of the old and new members of the General SS, knew at the time how bluntly Hitler was lying. These men were Ms led by a cloak of justice with which Hitler veiled himself. Not only with this speech; just consider how the Reichs Court, old, experienced, previously Republican judges, which exacting accuracy during many months of trial until the year 1934 considered the question of guilt with reference to the Reichstag Fire. They found the Communists Torglor, Dimitroff and others innocent; but they sentenced the Communist von der Lubbe and determined publicly the complicity of Communist circles who remained unknown. Did not the mass of SS members, as well as the furtherest circles of the German people, have to assume that Hitler had actual saved the people and the State of a violent revolution for which the Communists were blamed at that time? Who, perchance, could possibly learn as I did being a defense counsel here -- that the indictment which had been prepared for months, even years against Thaelmann, had to be withdrawn since then the evidence material was just not sufficient. These few who then, or soon after, learned or guessed the truth and who, subjected to the overincreasing danger of arrest, pronounced doubts regarding the authenticity of the official and popular thesis in discussions with friends and acquaintance the e few know that, confronted with the appearance of justice, tirelessly pursued by propaganda, they were not given credibility by the masses. called "enemies of the State" were to be made harmless in time. Seen from this point of view even the concentration camps appeared justified. But I shall come back to that later. All these were harsh and, in many cases, even criminal measures which partly also incriminate SS members but not the entire mass of the SS.
However, we must not leave one thing out of sight: the use of force typical in a revolution by their members did not only occur after Hitler's acquisition of power, the cunning thing in that connection was that these excesses - such as arrests and bodily injuries - which were carried through I manners of Nazi formations - to the least part by members of the SS - were carried through with the realization that they were necessary in order to safeguard and defend the power which was legally acquired against attacks or threats.
deception of the masses regarding the true events which, indeed, must be considered something unique in history, bears the typical trends of all revolutionary excesses: Under the cover of factual or alleged idealistic motives - such as love of the Fatherland, love of humanity - crimes are being committed. Just consider, gentlemen of the Tribunal - since we are not sufficiently removed from the many involutions of the modern age - just consider the French involution: what amount of crimes were committed under the slogan of, "Equality, Liberty and Brotherhood!" Considering the experience of modern psychology it seems to me to be quite out of the question that mass movement can be unleashed or incited with inferior moral aims. The mass cannot consciously be led to crime. Even Gustave le Bon inclines to this opinion. In the shadow of high ideals of the masses crimes frequently occur, but then, they are only caused or executed by the few who deceive the masses about the true reasons and events. This thought, in my opinion, is the central point with regard to the question of concentration camps and cruelties committed therein and the responsibility in that regard of the mass of the SS, a question which is to be dealt with later. One must be acquainted with the German mentality in order to be able to gauge what immense possibilities of shameless misuse of hundreds of thousands were offered to the psychopathological misleader of a people -- Adolf Hitler, with this concept. We know how much the word "Faith" means to a German on the basis of his education, influenced by romantic and retrospective contemplation of history. Tacitus praised the ancestors of the Germans in that respect. Hitler is utilizing this weakness of the Germans and thereby chaining hundreds of thousands, even millions to himself and his fate. We know what is possible and understandable in private life is a basic wrong in the State.
By that I mean the absolute binding to a human being. The philosopher Karl Jaspers has the following to say to this question in his work, "The Question of Guilt."
"The faith of followers is an unpolitical relation within narrow circles and among primitive conditions. In a free State there prevails control and change of all people."
The German Socialist Bebel expressed it once in the following manner:
"Mistrust is a Virtue of Democracy." For a peoples, however, who wanted to create a modern state according to retrospective historical dreams, they are a new revelation. Quite justifiably Jaspers is seeing a double guilt.
"First, the fact of generally, politically submitting oneself to a leader without reservation, and secondly, the evaluation to whom one subjects oneself. Even the atmosphere of such subjections means a collective guilt." guilt, but not a criminal guilt. fate for the individual perpetrator. That becomes clear when listening to the secret speech of Himmler at Posen before SS Obergruppenfuehrers of the home country and of the rear army area. That was only late in the war -- October, 1943, (PS 1919, SS Document 98). After various statements concerning obedience and the possibility to refuse execution of orders, he says quite clearly: "The man, however, who becomes unfaithful and be it only in his thoughts, will be dismissed from the SS and he, Himmler, will see to it that he disappears from life." the question of guilt in the individual case, and with reference to the question, to what extent coercion and order during the war eliminates the guilt and thereby the criminality of certain individual persons or subordinated groups. This is additional to the question of refusal of military service and its consequences according to military law.
Himmler, with his own personality gives the best example in his relation to Hitler during the last days of the war. book, "The Curtain Falls", how Himmler could not make the decision to save the German people from it's destruction by the ceasing of hostilities, in spite of his very clear realization of the consequences. Bernadotte admits that it was due to the fact that even in this hopeless situation he would not violate the faith to Hitler. We also know how at all times and will all peoples it was this faith that made soldiers keep going on until the last drop of blood during heaviest battles, just as the Waffen SS who thereby won the respect of their opponents in this war. Ana from those two examples we see how this hypnotic word, "faith", determines criminal madness as well as the highest virtue of the soldier at the same time. points of the program of the Party -- that is, if he at all knew them sufficiently, and that is indeed doubtful according to the affidavits of 136,000 SS men, and how he viewed the ideal of this organization. But did not the Nazi leaders intend war from the very beginning? Mr. Justice Jackson asserts this, and I answer: According to the knowledge that we have today, I admit it, yes. But how could the SS man know about it? fessional soldiers to a peoples Army should mean the planning of on aggressive war. In Switzerland, an example of a country with a people's army, the militia did not wage wars for a long time. Was the advocation of physical training and sport activities of youth to be a camouflaged plan for military education? Mr. Jackson failed to give us the proof for that assertion. The training of the General SS was not military. Field manuevers as practiced with the SA were completely lacking, and -- a typical example -- the riding units of the SS who were numerically smaller than those of the SA, did not even give their members the right of a riding certificate, as was the case with the SA. (Testimony of Wokowsky-Biedau before the Commission).
intimate conversations with Rauschnigg and when considering the total events, but Gentlemen of the Tribunal, note: It is an ex post realization. position in which the German people found themselves after the first World War to present a new war as loss disagreeable or bad, or even as a "noble and necessary undertaking," just to use Justice Jackson's own expression. Hitler, whom you can accuse of everything, but certainly not of not knowing the facts of mass psychology, has again and again before and after 1933 pointed out that he wanted peace, peace and nothing but peace. He pointed out that he experienced the horrors of war on his own body, that war always proved results, damaging the most valuable assets belonging to the people of every nation. And only because of that assurance, he won ever-increasing numbers of the German people for himself and his ideas. With propaganda for war, however carefully conducted, he would have never achieved it. confirmation of the world of peace and as being a defensive measure against the non-disarmament of other nations and against possible attempts to interfere with the peaceful re-building of Germany. The building of the West Wall confirms it, and so do many utterances of foreign military experts such as for instance the English Brigadier General Fuller. The high-ranking main defendants and many witnesses including the certainly reliable witness, Gisevius, have confirmed that not even in the leading circles a planning of aggressive war was discussed.
This applies to the SS in a stronger sense. The entire training with the organizations was always headed with the aim that the execution of the party program be carried through in a legal and peaceful manner. Not only was there no psychological preparation for war carried through in all the SS organizations, but to the contrary, it was the Reichs's will for peace that was continually confirmed. document SS 70, 71, 73, 75, 76, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82 from the years 1933 to 1935, particularly an article from the "Black Corps" of 1937, entitled "The SS does not love War", written in 1933, the public declaration of the Austrian Bishops of March 31, 1938, stating that they were convinced that Nazism did not mean war, and the secret decree of the Fuehrer of August 17, 1938, re-affirming that the General SS as a political organization of the NSDAP was not in need of military formations and training and that it was unarmed. equally among the SS never became as clear both to domestic and foreign observers as by the reaction of the mass of the people to the Munich Pact in 1938. The masses including the SS who formed the cordons was not aimed at that Adolf Hitler who had enforced the surrender of the Sudetenland, but rather that Hitler and even more those foreign statesmen who had saved the peace. stated at this historic spot for the sake of historic truth -- when war came in 1939 they accepted this fate not without cheering jubilance as in 1914, but with solemn silence, in their majority victims of the erroneous belief that their leadership had not desired the war. try to deny that the young Germans, particularly in the SS, saw his ideal in those manly virtues, in the same virtues of standing up and the resolution to dare anybody, virtues cherished by other people too. However, the SS men possibly over-emphasized those virtues in a manner which not always was good or wise. But none of the old soldiers, students and farmers,who had joined the SS imagine that war would in anyway resemble that what Hitler aimed at.
If Hitler ever had dared to speak to those men about attacks on other peoples with whom he had just recently concluded solemn pacts of friendship, or of Einsatzkommandos in foreign lands he would never had found any followers apart from a few desperate souls. I must assure that that war which the tall, blond and perhaps intellectually not too alert, typical SS man did not fear, the war as it had been conducted in his imagination since centuries by his ancestors, in the long run, it ended always with the appeal to destiny, the great gamble of the gods. Certainly,it is true that we have to free the Germans and particularly the young Germans of this atavistic longing -and I dare say that in this regard I am now more optimistic for my follow countrymen than for many another people -- but war as such of which it appears that it cannot yet be uprooted (The Kellogg Pact and modern international law do not condemn was as a means of defense and self-preservation) that war is something essentially different than that high treason, that betrayal of world peace, that attack and robbery coupled with exterminating ideas, which was invented by Hitler. the Prosecution charges it from the very beginning and due to which it declares it criminal, there is above all one event which is said to throw light like a flash on the criminal character; the killings which have been performed on June 30, 1934. save time, your Lordship. and I do not attach too much importance to the fact that the Prosecution wants to assert that even in the beginning a criminal development had to be considered or contemplated, and what means contributed to the forming of his opinion, and thereby we must honestly start from the facts, and that unlike his opponent the SS man did not with a particularly critical eye examine everything said about his Fuehrer and his State, but he wanted to believe in something, and this belief, as I shall prove was not found by him in the surrounding world, and the world around him unfortunately did not take the same view of it. right to adjourn now?
(A recess was taken until 1400 hours) (The hearing reconvened at 1400 hours, 26 August 1946.)
DR. PELCKMANN: I have said, your Honor, that the surrounding world, unfortunately, did nothing to shake it. and to distract from ones own guilt if it exists. No -- these statements are supposed to clarify how we all, the whole world did something -- in part, likewise deceived about the true danger; in part in the hope that we would thus best master this danger -- which, in its effects on the whole German people, Hitler's followers, and his SS men had to be interpreted as confirmation of the correctness, the legality of his intentions and his deeds. defense of the individual defendants, for they are being changed precisely with having deceived the world consciously. Then, one cannot use the conduct of the world as an index for its credulity. In the case of the organizations this problem is different. Prosecution will not seriously charge with having known of the criminal aims and intentions of Hitler and they will certainly not be able to prove such knowledge. I have just shown how the events up to about 1934/35 had to appear to the SS man. Thus, the objection of the Prosecution that they could not have been strengthened in error, which is worthy of consideration for the principal defendants, does not apply to the organization which I am defending.
What was the situation at that time? (I quote essentially from Jasper's "The Question of Guilt" (Die Schuldfrage), pages 82-83).
"In the early summer 1935 the Vatican, concluded a Concordat with Hitler. Papen conducted the negotiations. It was the first great confirmation of the Hitler regime; a mighty gain in prestige for Hitler.
All states recognized the Hitler regime. One heard voices of admiration. Ribbentrop.
In 1933 the Olympic games were hold in Berlin. The whole world flocked there.
In 1936 the Rhineland was occupied by Hitler. France tolerated it.
Times, in which there occurred sentences like this one:
"Could England be overcome by a national misfortune comparable to the misfortune of Germany in 1918? I should ask God to send us a man of your strength of will and of spirit." men -- accompanied respectfully and in confidential conversations by SS men -at party rallies, in the Reich Chancellery, and in the Ministry, shook the hands of murderers and arsonists? What effect did that have to have on the consciousness of the SS men, who considered those hands pure and clean? in his book, "The German Question" (Die Deutsche Frage"), which was published in Switzerland.
"The present world catastrophe is the gigantic price which the world must pay for having been deaf to all alarm signals, which from 1930 to 1939 in increasingly shrill tones, proclaimed the hall which the satanic forces of National Socialism were to unbash, at first against Germany itself, and then against the rest of the world. The horrors of this war correspond exactly to the others which the world let pass in Germany while it even maintained normal relations with the National Socialist and organized International celebrations and congresses with the National Socialist and organized international celebrations and congresses with them." I will not read the quotation and ask the Tribunal to read it. as an affair which did not concern them. Only as a result of the experience with the Hitler regime and the second world conflagration, is the solidarity of the great states and, we hope one day that of the United Nations, seeing to it that dictatorships and, undemocratic methods in all countries do not lay the cornerstone to now world conflicts. I cite the remonstrances of the United States because of the internal government conditions in Argentina a few months age.
which the Prosecution has listed, I should like to interrupt the consideration and evaluation of material with a few statements on the law of the Charter and on the rules of procedure. I did not want to bore the Tribunal with this at the beginning, but first I wanted to create a factual atmosphere in which the legal argument would gain strength. My arguments will be as brief as possible, for much has already been said in this connection by my colleagues, and I fear that more will be said, and the Tribunal knows the memorandum of my colleague Klefisch. I hope that my statements may afterward clarify what I have already discussed, and I hope that they may give insight into the underbrush of the voluminous factual material which I can offer in the remaining period of three hours which was granted me for my speech. possible finding of an organization as criminal must be cleared up. The general statements of the defense regarding the possibility of the organizations'committing offenses are known to the Tribunal. I consider them fitting and correct. And yet no must ask the question : Who is really indicted with the purpose of a statement according to Article 9 of the Charter ? Is it really the formations as former legal entity or, is it not rather, in reality, the millions of individual members who, merely represented by one of the principal defendants and represented by the dead formations, are sitting in the deck ? It is the individual members who are \ the whole complex of questions. The Trial will not decide on the fate of the former organizations which are not alive and can never become dangerous but only on the fate of the many members. A glance at Law No. 10 and the disastrous consequences of the declarations of criminality confirms this. Declaration of criminality creates a previous decision -- constituting guilt and unassailable-- for possible charges under Law No. 10. quent proceedings, that is, it is up to the Prosecution whether it considers it expedient to indict the individual member. But this does not change the basic idea.
cing declaration of guilt for each individual member of the organization. If the individual is not indicted later, he receives no punishment, it is ture; but he is nevertheless a criminal according to legal decision. The character of criminality does not affect the organization as such, but in reality -- since the organization as such no longer exists -- exclusively its former members. Before you, Your Honors, the main trial against each individual one of these members is proceeding. The issue is the establishment of his punishable action, "membership". The most important declaration of guilt is made against each individual. The concept of guilt, however, in all civilized states of the world, is always, within the meaning of the law, connected with the individual feed of a person. There has never been guilt of organizations. No one could object to declaring the aims and purposes of an organization criminal if individuals were not affected thereby. But as soon as the declaration of criminality of the organizations is to be the indirect condemnation of individuals one must conscientiously examine and establish the individual guilt of each individual.
One comes to this conclusion for another reason as well: What does the concept of organization include ? That an organization is a union of people is clear. That this union, at least in general outlines, pursues unified aims and purposes and has a corresponding constitution should also be clear. Whether it includes the characteristic of voluntariness is, on the other hand, extremely doubtful. No one will deny that the German Wehrmacht was an organization although there can be no question of voluntariness, not even in the majority of the cases. One may think further of occupational groups, schools, or oven compulsory guilds, in which there is no voluntariness of joining, but which are certainly organizations. The Klefisch Memorandum as well as the basic decision of the Tribunal of the 13th of March, 1946 (Paragraph 6, No. 2) introduced the characteristic of voluntariness into the terminology. In my opinion, quit, correctly. But why ? Fundamentally only because otherwise the aftermath of declaring the organizations criminal would appear unjust in view of the consequences for the indivi dual members.
What follows from this ? Very much. One sees here quite clearly that in reality it concerns not the organization but the members. The decision of 13 March 1946 considers relevant only the question of whether membership was in general voluntary; it therefore takes into consideration that involuntary members will be affected. In view of the consequences of Law No. 10, this is not reconcilable with the idea of justice. whether on a voluntary basis or not -- are criminal if they fulfill the conditions of Article 6; that is, if they were aimed at crimes against peace, war crimes, or crimes against humanity. In connection with No. 6 of the Charter are to be carefully examined here. One should ask, for example, were the constitution, aims, purposes, or activity of the SS aimed at the planning, preparation, inauguration or execution of a war of aggression at the violation of the rules of warfare, or at murder, extermination, enslavement, and so forth ? are punishable only if they were committed in execution or in connection with another crime punishable under the Charter; that is, in connection with crimes against peace or war crimes. This is how the author of the Charter, Justice Jackson, explained it in his statement, which is added to the text of the Charter in the "Department of State Bulletin" of 12 August 1945 on Page 228. I ask you read the English text. "Crimes against humanity when associated with attacks on the peace of the international order." the Prosecution in connection with Article 6 of the Charter the judgment must adapt itself to the time of the program point in question or of the ostensibly criminal act. question of whether the organization, as such is to be designated as criminal will depend on how many or -- in proportion to the millions of members -
how few SS members took part in these crimes. Did an organization really act or did only relatively few members act, who perhaps - in order to establish the paradox- frequently had not even joined the SS voluntarily ? took place the High Tribunal has already affirmed in its decision of 14 January 1946. If at all, then it is quite possible that the organization or a part of it was criminal only at certain periods of time. Forms that were once cast could perhaps appear criminal only through later misuse, although they were originally not destined for it. an axe which if sorged never knows when it leaves the anvil whether it will perform useful service for humanity or will one day be misused, as a murder instrument, if only -to follow the metaphor through -- with its detached wooden handle. is shown by the following examples: The indictment says on Page 5 that between 1933 and 1935 unsuitable members were expelled. I may add that these were about 50,000 or one-sixth of the membership, who -- this is shown by the most varied testimony and affidavits -- on the basis of their previous political attitude had only sought camouflage, also previously convicted persons and other unreliable elements. consequences of the declaration. Such a grotesque result cannot possibly be be desired.
Finally according to No. 6 a (3) of the decision of 13 March 1946 the evidence will have to be examined to see how far the knowledge of the individual members reached. This question will be decisive for the judgment on the masses of the SS. organization, is formally indicted, the indictment is nevertheless, in effect, directed against each individual member. If new the criminal character of the organization is to be proved through criminal acts of the members, then the member who is supposed to have committed this specific crime, must have an opportunity to answer to you, Your Honors.
If he cannot do this, then the Court cannot form an objective picture of whether the accusations are true. Then how will the proceedings be carried cut in an indictment according to the Angle-Saxon group penal law ? The leaders and the members were heard in detail on the specific accusations made against them -- the Court does not judge on the basis unfavorable testimony of witnesses without the leaders' and members' of the organization who are personally affected by this testimony having an opportunity to common on it. witnesses without in concrete cases also hearing the accused person or persons is shown by the astonishing experiment which I undertook with the witness Israel Eizenberg on 7 August 1946 (Please lock at the English Transcript Page 15283/84). I showed him two pictures from a Prosecution document PS 867 in polish, Exhibit SS Nos. 2 and 3, from which I cut off the captions under the pictures. The witness called the two men pictured SS men and named their SS ranks. He deduced these ranks exclusively on the basis of the epaulettes and an insigne on his sleeve.
The witness Morgen, when I examined on 8 August 1946, immediately recognized as an expert that the men pictured were not wearing SS uniforms, and were not SS men: he pointed out that these photographs showed the epaulettes of the police, and on the sleeve the insignia of the police. In the photograph Exhibit SS No. 3, which is in the hands of the Tribunal, the police insignia can also be clearly seen on the cap: the eagle completely enclosed in an oval wreath of oak leaves. Nowhere your Honors, is the SS insignia to be seen. All other photos in this book also show only Police uniforms and police insignia, But all of this did not strike the witness; he consider these men "SS men". That was only a miner example of the powers of observation of the witnesses with regard to uniforms. of the SD and that of the SS -- only a small SD rectabgle on the sleeve -- and that non-members of the SS were this uniform (compare the testimony of Dr. Best and Reinecke before the Commission), that precisely in the rear army area it was the police who were employed, while the SS was at the front, that the mass suggestion of the guilt of the SS distorts the memory of the witnesses; they, your Honors, you will be able to realize the true value of the testimony of non-German witnesses who arbitrarily give "the SS" as the perpetrators of any crimes in the occupied countries. the first time in the long history of law, is based particularly on the difficulty of taking testimony for the accused organization in a fair manner. This difficulty arises of necessity from the peculiar nature of the proceedings, particularly from the fact that it is technically hardly possible, or possible only through proceedings lasting for years, to clear up every concrete charge in a satisfactory manner by hearing the specifically affected members of the organization, and to establish whether each charge is justified or unjustified. we produce each individual member of the organization who is impeached by prosecution witnesses or documents, and to have him make a concrete statement as well as to hear further witnesses on this case, this trial remains incomplete and unsuited for a just finding.
cution and the defense passed each other without being able to give the Court a picture of the true state of affairs in large fields of the charges. Only thus could the grotesque picture arise that we experienced repeatedly during the defense case; a defense witness described his activity and the units and SS men under his command. It covers sectors as large as possible in regard to subject matter and territorial extent, since the Court permitted only a minimum number of witness in proportion to the total membership, and any individual testimony of a little man was inadmissable according to the decision of 13 March 1946. The Prosecution would not have had to attempt to break down the testimony of the witness in cross-examination. The surest and simplest method for this would have been to throw doubt on the credibility of the witness by showing, for example, that he himself had committed a crime or that such things had been done by people under his command. of all the allies, which records had existed for months, yes, for years, and although these 29 witnesses before the Commission and before the Tribunal had held middle, high, and highest positions, the Prosecution could not prove any such thing against them. Is not this fact already the best refutation of the contention of the criminal character of the SS? Is it not symptomatic if the Prosecution did not succeed in accusing or convicting one of the highest generals of the fighting Waffen SS, a very high fuehrer of the General SS, at the same time Higher SS and Police Leader and police President -- an extremely rare case -- of the third largest German city, a staff officer of the administration of the Waffen SS who was repeatedly in service at the front, and two high SS judges, of committing or tolerating crimes?
Later on I shall discuss the case of the witnessSievers, the only case which was different. Thus the Prosecution had only one recourse: it consciously brought forward documents or affidavits which were to prove that crimes had been committed, but with which, even in the opinion of the Prosecution, these SS witnesses themselves had had nothing to do. Nevertheless, the Prosecution asked the witnesses whether they know of the events described therein. Were they thus seeking to discover the truth for which this taking of evidence was intended, or was further evidence merely to be introduced at a time when the case of the Prosecution had already been closed? These documents are for the most part government reports on investigations which have not yet led to any trial or judgment -- particularly in the partisan territory in Jugoslavia, which is very difficult to judge. Their evidential value must be very slight. numbers make it possible for the Court to answer objectively the question of whether the deeds actually took place, and thus whether the SS is criminal? Would not the Court have to hear the accused, that is, the SS men who were mentioned by name in the documents or members or officers of the accused SS units? After the experience with the ability of the witness Eizenberg to distinguish uniforms, I ask, is it convincing that those people say, "They were SS men"? Or were they police or SD and Gestapo members? In part such errors arise obviously from the documents. But I cannot and do not wish to deny that according to a few documents terrible crimes have been established, and that they are numerous. Should not the Defense have an ample opportunity to comment on these documents and affidavits with as much preparation as for the evidence which the Prosecution presented in November, December, and January? Should it not be given a few months' time? I do not fail to realize that my demand would mean a prolongation of the trial for months, insofar as the case against the organizations is concerned.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Pelckmann, the Tribunal has already ruled that the trial has got to conclude now, and therefore any argument that you would have three more months is entirely irrelevant and can't be listened to. The Charter lays it down. It is for the Tribunal to say how the individual is to be represented, and we have laid it down to the best of our ability.
DR. PELCKMANN: But if for these reasons the judgment cannot be delayed that long, then it must be passed now; but since the now evidence of the Prosecution cannot be taken into consideration, it can consist only in rejecting the applications of the Prosecution.
I must add something. I asked myself whether I should deal with the Erhardt affidavit, D-973, from the Neuengamme Camp. It is necessary because it was typical of the evidence of the Prosecution in this last stage of the trial. It is necessary at the last minute, and when it is no longer possible for the defense to carry on investigations on the spot. Compare the decision of the first of August 1946, which does not permit visiting camps, in contrast to the Prosecution, whose administrative machine goes into all camps.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Pelckmann, if you are proposing to deal with the rules which the Tribunal has made with reference to the hearing of individuals, the Tribunal will not hear that. The Tribunal has done the best it can to enable individuals to be heard, and the Tribunal does not propose to listen to you criticizing what the Tribunal has done.
DR. PELCKMANN: I believe there is a misunderstanding, Your Lordship, I am not criticizing. I am dealing with this Erhardt affidavit, the evaluation of this testimony.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. Go on.
DR. PELCKMANN: This affidavit cannot shake the value of the affidavits of the SS members. It refers only to the interrogatory, which does not come from me, and the answers -- there are altogether only 40,00 -- which I do not utilize. summarized then. The methods described by Erhardt could not be used in them. As evidence of this, I should like to ask you not only to read the summary but also a few of the very conscientious and descriptive affidavits themselves. and exaggerations. Erhardt was an SS man and is now the servant of the British authorities. Of course, he does not went to lose his position. Therefore, he has every reason to make himself popular. the actual and psychological reasons for which are so doubtful, shake the value of 135,000 detailed statements; No, Your Honors. This attempt of the Prosecution to shake the value of the whole legal hearing guaranteed by the Charter can remain only on attempt. It lies in the nature of the Defense in this trial that it unfortunately does not have the possibility of ascertaining such mistakes in the obtaining of mass material by the Prosecution and of criticizing it.
I am of the opinion that the result of the Prosecution's evidence insofar as it may so considered, in view of want has just been said, forces the Defense to the conclusion that crimes in considerable extent were committed by members of the SS, but not that the whole SS organization is criminal. indictment immediately in this discussion of procedural and evidential questions that there are only two judgments, concerning the inhumane fighting methods of the SS, for example by shooting prisoners, against SS General Kurt Keyer (Normandy front) and SS General Sepp Dietrich, and 73 officers and non of his army. That, Gentlemen of the Tribunal , is the result of the most energetic efforts on the part of all the Allies for more than a year, which understandable in the interests of the contentions of the Prosecution.
Must one not conclude there from that in spite of this long period of time the Allied Prosecution was not able to establish more crimes through judgment? The death sentence against Meyer, with which I am acquainted, was commuted. The trial of Sepp Dietrich and his men, the transcript of which I was not able to obtain, ended with 43 death sentences, but it is striking that the highest leaders did not receive this punishment. This must bring us to the conclusion that there were no such criminal orders from them, and consequently no criminal system, and the Defense brings forward some noteworthy objections against the methods of investigation and evidence.
I should ask you to note the following, High Tribunal: Those happenings occurred in the last half year during the most violent part of the war, and concerned only very few members of the Waffen-SS. by witnesses and affidavits, which the defense procured also for this particular point of the indictment (The training for and the carrying out to prove that from such occasional excesses in battle, one cannot conclude upon a criminal system). the evidence which to my mind must be the basis of the estimating of the evidence in those proceedings: Where any doubts may arise, whether the individual charges are proven by the evidence, the weakness of which I have just made apparent, particularly where doubts arise, whether proved individual crimes may be said to be typical and that, therefore, the entire organization, that is, all its members, can be considered criminal; where, therefore, one counter proof, or circumstantial evidence, is given ten or one-hundred proofs of circumstantial evidence of the Prosecution -- in that case I believe that the Tribunal cannot draw any conclusions which are sufficient for a condemnation in the sense of the indictment. proceedings. From the tremendous evidence at its disposal, the Prosecution has chosen and charged some incriminating facts, and then made the assertion that those were typical cases, that it had been everywhere like that, that that these actions were typical for the SS, etc.