The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Fifty-Seventh Day: Tuesday, 12th February, 1946
(Part7 of 18)


BY DR. SERVATIUS (counsel for the Leadership Corps):

Q. Witness, in your position you supported Hitler right to the very end, despite the fact that you knew that an aggressive war was being waged. How much could the political leaders know of this?

A. I cannot answer that question, because I am not competent to do so.

Q. What do you understand by "political leaders"?

A. May I ask another question in return? What does the defendant's counsel understand by "political leaders," concerning whom he asks the question?

Q. Witness, the organisation of the Party does not seem to be clear to you. Here is an Organisation of Political Leaders, which is indicted in this trial. They are to be declared criminal to the extent that, from the Reichsleiter to the Blockleiter, they are to be punished because of their participation in the Conspiracy to commit all the acts which are being tried here. This Organisation of Political Leaders is composed in such a way that 93 per cent are local group leaders with their staffs and subordinates.

THE PRESIDENT: I do not think you can ask this witness about this. He does not know anything about it. He is not concerned with the charge against the Political Leadership. I do not think that is proper cross-examination at all.

DR. SERVATIUS: Mr. President, I was going to ask him to what extent these political leaders might have been in the know, and then I was going to ask a second question, whether he was aware that he, as a witness, has contributed materially to the fact that these people supported the political leaders of Hitler, because they believed in the sham structure which the witness himself had assisted in setting up.

THE PRESIDENT: I have already answered you that he did not know to what extent the political leaders were in the know.

[Page 269]

DR. SERVATIUS: I am also appearing for the defendant Sauckel, who was responsible for the labor supply.

Q. Have you any knowledge as to whether German prisoners of war were used in Russian armament industries?

A. I have no authentic or personal information on that subject. The prisoners of war whom I myself have seen in the camps where I have been, worked for the immediate requirements of the camp or in its near vicinity. They did agriculture or forestry work, and I know from the papers that some German workers had voluntarily formed groups and were working in industry. They were proud of the results of their work. But I do not know in what branches of industry these people worked.

DR. SERVATIUS: I have no further questions to put to this witness.


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