publication, or, in other words, general knowledge, must include two things; knowledge of the objective fact of the criminal action, and the knowledge of the illegal, criminal character. The judgement of whether this knowledge existed in both senses has to be based on sound human understanding. It is to be assumed, even if the individual members of the organization did not learn anything of the criminal incidents. the individual crime. crimes committed lies in the following: Hitler from the beginning knew how to surround himself with a veil of secrecy to conceal his true intentions, to see to it that no minister and no department and no official learned too much about any other. The well-known Fuehrer Order No. 1 which was submitted as Gestapo Exhibit No. 25 is only the actual realization of a long-established practice. view of the feeling of inviolability of all his orders, which can be explains only through the demoniacal aspect of his character, and in view of the fear of the serious consequences of life and limb in the event of failure to carry out a so-called Fuehrer Order, was there any wonder that precisely this secrecy order was scrupulously observed? examined here have actually just learned of all these Heinous crimes. It is significant that, for example, the driver of a special vehicle was condemned to death by the SS and Police Court in Minsk because in an intoxicated condition he had spoken about the purpose of the vehicle against his orders. Gestapo affidavit 47. Even a Dr. Gisevius had to admit that Heydrich endeavored to keep his actions secret, and the defendant Jodl characterized the system of secrecy in the nest striding manner, with the words that the secrecy had been a masterpiece of Hitler's art of concealment, and a masterpiece of deception by Himmler.
It is a recognized legal principle that ignorance through one own's neglect is not sufficient in crimes; therefore, it is necessary, in order to declare an organization criminal, that the members of this organization actually knew of and approved of the criminal aims and methods. But that cannot be proved in our case, and cannot be assumed according to all the facts established during the trial, no matter how strange the contrary assumption may seem to a person looking backward today, who cannot appreciate conditions in Germany. mitted are to be ascribed to the Gestapo as a whole, the further fact must not remain unconsidered that the members of this commission did not act on their own initiative but on orders. had refused to carry out orders, they would have been threatened not only with disciplinary proceedings, loss of civil service rights, and so forth, but also with concentration camps, and, on war assignments, with courtmartial and execution. Do they thereby invoke a reason for clearing them of guilt? occupational emergency. The state of occupational emergency is not a category of written law. Rather it represents a concept which cannot be dispensed with in legal life. Where written law is not adequate, as when a state of emergency exists, sensible and practical considerations most fill up the gap. Public opinion approved this, and judgment of law and jurisprudence have recognized the so-called extra-legal state of emergency as a reason far absolving from guilt. It is true. Cowardice is not a virtue; but it is equally true that heroism and martyrdom in the world of human beings are the exception. Should the Gestapo members form this exception? Could one, from a purely human point of view, really expect them to take upon themselves loss of livelihood, family suffering, concentration camp, and perhaps even a disgraceful death? Besides, the resistance movement in the occupied territories, in their killing of members of the German occupa tion, repeatedly referred to the orders of their superiors and to the state of emergency of the terrorists under these orders.
was actual danger for life and limb of the perpetrator in the sense of Paragraph 54 of the German Penal Code. Here there existed what Justice Jackson on called "physical compulsion". of the strictest obedience to orders and instructions from higher authority. Perhaps as nowhere else in the world the official in Germany is failed with the thought of authority. He was trained in the attitude, correct in itself that a state dissolves if the orders issued by it are no longer followed, and that theological result of the denial of state authority is anarchy. made particularly the little officials tools without a will of their own. All of these motives were added to the threat emanating from the very nature of the job, and they all together created an occupational emergency so depressing that they didn't retain the freedom of decision to examine a criminal order as to its legal and moral evaluation and to refuse obedience. Taking these conditions into account it hardly appears justifiable to attribute these proved crimes to the totality of the Gestapo so as to declare the Gestapo criminal. of the indictment -- that the crimes were not isolated acts committed independently from each other, but rather parts or aspects of a criminal policy, either as part of a common plan or as means of carrying out that common plan. The contention is that this very plan was directed towards too unloosening and conduct of an aggressive war. The aim of that war was the enslavement of Europe and the peoples of Europe to gain living space. Everything important that was carried on within that conspiracy characterize as such by the indictment is described as having had only one aim and purpose, to secure for the Nazi state a place in the sun and to push all internal and external adversaries into the darkness. The very essence of the individual crimes was the intentional participation in the planning and carrying out of the plan.
The crime of the individual consisted in his having joined the common plan of the conspiracy. It was claimed that plan and purpose of the conspiracy were universally known. conspiracy. defendants, but supposedly they are also valid for the indicted organization It is claimed that the role played by the Gestapo within the conspiracy consisted in aiding the Nazi conspirators by creating a police state, set up to break every resistance, to exterminate Jews and faithful Christians, as well as political undesirable persons, as the main terrorists of the resistance movement; furthermore, to enslave the employable inhabitants of foreign countries and to eliminate and suppress by cruelty and horror all of those who might resist German lust of conquest within the Reich or in the conquered territories. sidered as assistants to the crime of conspiracy against world peace, it will be recommendable to study the activity of the Gestapo before the war, and to examine its work during the war in regard to the individual characteristics. Without repeating myself unnecessarily I believe I can state that the tasks and methods of the Gestapo before the war were the expressions of state institutions existing in all civilized countries without which the state cannot even exist; there existence means in no way an aggressive war of the planning of any other conspiracy against world peace. The individual Gestapo officials filled his duty as he had learned as a civil servant. Equally, in the upper strata of the political police it is unlikely that another thought should have been present other than to guarantee peace and security within the state should have been present. One must not identify the knowledge and action of the Gestapo with those of Himmler and Heydrich, those men alien to the police. If those men acted only on the basis of political considerations their subordinates cannot be blamed for it. Taking into account the well-known system of secrecy, the individual Gestapo official and the overwhelmning majority of all Gestapo members could not have the least knowledge that their work aimed at the preparation of ar*--* aggressive war and created the basis for it.
I believe that every Gestapo official when hearing that contention or when facing the question about the knowledge of the attack of world peace would not even understand it. the crimes committed during the war only when these -- apart from their general knowledge -- were committed only with the knowledge of participating in a plan to bring to a victorious ending the aggressive war, even by the employment of the most horrible means in conflict with international law. Such proof cannot be carried out successfully either. The first condition again would be that the Gestapo officials who participated in the crimes know that the war which we waged was an aggressive one. Yet we all know that a propaganda master fully carried even to the remotest hamlets, never talked in other terms than of a war forced upon us criminally, that Hitler himself always spoke of the war which the others desired, not we. Although it may have been that some considering people, who had not entirely last their sound judgment, had their doubts, and might have thought that our government was not free of guilt, yet in face of the greater probability of the opposite it might not be stated that this opinion or certainty filled all Gestapo members.
activity of the Party, but, above all, its fight against the Jews, individuals holding different political opinions and against the churches, was derived from the intention and the plan to eliminate all tendencies which opposed the war of aggression it proposed. The national socialist struggle against Jewry sprang from the doctrine of anti-semitism which had become a point of the party program, a doctrine which saw an element destructive to the State in all Jews. Because this fight was not a moral one, the Christian churches protested against it with right. This way, in turn, the fight of the Party against the Church may be explained at leas to a large extent, and the steps taken by the Party against those who hold different political views - especially against the Communists - in all probability took place, first of all, in order to maintain and to protect the State; in any event, that was the way in which the German people and therefore the Gestapo officials looked upon the state of tension which existed. It did not occur to anyone to see in it the source of a conspiracy against world pence in this relationship. overlooked in this connection. The German soldier, the German official, the German workingman, and every German man, know that the war had placed us in a situation which meant a struggle to the death. The war in its gradual stages showed us with terrifying clarity that it was a question of "to be, or not to be." Indeed, it would mean that you would misjudge the soul of the German people if you wanted to overlook the fact that every decent German at this juncture felt himself obligated to do everything which was expected of him in order to save his country. And, when we judge the behavior of the German people and its political police, we must take those points of view into consideration in order to do them justice. to establish a restriction in its decision on declaring the organization collective -- be it with reference to certain sub-groups, or be it with reference to time. The organizational structure, the variety of the group of individuals active within the Gestapo, and the results of the evidence presented in reply to the assertions made by the prosecution concerning criminal activities of the Gestapo, form the basis for a possible limits.
either of personnel or of time - which I should like to have taken into account should the High Tribunal arrive at a verdict of guilty. with a punishable participation in the crimes listed under Article 6 of the Charter for neither did they themselves commit crimes, nor did they intend to commit crimes or realize such intent, nor could they have had knowledge of criminal plans and activities end, in fact, did not have knowledge to that effect.
First, administrative officials. They did not receive their practical instructions from the office of the Secret State Police or from Amt IV of the RSHA, but rather from Ants I and II of the RSHA whose members do not fall within the charges raised against the Gestapo. The offices of the administrative offices, and the offices of the Executive officials were novel situated next to each other. Administrative officials had no insight into the activities of Executive officials -- in part because of the fact of secrecy which has been mentioned many times and which was observed especially strictly in the Gestapo -- in part because the Administrative officials were looked upon by the Executive officials as merely belonging to the Gestapo nominally, and were treated with marked reserve. administrative official of the Police, and criminal inspector of the executive must be pointed out, to stress the fundamental difference between those two categories of officials. conditioned by the activities of the administrative officials, this argument is as invalid as if I said that the activities of the officials of the Reich's Finance ministry which secured the funds for the salary and other expenses of the Gestapo has been the cause of the activities of the executive officials.
Employees and wage-earners. Chief Justice Jackson, in his speech of the 1 March 1946, excepted two groups of persons from the indictment against the organizations. Firstly, the SA Reserve, and than the office employees, stenographers, and general laborers, of the Gestapo. A part of the groups of persons which I have dealt with, are excepted from the indictment, but I deem it nevertheless my duty to point out that this group of persons, because of their subordinate positions, as well as the resulting impossibility of acquiring detailed knowledge of the Gestapo's activites, has been very justly excepted from the indictment.
It is my opinion that all employees and wage-earners which includes, for instance, drivers, as far as they were not officials, teletypists, telephonists, draftsmen, and interpreters, are to be included into this exceptional group, no matter whether membership in the Gestapo was on the basis of a free labor contract, or whether the direction of the labor office permitted the selection of a different work place. activities of the personnel de*---* with technical informational work. They show clearly that they had nothing in the least to do with executive work; that they were not in a position to have any knowledge about the activity of the executive personnel, and that on the basis of their own activities, they did not have to realize that they belonged to an organization whose activity might be criminal. An exceptional treatment too is justified with reference to this circle of persons. on the basis of superior orders were collectively transferred into the secret state police. They are the 51 groups of the secret field police and the military counter-intelligence service including foreign censorship and telegraph censorship offices who were subordinated to the Gestapo by the Wehrmacht, the border protection department, and the Reichs Ministry of Finance.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Merkel, were you referring to 51 groups? Can you tell the Tribunal where those 51 groups are specified? In what document?
DR. MERKEL: The testimony of Krichbaum who was examined in the Commission. Even with reference to these groups there cannot be the slightest doubt that neither the fact of voluntary membership nor the knowledge of criminal aims as alleged by the Prosecution nor the fact of an inclusion applies to them. The individual person no matter what rank or office he held was powerless when he was collectively transferred on the basis of an order which emanated from the highest offices of the Wehrmacht and the State. Disobedience of this order would have been punished by death because of desertion or military disobedience.
There still remains the group of the executive officials. The executive officials originated basically from the personnel of the political departments of the police presidents' offices prior to 1933. Those officials who partly oven before 1914 and currently up to the year 1933 were combatting the various interior political enemies of the various governmental systems and the governments which came into power were almost without exception absorbed into the political police of the new regime.
Only these officials were excepted who had been particularly active as opponents of National Socialism. But even there were only dismissed in rare cases. For the most part they were transferred into the criminal police. The replacement of personnel for the secret state police was carried through in a manner where officials and candidates were transferred into the Gestapo from other police departments without previously being consulted except, of course, when they themselves made an application to that effect. In the same manner, officials of the protective police with a long and efficient record were transferred into the criminal or state police after nine years of service if they wanted to remain in the police service. They were unable to use any personal influence in being transferred to one department or another that the members of these groups of persons who were included as officials of the executive of the secret stride police could have nothing whatsoever to do with the crimes of which the Prosecution is accusing the Gestapo. The counter-intelligence police exorcised police activities as they belonged in the same way in every civilized state to the most noble tasks of the police of their affiliated institutions. It is clearly established through the testimony of Best and through Gestapo affidavits 39, 56, and 89 that the counter-intelligence police had a very considerable amount of personnel, and in view of the particular duty of secrecy in the interest of the defense of the country, a transfer into other departments of the Gestapo or other police branches was not permissions as a rule. The counter-intelligence police was mostly isolated within the Gestapo offices which excluded official contact with other departments. The cases handled by the counter-intelligence police were always submitted to the regular courts for decision. the preceding period and the same as carried out today by the officers of the new border police. The officers of the order police did not carry out third degree interrogations, nor did they submit applications for referrals to a concentration camp, nor did they, who in their majority had served for a long tins in the border police, participate in any persecution of the Jews, nor could they,due to the special character of their use, participate in any other crime with which the Gestapo is charged.
On the basis of the figures which I have previously submitted for the strength of the various groups of the Gestapo, I arrive for the period of its largest personnel at a maximum figure of approximately 75,000. The executive officials with a strength of approximately 15,000 men therefore constituted merely a portion of 20% of the total strength. If one deducts from that the 5 to 6 thousand men of the counter-intelligence and border police, there remain 9 to 10 thousand men of the executive which equals 12 or 13 per cent of the total strength. subordinate part of the State organism cannot be sentenced at all, for reason which are based both on natural law as well as the common state law of all peoples. But even if those legal objections were not existing, a sentencing could not take place since the characteristics for criminality as Chief Justice-Jackson outlined them on February 28, 1946, are not given in the case of the Gestapo. And even if all these arguments were not valid, I ask: Is it possible that an organization as such should be declared criminal simply because part of its members possibly can be held responsible for the committing of crimes --including even these members who certainly did not act in a criminal manner and had no knowledge of criminal deeds? the former members of the Gestapo presently in internment camps. I also would not wish to overlook to draw your attention to the numerous acts proven by those affidavits which aimed at the sabotaging of certain evil orders issued, by the head of the State. dwelling on the question of time limitations, I may be much briefer. the entire territory of the Reich and of a uniform direction of its will at least up to the appointment of Himmler as deputy chief of the Prussian Secret State Police, that is up to the spring of 1934. With a short interruption Ministerialrat Diels had been active in Prussia as substitute head of the Secret State Police under Goering.
It is impossible to construe connection between Diels and the illegal tendencies as they became apparent after the outbreak of the National Socialist Revolution. I may refrain and I have to, due to the pressure of time,from pointing to the real guilty ones in those excesses, compare Affidavit Number 41. 1934. In the following period of time, up to November 9 , 1933, the Gestapo did not play any role which would justify the charge of criminality. The arrest of 20,000 Jews on November 10, 1938, which the Gestapo was ordered to carry out was, as Witness Best testified, a master foreign to the Police.
Thus it is impossible to fix that date as the beginning of the criminal activity of the Gestapo. It must be stated that at least up to the beginning of the war the criminal character of the Gestapo cannot be proven.
Does that basis of judgment change for the duration of the war ? I have already stated that the activity of the Einsatzgroups and of the Sipo offices in the occupied territories cannot be charged to the Gestapo since both the leadership, the organization, the personnel, and the order of command of those offices would not permit a charging of responsibility to the Gestapo. siderable time limitations have to be made. I sketched in a few lines how unsurmountable would be the difficulties existing for a time limitation. my remarks concerning the indictment of the Gestapo. I didn't consider my task to excuse crimes and evil deeds and to whitewash those who disregarded the laws of humanity. But I desire to say these who are innocent, I desire to free the read for a sentence which will dethrone the demoniacal powers and which will reconstitute the moral order of the world. last decades and centuries, we read again an again that force conquered justice among the nations and that the spirit of revenge beclouded the thinking of humanity.
A place which was concluded remained merely written: it was not accepted into the hearts of the people. Facts were made ceremoniously only to be broken. Promises were given and not kept. We read in this book of revolution of peoples, of economical head, of unbreakable sorrow. The last page of this back, however, are written in blood, in the blood of millions of innocent people. They Speak of unimaginable cruelties, of limitless disregard of holy human laws, and of mass murders which caused suffering to the peoples of Europe.
In this book, Gentlemen of the High Tribunal, with your judgment, you are writing the last chapter, a chapter which is to be the end and the beginning cal powers against the moral order of the world, and the beginning because it is to lead into a new world of liberty and justice. in golden letters on the floor of the Palace of Peace in the Hague: Sol justitiae illistra nos. Do not, therefore, make your judgment merely with the cold logic of your learned mind, but also with the kind love of a seeing heart. This applies especially to the judgment against the organizations; for a condemning judgment must be unjust, since among the millions whom it affects there are also millions who are gukltless. They would all become victims of desperation; they would all be despised and damned, and would perhaps even deem those happy who are now resting, in their graves as victims of National Socialism.
The present world needs peace, nothing but peace. To extend the consequences of a judgment to a large , guiltless part of the German people would be working against world peace, which, in any event, rests on an unfirm basis, and would thereby repeat Hitler's idea to punish a people, the Jewish people, collectively and to exterminate them nutatis nutandis. indignation of the creature thus tortured - and the right to have the evil doers called to account. Hitler and his regime proved the words, "Hodie mihi, cras tibi. not have destroyed the City of Sodom if but one just man had lived there. Is not God's truth contained in these words-- that a group may not be punished even if but one member of the group deserves no punishment ? which will stand up before History and the Court of the World : Place your signatures under a verdict which will be praised as the beginning of a new Era of Justice and of Peace -- and which will be a bridge of gold leading to a better and a happier future.
(The Tribunal adjourned until Monday 26 August 1946 at 1000 hours.)
COL. POKROVSKY: Mr. President, would you allow me to inform the Tribunal that in conformity with the ruling of the Tribunal dated 12 August of this year, the ruling which took place in the morning session concerning the witness Schreiber, this witness is now in Nurnberg and is here and can be examined today or at any other time, in conformity with the decision of the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Pokrovsky, could he be examined now, at once?
COL. POKROVSKY: He could be examined at once.
THE PRESIDENT: I think that would be the most convenient, before we go on with the organizations' speeches.
COL. POKROVSKY: Very well, Mr. President, General Alexandrov will therefore examine him at once.
DR. LATERNSER (Counsel for the General Staff and OKW): Mr. President, I object to the examination of this witness for the following reasons: for the trial of the organizations it was decided by the Court that all witnesses had to be examined before the Commission. What is valid for the defense must, according to general legal principles, be valid for the Prosecution as well. For these reasons the examination of this witness is inadmissible.
THE PRESIDENT: I have before me the order of the Court of the 12th of August, 1946, which is in these terms:
"With reference to the objection of Dr. Laternser to the use of the statement made by Major General Walter Schreiber, the Tribunal is not inclined to admit any evidence so late as this, or to reopen questions which have been gone into fully before the Tribunal; but on the other hand, in view of the importance of the statement of Major General Schreiber and its particular relevance not only to the case of certain of the individual defendants but also to the case of the High Command, the Tribunal will allow General Schreiber to be heard as a witness if he is produced before the end of the hearing of the Take 2-1 case.
Otherwise no use can be made of this statement."
Dr. Laternser's present objection is, therefore, overruled.
WALTER SCHREIBER, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows: BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. Will you state your full name, please?
A. Walter Schreiber.
Q. Will you repeat this oath after me: the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.
(The witness repeated the oath.)
THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down. BY GENERAL ALEXANDROV:
Q. Witness, will you kindly inform the Tribunal of the short details about yourself, about your career, about your education, and your activities?
A. I am 53 years, was born in Berlin, and am a professor of medicine. My medical studies were at the Universities of Berlin, Tuebingen, and Greizwals. I passed the state medical examination at Greizwald in 1920. I received a certificate and was made a doctor of medicine. of Berlin; in 1942 professor at the Military Medical Academy. I have been an active military doctor since 1921. I have been in various positions as a garrison doctor, and a divisional doctor since 1929, however only in scientific activity as a Hygienist and bacteriologist. Freiburg in Breisgau. After 1929 I was first in Freiburg, later hygienist at the Wehrkrieskommando in Berlin, and finally during the Second World War hygienist and bacterologist at the headquarters of the Supreme Command of the Army. I was afterwards section chief in the High Command of the Army for science and health in the Army Medical Inspectorate, and lastly head of Wehrgruppe C of the Military Medical Academy. In this capacity I was in charge of the scientific institute of the academy in Berlin.
Q. What was the last rank that you occupied in the German Army, and when was it?
A. I was Generalarzt -- that is major general -- of the medical service. My last position was that of the directing doctor for the military and civilian sector of Berlin, but only from the 20th of the 30th of April, 1945.
Q. Under what circumstances were you taken into captivity by the Soviet Army?
A. On the 30th of April, I was in a large hospital in the air-raid shelter at the Reichstag building in Berlin. Since most of the city of Berlin was already in the hands of the Russian troops, I had no more real directing work. As a result I opened a large hospital there and took care of several hundred wounded.
Q. You are now going to be shown your statement, dated the 10th of April 1946, which is addressed by you to the Soviet Government.
(A document was handed to the witness.) BY GENERAL ALEXANDROV:
Q. Do you remember that statement?
THE PRESIDENT: Wait a minute.
THE WITNESS: Yes; that is a report -
THE PRESIDENT: Wait a minute. evidence orally and not by a document. Therefore, if you question him upon the subjects which are contained in it -
GENERAL ALEXANDROV: Mr. President -
THE PRESIDENT (Interposing): Wait a moment.
GENERAL ALEXANDROV (Continuing): That is what I was going to do.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. General, the Tribunal would prefer that you get the evidence from the witness and do not use the document. Go on.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: That is what I want to do, Mr. President, but I just wish to have the witness tell us of a few circumstances in connection with this document.