Two Hundred and Seventh Day:
Tuesday, 20th August, 1946 [Page 307]
Group I contains the affidavit showing that the SS was a
single group bound by oath in which no distinction can be
made as to its composition or as to time. This is asserted
by the Trial Brief on Pages IX and X in the German version.
Moreover, that is asserted in the transcript on Pages 1607
and 1608 of the 19th and 20th December.
SS Affidavit 116, Petri, proves that the purpose of the
Fuehrer Order of 17th August, 1938, Exhibit USA 443, was not
to form an organic connection between the General SS;
Totenkopf units and Verfugungstruppen but, on the contrary,
to separate these various branches of the SS.
Now I sum up a group of affidavits, 13, 52, 49, 48, 42, 56,
55, 45, 54, 46, 97, 98, 53, 50, 51 and 38. I might remark,
your Lordship, that a translation in English of these
affidavits and also of No. 52 has already been made and is
being distributed. I beg your pardon, it is only in French,
your Lordship. With these affidavits
[Page 308]
The following two affidavits, 118 and 101, deal with the
Lebensborn organization. They prove that the tasks of this
organization were to support families with many children and
to care for mothers and children, including illegitimate
children and unmarried mothers, but they did not afford the
opportunity for the illegal begetting of children and the
taking away of children for the use of the State as the
prosecution has asserted.
SS Affidavit 47 is a valuable supplement to the testimony of
the witness Liebrich, an SS doctor, before the Commission.
It proves that doctors were taken into the SS exclusively on
the basis of their professional ability. Leading doctors and
leading authorities were taken into the SS to raise its
prestige. It is asserted that the activity of the SS doctors
of the General SS was also recognized by foreign countries,
and examples of international authorities were given.
SS Affidavits 95 and 96 prove that the SS woman auxiliaries
were neither members of the SS nor sponsors. These girls
carried out the same work as the Intelligence and Staff
assistants in the Wehrmacht and must not be confused with
the female supervisors in the concentration camps for female
prisoners.
There follows a large group of affidavits on the question of
Germanisation, a lengthy and very difficult accusation by
the prosecution. They are Affidavits 2, 112, 114, 113, 110,
115, 44, 71, 73, 75, 77, 79, 11, 43, 72, 76, 76, 78, and 80.
May I add at this point that in putting such a large group
together care has been taken to see that these individual
affidavits are not cumulative. The affidavits supplement
each other and thus give a complete picture of the points of
the Indictment and the defence. These affidavits prove that
the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and the so-called Staff Main
Office of the Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of
German Nationhood - I repeat for the interpreters -
Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and Stabshauptamt des
Reichskommissars fur die Festigung des Deutschen Volkstums -
were not SS agencies but were State authorities. That is the
formal side of the defence.
The material side is found in another part of these
documents just quoted.
The SS was not entrusted with evacuation measures,
Germanisation measures and the settlement of Germans in the
occupied territories. SS Affidavit 89 proves that the Chief
of the Prisoner-of-War Department, even after Himmler's
appointment, was purely a Wehrmacht office.
When Himmler was appointed chief of the Prisoner-of-War
Department nothing was changed in the organization of the
Prisoner-of-War Department. The SS did not influence in any
way the treatment of prisoners of war.
I will now differentiate between the documents in the next
group II, and sum them up. They deal with the assertion of
the prosecution that there had been organisational unity
between the SS and the police. This unification is supposed
to have taken place under the so-called "Higher SS and
Police Leaders." That assertion of the prosecution is on
Pages 12 and 16 of the German Trial Brief. It is in the
transcript of the 19th and the 20th December. The following
affidavits will refute this statement: 86, 87, 88 and 10.
[Page 309]
The presentation given by Dr. Best in Document PS-1852 does
not give the true facts and is wishful thinking.
The affidavits taken together in group 3 contain material to
refute the assertion of the prosecution that the SS was
trained in the doctrine of the Master Race and in racial
hatred, and that it prepared for war mentally and
physically. This assertion also appears in the Trial Brief
on Page 6 and in the transcript of the 19th and 20th of
December.
They are Affidavits 57, 58, 6o and 83 and prove that the SS
was not trained in racial hatred and certainly not for
racial extermination, also that the SS was not trained for
war either mentally or physically.
The affidavits in group 4 deal with the following charges:
that the Waffen SS was an integral part of the whole SS.
That is found in the transcript of the 19th and 20th
December, 1945
Secondly that service in the Waffen SS was with a few
exceptions mainly voluntary at the end of the war, and,
thirdly, that the Waffen SS, because of their ideological
training, had fought in an inhuman manner and contrary to
International Law. Affidavit 84 shows that the Waffen SS as
a unit had no concept of Himmler's ideology, and above all
that the Waffen SS heard hardly anything about the other
sectors under Himmler's power, and that they were not
directed by Himmler in a military sense, but only in regard
to personnel questions, clothing and equipment.
The next four affidavits will be taken together, 36, 37, 39,
and 40. These prove that a considerable part of the Waffen
SS and also special groups such as the Customs Border
Protection and the SS Motor Transport Squadron, Auxiliary
Field Post, were taken into the SS on a compulsory basis.
The following affidavits, Nos. 1, 31, 32, 33, 34, and 81,
prove the following:
The Waffen SS were repeatedly instructed in the observance
of martial law. Martial law was in fact observed and
infringements were severely punished.
Affidavits 82 and 85 deal with the SS Police regiments in
the same way as the documents quoted previously. They prove
that these SS police regiments were purely regiments of the
regular police without connection with the SS. Also the
police divisions, to be distinguished from the police
regiments, were not at all under the SS up to April, 1942.
Only after that were they forcibly ordered into the Waffen
SS.
The "Dirlewanger" Brigade has been mentioned repeatedly.
Affidavit 35 deals with this. This affidavit says:
The next group deals with another point of the Indictment:
participation of the SS in the Jewish pogrom of 9th
November, 1938. This comprises Affidavits 7, 6, 8, 9, 104,
and 105. They prove that the SS in Nuremberg, Offenburg,
Hamburg, Berlin and in Ulm did not participate in pogroms,
but were only used for protection on the 10th November.
[Page 310]
THE PRESIDENT: Has it been digested in the transcript before
the Commissioners?
DR. PELCKMANN: It was digested in the transcript before the
Commission, your Lordship. I do not want to read the whole
document, your Lordship, but may I read only a small portion
of it which is especially important.
And the author of the affidavit goes on to say:
The next group includes the following affidavits: 14, 15,
16, 19, 20, 21, 23, and 25. It deals with conditions in the
concentration camps.
These affidavits are to prove that the treatment meted out
in concentration camps, as described by those witnesses, was
generally speaking satisfactory.
Ill-treatment of prisoners was severely punished. Evidence
of this is given in the numerous examples in Affidavit 70,
which I have already mentioned, and in the digest of many
affidavits, the collective Affidavit 119-122.
Relevant to the question of authority in the concentration
camps and the part which this played within the whole SS
organization are Affidavits 99 and 100. They prove that the
intake into concentration camps from the employment of
prisoners was not turned over to the SS, in particular not
to the Waffen SS, but this intake was entered in the budget
of the German Reich.
The next group includes affidavits regarding experiments on
living human beings. I consider them valuable only in so far
as they provide an answer to the question: What did the
broad masses of the SS men know of these experiments?
Affidavit 17 is to prove that in Dachau prisoners
voluntarily submitted to freezing experiments after they had
been medically examined and given food to make them fit.
Affidavit 107 also deals with these experiments.
The following group of affidavits, 18, 22, 27, and 28, deal
with the question of secrecy regarding crimes, especially
crimes in concentration camps, and are to
[Page 311]
On the same question of how much the members of the SS knew,
I consider Affidavit 24 very important.
In answer to the explicit question of a Waffen SS Fuehrer,
who reported to him, Himmler said in April, 1944, that
everything was in order in the concentration camps, and that
the treatment of the prisoners was satisfactory.
Himmler made this same statement to the whole officer corps
of the 17th SS Division.
Affidavit 117 proves that the utmost secrecy prevailed in
the Fuehrer's headquarters and the degree of secrecy was
such that nothing was known about crimes in concentration
camps, the extermination of Jews and the activity of the
Einsatzkommandos.
I again put three affidavits together, 63, 93 and 94. They
also show that the utmost secrecy was observed within
Himmler's sphere of command and especially concerning the
inspection of concentration camps.
The notorious speech of Himmler's at Posen in October, 1943,
is known to the Tribunal. It was made to an
Obergruppenfuehrer of the SS. The Schneider Affidavit, 29,
says the following:
Affidavit 12 reports that the Adjutant of the Chief of the
SS Personnel Main Office made inquiries of the RSHA and also
of the WVHA Amtsgruppe D. That was in 1943. This Chief of
the SS Personnel Main Office inquired whether rumours about
the murder of Jews were true. The offices mentioned answered
to the effect that those rumours were untrue, and that they
were definitely enemy propaganda.
THE PRESIDENT: We shall break off now, Doctor, please. Will
you be much longer in your summaries of these affidavits?
DR. PELCKMANN: No, your Lordship, these affidavits will not
take much longer, but a resume of the group affidavits,
which I must give so that the Tribunal will know what these
group affidavits deal with, will take a little longer.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 21st August, 1946, at 1000 hours.)
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(Part 9 of 9)
"This brigade was not an SS unit but a unit set up on the
direct orders of Himmler and composed of all kinds of
persons on probation."
The next group are Affidavits 3 and 4. They prove that the
assertion of the prosecution that the SS had participated in
suppressing the SA on 30th June, 1934, is false. The General
SS in Frankfurt and Berlin, for example, was only told to
stand by. No arrests or shootings took place. I may say here
in this connection that a large quantity of evidence from
all over Germany is given in Affidavit 70. It is a cross-
section from a whole camp, a whole internment camp, which
will be presented in the digest.
"About 3 a.m. on November 10th (this is Schallermeier
speaking) the Reichsfuehrer dictated to me in my room a
statement which read as follows: 'On 9th November I went
to the Fuehrer and towards 11.30 p.m. Gruppenfuehrer
Wolff came to me and informed me about the order issued
by the Gau 1 Propaganda Office in Munich. (I repeat Gau
Propaganda Office.) I asked the Fuehrer what orders he
had to give me. The Fuehrer replied that the SS should
keep out of this action. The State Police offices were to
take care of Jewish property and see that the Jews
themselves were protected. The General SS who remained in
barracks were only to be called in for protective
measures if it proved necessary. I immediately passed on
this Fuehrer order to Gruppenfuehrer Heydrich for the
State Police offices and to the Oberabschnittsfuehrer for
the General SS. When I asked the Fuehrer, I had the
impression that he knew nothing about what was happening.
The order came from the Reich Propaganda Headquarters and
I presume that Goebbels, in his lust for power and
foolhardiness, which had been obvious to me for some
time, had sponsored this action at a time when the
situation as regards foreign policy was at its worst.' "
May I correct myself. If I said this was Schallermeier that
was a mistake. This quotation was dictated by Himmler;
Himmler dictated this paragraph.
"I myself had to type what I had taken down from
dictation" - I add - "then this statement of Himmler was
locked up in the safe and made secure."
Some very good material for judging as to the participation,
or rather the non-participation, of the SS in these events
of 9th November is again afforded to the Tribunal by
Affidavit 70, a digest from a camp.
"Schneider was warned by Himmler personally to keep
absolutely silent about the Posen speech if he valued his
life."
Affidavit 41 shows that the Economic and Administrative Main
Office (Wirtschafts and Verwaltungshauptamt) was competent
for concentration camp administration through Amtsgruppe D.
This affidavit emphasized the extraordinary secrecy which
prevailed within this administrative organization.