As already stated, it is the sale responsibility of the defense to furnish exonerating evidence. And this is where the difficulties for the defense of the organizations, particularly of the SS, begin. The organizations have been dissolved; they exist no longer. When we established the evidence most of the members of the organizations, and all their leaders were in custody and many of then still are. all personal acts, correspondence, Decrees and orders. It is true that we have been able to speak to most of the prisoners, but after so many years, and particularly, in detailed questions, the information was bound to be incomplete, and was given only in April and May, due to the progress of the trial. We could not always reach the competent persons. In connection with the question of the legal hearing, I would ask you to consider that we have no evidence at all from SS men from Austria and the Soviet-Russian zone of Germany. Out of reasons of security we could not be granted to conduct a research in the Allied document centers in which the confiscated documents are classified according to the subject they pertain to, and thus we were not able to obtain a reliable view based upon documents. We could not counter this deficiency by an approximate indication of the documents based upon certain assumptions, because a specified indication was demanded. As things stand the counter proof is considered successful if the Prosecution succeeds in establishing but a shadow of a proof for their assertions. with the charge of the participation of the SS in the pogrom of the 19th of November 1938. The next four pages deal with that, which I must also skip for lack of time, Pages 33 to 38. I ask you to read them.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Pelckmann, you say that you have gotten only to Pages 32 and 33?
DR. PELCKMANN: I want to start on Page 36 now. Is Your Lordship's copy longer? I can farther on.
THE PRESIDENT: I do not have a copy at all; but I do not understand how you are proposing to finish your speech, if your speech is, as I am told, about 100 pages long.
general topics which are very familiar to us were topics which you might just as well pass over, and you said "Very well; I am going to shorten my speech, I have taken steps to shorten it". you have not gotten any farther than Page 33. All I want you to understand is that you will not be allowed were than a half day.
How, will you go on, please?
DR. PELCKMANN: In the pages which I am skipping, I have dealt with the events of November, 1938. Then I add that in the arrests, which were purely a political matter and were up to the Gestapo, some officials may have had black uniforms on. This would be a typical erroneous generalization which can be traced back to the fascination of the black uniform and of the SS insignia, and whose falsifying influence been truth and recollection must not be underestimated for the entire proceedings against the SS. and auditory means, was not only dangerous in the past through its publicity value, because in the German it aw romantic historical feelings by the doubling of a Germanic rune, but even today after the destruction of all one myths surrounding it, it has the peculiar power of preventing any clear conception as to its nature. This word "SS" is so easily pronounced, without being accompanied of any clear conception as to its real meaning. like any other such myths is based upon the ignorance of the facts, or, even worse, upon a semi-knowledge of those facts. We, who combat the Hitler myth wherever we can, -- we have done so in the evidence before the Tribunal -- do not wish that a myth should be formed around a group of people under the slogan "SS", around the guilty and innocent alike. We do not want to help to create so-called "martyrs" in the interests of a nee-fascist propaganda.
That is why we must ask a definite question and give the answer: "What is the complete meaning of SS?" essential spheres of activity of Himmler's, are considered as activities of the SS.
Without heed to the origin or tasks of the many agencies and units under Himmler's command, without heed whether there ever existed any organized bunds, the indictment assembles the general So, Waffen SS, the SD, the Police, the Concentration Camp system, the affairs of the Reich Commissar for the consolidation of German Nationalims, the activity of the Chief of the Prisoners of War system and others, in one great imaginary unit, the SS. The indictment must proceed from such a unity in order to create a basis for the evidence that within the frame of an alleged conspiracy, all sectors of the public life in the State, in the Party, and in the Wehrmacht, were permeated with this SS, which had spread its tentacles over Germany and Europe.
That Himmler's activity was identical with the activity of the SS is only true for the period until 1933 or 1934. Only until then did an organized unity in the SS exist and the prosecution has taken over this idea of the unity of everything which is called SS from this time, thus falsely interpreting the true development of the system. That was the SS as a part of the SA and therefore a section of the NSDAP. supreme and superior state positions were filled with Party leaders. From this time on, Himmler goes his own way at the side of the SS. First -in comparison to other high Party members -- extremely cautiously and them ever more dominantly.
It was mainly Heydrich who directed Himmler's inquest for State affairs, to the field of policy power, Himmler, like many of the SA leaders, had become Police President in Munich in 1953. Soon he was made Chief of the Political Police in Bavaria, and then in the other counties of Germany, with the exception of Prussia. Here, Goering was still Chief of the Gestapo. But seen Himmler became his Deputy and Heydrich the leader of the Secret state Police Office in Berlin. Himmler's ambition for the widening of his power in the State, which the SS could not offer him, now became ever more obvious. His goal was the ministry of the Interior. Already in 1936 he gathered the entire police power of the Reich, which until then had been the affair of each County, in his hands, in his capacity as Chief of the German Police. Thus he had become the highest superior not only of the Secret State Police and of the Criminal Police, which one jointly names the Security Police, but also of the entire ordinary Police in Germany.
Only now did he hold a position of power which was of the greatest importance, and it was given to him by Hitler and not by his SS, and not through the SS or for the SS. I ask the Tribunal to consider that these Police Officers have existed independently besides the SS, before Himmler became their Chief. Nationalism and was thus assigned a now task, the transfer back of populations, etc. every, but every, new task, he gained tie personal confidence of Hitler and thus extended his personal position of power within the Reich. It was peculiar to this Reich that Hitler should have united an almost inestimable number of officers and tasks in one single person who had his confidence. As an example, I point out Goering's person. In the measure that Goering continued to lose Hitler's confidence, Himmler's power rose meteorically. But this position of power he had rained owing to his personality and without his SS, and quite independently from the fact that he was their Reichsfuehrer. The witnesses, Grauert, Reinecke and Pohl, have amply testified to this effect. course of time, taken an individual and quite independent development, owing to the great number of the entirely different sections which began to take shape. Unfortunately the briefness of the available time does not permit me to describe here this development in detail, although it is of the greatest importance to the entire defense. But I have added the necessary explanations, always in regard to the furnished proofs, as annexed to my plea, and I would ask the Tribunal to take note of these arguments in the verdict. General SS was the basis upon which all the other organizations had been established. The fact alone that almost a million men have at one time been in the Waffen SS whereas the General SS had only counted 250,000 members, refutes this statement. In the aforementioned annex, I have shown how the individual organizations have been built up, added to and developed, according to their own rules.
The General SS is not the source of life for the other organizations, but an ancient vestige which at first succeeded to keep alive, but which during the war was already dissappearing, because it had to disapp for lack of any special task. (Witnesses Eberstein, Hinderfeld, Juettner, Pohl).
But the indictment did not mention the most important aspect. To my mind, this is an aspect which is particularly suited to bring life into the obscurity of the imaginary unity of the SS; where lay the executive power in the state. For an alleged conspiracy, only such an instrument may have been suitable, which controlled some means of the State authority, which had executive power in the State. Neither the General SS nor the Waffen SS were such organizations. At no time of their existence, did a leader or a simple member of the General SS, have more extensive rights in the legal public and especially police field, than any other German citizen. He could and did never carry out arrests or house searchings without incurring punishment. (Witnesses Reinecke, Eberstein). the seizure of power, changes nothing. They were at once successfully combated as testified by the witness Grauert. No member of the Waffen SS had ever had more extensive rights than any member of the Wehrmacht. (See Witness Hauser). Indeed the executive power in the State was alone in the hands of the police, the state police, the criminal police, combined as security police, and the ordinary police. A policy of power in the sense of an alleged conspiracy could logically have reposed only upon them. circle around Himmler, is particularly revealing for the question which activities of the SS are to be considered connected with the executive power. This testimony is nothing special as far as the information is concerned that Himmler was informed of the affairs of the Waffen SS by an Adjutant of the Waffen SS, and of Police Affairs by the Police Adjutant, while the General Secretariat had to inform him of the other affairs of the General SS.
departments becomes very clear. The essential point here is that all matters concerning the concentration camp system and the totally different sphere of the SD were not dealt with and reported on by the SS Adjutant, but rather by Himmler's own Police Adjutants. In this way the testimony given by the Witness Reinecke, is again being reaffirmed, who testified as to the judicial basis for the separation into five independent spheres of influence under Himmler in the sense of the indictment, into General SS, Waffen SS, SD Concentration Camp system, and Police. raised under the indictment and for a just evaluation of this case. In the beginning of its development, Himmler was on the side of his SS and had risen to the top. After the police power of the entire Reich has been transferred to him alone, the only thing he concerned himself with was this one sphere, the sphere of executive power. He played a leading role in the rapid development of Germany into a police state. Very soon he let every last vestige of regard for any and every legal consideration go by the boards. On top of that he continued to follow the path he had chosen for his organizations, General SS and Waffen SS, and withdrew behind a heavy curtain of secrecy, hiding himself and the excesses of his police activity from these organizations as well as from the entire nation. It is quite impossible to understand all of this if one does not make sure of and appreciate the fact that Himmler had a Jekyll and Hyde personality. On one hand he preached and fostered ethical values, such as decency, manliness and courtesy. Here he used the instrument of his organizations, the General SS and the Waffen SS. On the other hand, he exploited his tremendous power by issuing the most uncompromising orders and measures of a police state nature. At this point I should but like to refer to concentration camps, mass executions without trial, and the Einsatzgruppen. Here and here alone he used the instrument of the executive power in the Reich. A deep abyss opens up between these two. It wasn't surprising, therefore, that in the few speeches he made during the war in which he showed his obsession with his state police troops of the future, that he met with opposition among the leaders and the troops of the Waffen SS; for these men were soldiers and were fighting the enemy.
It is quite understandable that the Prosecution would consider one side of Himmler's nature to be but a whitewash for the other. But nothing could be more wrong than an assumption like that. It is not coincidence either that the defendant Seyss-Inquart from his complete knowledge of developments, and the witnesses Hausser and Reinecke, who, because of their former high positions and their present knowledge have an overall picture of events, describe Himmler as a man who had two totally different faces. And when they say that, they are in good company; for on the strength of his many conferences with Himmler, Count Bernadotte says exactly the same thin in his book, "The Curtain Falls", which has been quoted frequently.
Himmler, therefore, is not the SS. The fact that he is referred to as the "Reichsfuehrer SS" in all laws and directives which gave him new missions to accomplish does not alter this situation in the least. As the witnesses Reinecke and Kubitz have stated quite correctly in this regard, his official position and title, to all practical purposes, had replaced his name in public life. Specialized departments, like the Police and the Reichscommissar for the Consolidation of German Nationalism (Volkstum) or the position of Commander-in-Chief of the Reserve Army, and the Chief of the Prisonerspf-war system, did not become concerns of the SS just because they were transferred to the person of the "Reichsfuehrer SS", that is, Himmler. to support their position, they state further that as seen as Himmler took over new offices he immediately started to infiltrate them with members of the SS. That is equally wrong. The witnesses Zupke and Bader have confirmed that some of the members of the Ordnungspolizei were taken over into the General SS and not vice versa. An infiltration of the police therefore never took place. As far as the security Police is concerned we can see from Himmler's decree of the 23 June 1938 (document 1637-PS) that the officials and employees of the Security Police were taken over by the SD, and received police ranks commensurate with their SS ranks and not vice versa. They never served in the general SS for even one day.
Commissions on the 20 of May 1946, (SS affidavit #82), prove that roughly twenty different categories of members of the Ordnungspolizei became formal members of the SS when on the strength of ministerial directives they were granted ranks in the SS commensurate with their Police rank. This so-called "Coordination of Rank" does not establish true membership, for the Policemen involved did not take the SS oath, did not pay dues, did not perform SS functions, did not serve in the SS, had no privileges or advantages of any kind because of their rank, and did not even wear the SS uniform. Their Police service rems ned constant are unchanged.
Everywhere else in public life the same procedure was followed. It hasn't that the 38 filled key and other essential positions but rather that the men holding such positions were taken ever into the SS as honorary leaders by Himmler.
The affidavits deposed by Mr. Fuehrer,SS No. 63 and by Mr. Wunder, SS No. 42, describe the appointment of honorary leaders; SS No. 49 and Bethke SS No. 48, show that the Kreis and Ortsbauernfuehrer were taken ever as a group by the SS in that way, and the affidavits SS No. 98 and SS No. 97, describe the taking ever of the leaders of the Reich Veterans Society.
Therefore, it was not true that the SS infiltrated into 26 Aug A LJG 16-1b Perrin the State, on the contrary elements foreign to the SS were taken ever by its organization.
The bulk of the membership remained what it was, a unit of farmers, mechanics, students, workers, and representatives of all the professions. The tasks of the general SS were not changed in any way because of it. fact there is for the assertion made by some of the defense counsel on behalf of individual defendants and organizations to the effect that during the war, the SS, exercised all the powers of Government in Germany. Many witnesses and affidavits prove that the activity of the general SS, which must be described as typical Club-life, began to decrease at the beginning of the war and disappeared altogether during the course of the war. The Waffen SS was fighting at the different fronts, receiving more and more draftees into its ranks. It was under the supreme command of the Wehrmacht. These two branches of the SS therefore could not rule Germany during the war. As I shall demonstrate labor the WVHA, which concerned itself with concentration camps, belonged to the SS only nominally, and had no administrative authority over any other institutions in Germany. arrests and the putting of individuals in concentration camps, but that was not a matter of any branch of the SS organization, but rather of the ministry of the Interior of the Police and the RSHA (Gestapo). change my statements either, for the name is in fact misleading. They had no authority to command over the Police and the Waffen SS. Only in the most infrequent cases, such as in the person of the Reichsfuehrer SS in whom were combined the State and Police position, for instance, Police President, were they authorized to give orders to the Police, but only because of their State position, not because of their position as SS Leaders. This may be seen even more plainly in the occupied Eastern territories, 26 Aug A LJG 16-2b Perrin for there was no general SS there.
The higher SS and Police Leaders there did not have any authority of command in the Waffen SS, so that the higher SS and Police Leaders exercised only the public Police functions. I am referring to the testimony given by the witness von Eberstein, to the affidavits SS -86, No. 88, and No. 87.
Then we see the following: Himmler's power increased tremendously during the war, but the power of the SS was not increased. He received this power not because of his position as Reichsfuehrer SS and he could not exercise this power through the SS, but he received it solely through State organs, which meant the entire Police.
Competing with Himmler's authority, were other power factors not of the State, but of the Party and exercised by the Party (Reichs, Gau, Kreisleitung, etc.) power between Himmler and Bormann. following: firstly, we cannot consider the organizations comprising the SS to be a unified instrument of a conspiracy. Secondly, the Court can only examine the question of criminal character for each separate branch of the organization. afraid I cannot occupy myself in detail -- increased in seriousness as we approached the time of the war and finally the collapse. I shall now have to concern myself with the accusations raised, although because of lack of time I shall have to limit myself to the most salient points. against the SS has been included in the term "Germanization."
The following five pages 50, to 54, concern the slave labor. Pages 55 through 57 concern Partizan Warfare. I cannot read then now. I ask you to consider them. Now I shall deal with the problems of the concentration camps. regime on. Without then the Hitler State was inconceivable. Hundreds of thousands went through those camps, were degraded and mistreated there; more than a hundred thousand died or were killed there. murders and misdeeds. In the face of all the world this confession must be made in this trial. And just as every German must be ashamed that such horrible inhuman things occurred in his country, even more should every SS man search himself and examine to what extent he is politically or morally guilty for those happenings. He should be concerned, not only with the defense against the accusation of the Prosecution that every SS man has become a criminal through those crimes, but he should again reflect his whole life and study when, where and how he might have deviated from the road of true humanity, perhaps only in thoughts and memories. This he can do, he must do -- even if he denies his criminal guilt and when he ways that he has stoof for four years in the front lines engaged in toughest fights, believing in Germany and her just cause. And if he feels shame, genuine shame -- and even if only a little of it -- then his reflections, then this trial, were not in vain. Then that a man who has been misunderstood so profoundly. if all those SS men should remain unteachable -- and from my visits to the to serve earthly justice, would have to examine whether due to the concentration organization, whether all SS men became by those acts, criminals. matters, even though millions of victims of the concentration camps complain, hundreds of thousands of the surviving inmates Suffer from the aftermath, and even though the world accuses in one single outcry the SS.
SS, I found a considerable amount of material of the Prosecution, evidence taken in the main proceedings, and many documents which were assembled in the document book "Concentration Camps." The American motion picture on the concentration camps I had seen shortly after the occupation of Germany. All that was gruesome, horrible and surpassed all imagination. But, on the other hand, in the concentration camps it could not have been possible that hundreds and thousands were discharged, that work could not have been carried on during the war as it was, and that finally, those things could not have remained unknown to the masses of people and to the mass of the detained SS men whom I now interviewed.
There were contradictions which could not be solved; in the American report on the development of the Buchenwald Camp from 1937 to 1945 (Document EC 168), the basis of which I do not know, the following which is taken from a letter of the WVHA from December 28, 1942, attached as an appendix:
136,000 people were brought to the camp within a half year. During the same time 70,000 died. Though it is obvious that not just half of those new inmates died, but that 70,000 of a total population of some hundred thousand inmates passed away in six months, yet that mortality rate is frighteningly high. detainees were systematically exterminated or at least killed through overwork of 28 December, 1942, by the WVHA, according to which the doctors of the camps were to take all measures to insure lower death rates and to maintain working capacity as high as possible, by the control of food and working conditions and by suggesting practical ameliorations which should not merely remain on paper. Neither was this in accordance with the fact testified by witnesses over and over again, that foreign and German commissions inspecting the camps and even SS Fuehrers themselves gained a very good impression of the administration and the prisoners. defense counsel the fact could not be sufficient that the tremendous number of victims was there and that the whole world said that they had been murdered and ill treated by the SS system.
In this decisive question which is produced by the mass effect of a mutually conditioned formation of opinions, in other words, a typical case of mass suggestion of public opinion, does not yield any facts which may be considered relevant by the Tribunal. For here we have to find clear facts without any prejudice. This is important for the following questions. Who were the authors of each of these crimes which became the enormous number of anonymous concentration camp atrocities? Did they do it on their personal initiative or on order? Do they belong to a typical criminal group, and if so, to which one, in order to discover a collective guilt? In which relation are they to the organization of the SS, that is, to the tens and hundreds of thousands of members, which had not been active in the concentration camps and affirmed to have ignored these crimes?
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will recess.
(A short recess was taken.)
THE PRESIDENT : Dr. Pelckmann, you have now been speaking for two hours and twenty-eight minutes, so that, strictly speaking, you have got twenty-two minute more.
DR. PELCKMANN: The German counsel put the questions which seemed important to me for the clarification of the connection between the SS and the crimes committed in concentration camps. I hoped that those questions had been answered by the allied Courts which had been sitting in concentration camp trials since last year, because that might contribute to the quicker sentencing of all the criminal disposal the records of all these trials for consideration. From them I might have discovered many facts which have come to my and public opinion's knowledge, only during these last weeks.
I have nevertheless nothing left undone to discover the truth. My application aiming at placing at my disposal the concentration camps' administrative files of the WVHA, from which only incriminating extracts have been dealt with by the Pros cution, met with considerable difficulties , but I do not need it any more because I succeeded at last in the beginning of July to find a witness whose testimony is I believe, decisive in many respects for the discovery of truth, that is, for the historical and in this trial, relevant truth. This witness is Dr. Morgan.
We owe this witness the discovery of three primary facts. First, the last and profoundest reason for the killings in the concentration camps were the outlawry of the detainees, the omnipotence of the police (Gestapo) and the weakness of justice. called extermination camps was ordered by Hitler directly, Knowledge and execution of these orders was confined to very few. ception was destined to keep knowledge of the happenings in the concentration camp and extermination camps from the public and the Prosecuting authorities.
I shall never forget my first meeting with this witness, Dr. Morgan. Everything in this gigantic hunched looking man seemed to strive for expressing what he knew for about two years, what he had viewed and experienced for months while dealing with detainees and personnel in these places of horror.
With flagging hope Dr. Morgan made his report for the third time, with which as before, he wanted to help find the guilty, protect the innicent, and to show the German people and the world the final guilt of the criminal leadership for the most horrible murders in world history. In this he succeeded. centration camp system and the participation of the SS. From 1933, 1934, on, they were financed from the budget of the individual German Leader, and administered by the political police. As head of the political police of all Laender, except Prussia, Himmler, in 1934, regulated the guard and admini strative conditions uniformally. By taking over a part of the previous guard personnel, SA and SS men, he created the Death Head formations and supplemented them with volunteers from all sections of the population without consideration of membership in the Paryt and the SS. They are now intended exclusively for guarding concentration camps and comprised, in the year 1936, 400 men from the Kommandatur and 3,600 men for guard duties, They guard about 10,000 to 12,000 prisoners in five concentration camps all over Germany. I ask you to compare the then unusually large membership of the General SS with these figures. ever into the Reich budget; that is, separated according to Kommandantur and Guard personnel.
At the beginning of the war the Kommandatur personnel consisted of 600 ,em; the guard personnel amounted to about 7,400 men. There were only six concentration camps in all of Germany, and as yet no work or subsidiary camps, with a total number of 21,300 prisoners existed.
At that time there were about 240,000 members of the General SS. The Waffen SS did not yet exist at that time. the "Totenkopf Units" (Death Head Units) created in 1934 as special troops of the State, were not paid by the party but by the Reich and that they had in common with the General SS only a part of their name, "SS", and the chief, Himmler. I am submitting this explanation as an appendix. (This follows in particular from Hitler's Secret Edict of the 17th of august 1938 and from Document SS 84.
war, when the wave of destruction begins to mount slowly in the concentration camps. division. Thus they were eliminated entirely from the concentration camp system. During the course of the entire war there were employed about 30,000 men in the concentration camp system, as can be seen from the testimony of Brill and from Affidavit No. 68 (Kaindl). These included new arrivals and men departing. They comprised about 1,500 men of the original cadre of the Totenkopf Units and 4,500 men originally from the General SS. who had been called up until 1940 upon the emergency service decree, and who had became members of the Waffen-SS. The remaining 24,000 men of the concentration camp personnel, that is, eighty percent - originally had no nominal connection with, the 80. Those were 7,000 persons of German descent or extraction who had been called, up, 10,000 German Nationals who had volunteered to go to the Front in the Waffen-37, and 7,000 soldiers subordinate either to the army or the Airfor Many of the volunteers came from the SA, the Reichskriegerbund, the Party and other organizations, or with the exception of the original personnel of 1,500 men had been assigned the task of guarding the concentration camps against their will upon the order of Himmler, and without their having any connection with the Commando Amt of the Waffen-SS. Only in the course of the war were these guarding and administrative units of Himmler's nominally taken over into the Waffen-SS, thus exceeding his powers. This was done in order to prevent the personnel of the concentration camp continually having to be freed from military service, that is to say, for reasons which were practically to put the regulations of military supervision out of force. After the unmistakable evidence given by the witnesses, Reinecke, Juettner, Rueff, Brill and many others there can be no more doubt that the police task of the concentration camp system did not change for all that, and that in particular the concentration camp system did not become a concern of the Waffen-SS and, in deed, the entire concentration camp system, even after the formal transfer of the military staff into the Waffen-SS, was not directed and Aug26-RT-A-18-4-Price administrated by the needed agencies of these organizations, but by a special office, the well known Amtsgruppe D in the chief office of the Economic administration WVKA witness Stein, Affidavits Fanslau SS 41, 100, Frank No. 99). deal in detail with the activity of the Amtsgruppe D. This Amtsgruppe D, which was entirely separated not only from the other SS agencies but also from the remaining departments of the WVHA, for organization, personnel and also location, as shown in Affidavits 66 Kaindl and 99 Frank, surveyed, and gave orders to the military personnel and commandantur personnel.
All income from concentration camps, especially from work done by the prisoners, was booked with WVHA Amtsgruppe D. camps and particularly the extermination camps of with and Hoess. I continue on Page 66. special orders of Hitler, of the Chancellory of the Fuehrer, and were outside the framwork of the normal concentration camp system. For that reason, they did not have the normal chain of command and form or organization. Wirth was Criminal Commissar without being an SS member. Hoess received extermination orders, aside from Himmler, only from Eichmann personally, without being allowed to inform his immediate superior, Glueks, the Inspector of concentration camps, of them. So Hoess testified, on 15 April. camps atrocities through the Einsatzgruppen to mass gassings -- for the charge against the SS? such a great extent and in such vast proportions, that they and the criminal aims and methods must have been known to every member. tasks is a condition for the judgment, the decision of the court of 13.3.46 is in agreement.
The assertion of the prosecution is based upon the following arguments: statements of official personalities and all manner of publications in the allied countries informed the public of these States widely about the atrocities committed in the concentration comps, and other crimes.
Under these circumstances, it would seem obvious to conclude that, if in these countries such crimes were almost universally know of, it must have been even more so the case in Germany and particularly in the SS. The collective affidavits which have been submitted and are partly extensively proven show that the majority of SS members deny any such knowledge. But the defense has countered the charge with a comprehensive statements: The crimes committed within thelimits of the German power sphere were carried out under a minutely planned system of secrecy so that the mass of SS members not only did not know anything about them, but, indeed, could not possibly have knew. The charge of the prosecution can only be made credible by the legally very doubtful use of deductions; whereas the argument of the defense is proven by the facts. And this proof, Gentlemen of the Tribunal, has been furnished by the defense.
Let us start with the concentration camps. On looking back we can easily detect the thick veil of secrecy and deliberate deceit. In all this time only five or six camps were existent in Germany with 12,000 prisoners in 1936 and 21,000 in 1939. It is obvious that for this period the chrge of the prosecution is not valid, which maintins that on every one of his journeys every German passed many concentration camps on his way. matter if secrecy or the regulations which made it impossible that any if this Information got out of the camps.
All in these camps is secret. Not only the official execution of death sentences of courts, but also the execution instructions of the RSHA, which began only at the beginning of the war and certainly the murders arising from the assumption of power of the Kommandants, were not undertaken publicly. Dr. Morgen describes this in detail in his affidavit number SS-66. In his examination he described all the clever methods to disguise murders as natural deaths and thus to deceive the civil courts and from 1940 on, the SS courts.
Since the activation in 1934 of the Death's Head Unit as comp personnel, the General SS and later the Waffen SS no longer had anything to do with the concentration camp affairs and certainly not with the Kommandantur personnel in personnel or legal questions. The Amts Group D, of the WVHA with their small group of thirty thousand men of the above mentioned nominal Waffen SS had become an independent and separate system with their own telephone and teletype not and their own couriers to the concentration camp. Only the Gestapo had a channel into the concentration camp consisting of the so-called political department, which was subordinate to it and mostly led by a criminal secretary. Here also there was no connection with the reset of the SS. affidavit SS 68, the staffs of the Kommandanturs were made up of the some personnel until the middle of 1942 which they had had at the beginning of the war. Thus the knowledge of the events could not be spread before 1942. From a psychological point of view one must consider that these persons, responsible because they issued orders or received them had not the slightest reason to discuss their sinister acts. deal in detail with counter propaganda which had been started by Germany and presents comprehensive proof in the way of affidavits and statements before the Commission. The same applies to mass extermination camps, Auschwitz Monowitz, Treblinka and so on.