THE PRESIDENT: Yes, Dr. Pelckmann.

HERR PELCKMANN: Witness, before passing on to a new subject, I have one more question to clarify with reference to yester-day's examination.

In connection with a document there was some discussion of a cavalry brigade of the SS. I was afraid-and I gathered this from certain statements-that this brigade might be confused with the mounted units of the General SS. I draw the attention of the High Tribunal to the testimony of the witness Von Boikowski-Bidau before the Commission, and I now ask you, Witness, to tell us in which way the mounted units of the General SS differed from the formation which I have just mentioned.

REINECKE: Mounted units of the General SS were special units of the General SS like, for instance, the motor units of the General SS. They had nothing whatever to do with the later cavalry units of the Waffen-SS, nor were these later units built up from the mounted units.

HERR PELCKMANN: A horrifying moving picture of the atroc-ities in concentration camps was shown in this courtroom, and the Prosecution has alleged that such conditions were the outcome of a consistent policy of the SS.

Can you, as a high-ranking judge, comment on this allegation? Did the courts of the SS gain knowledge of these occurrences, and if so, did they remain silent?

REINECKE: Of a consistent policy of the SS with reference to the conditions shown in this film, there can be no question. Frightful atrocities were committed in concentration camps, but the film shows the effect of the total collapse of the German Reich on the concentration camps; it does not, therefore, represent normal con-ditions in such camps. The normal conditions were quite different. I am in a position to pass judgment on these matters, because the legal authorities of the SS and the Police used all the means at their disposal ...

THE PRESIDENT: Is the witness speaking from personal ob-servation of the concentration camps?

HERR PELCKMANN: Yes, Mr. President, he is just about to explain that.

REINECKE: I am entitled to pass judgment on these matters because the legal authorities of the SS and the Police used every means at their disposal, sometimes even overstepping their own authority, to take legal measures against these atrocities. We had investigating commissions in the concentration camps which reported to me repeatedly on conditions in the camps.

If the legal authorities of the SS and the Police were in a. posi-tion to take steps against such conditions, then it was only because these conditions were not the result of 'a consistent policy of the SS, but were caused by criminal acts of individual persons or small groups and by a few highly placed superiors, but were not com-mitted by the SS as an organization. The legal authorities took steps in order to fight against these crimes and to eliminate such criminal elements from the SS.

HERR PELCKMANN: I want to quote from a document already submitted by the Prosecution. It is a letter from the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office, Concentration Camps Department, Reference D, et cetera, and contains instructions to the senior medical officers in concentration camps.

THE PRESIDENT: What is this document? What is the document?

HERR PELCKMANN: It is a document already submitted by the Prosecution, E-168, and it is also in the official document book on concentration camps.

THE PRESIDENT: I cannot hear what the reference is. Is it "D", dawn, or "G"?

THE INTERPRETER: "E", easy-168.

THE PRESIDENT: What is the exhibit number?

HERR PELCKMANN: I beg your pardon, I cannot give you this number at the moment.

In that document it says among other things:

"With such a high death figure the number of detainees can never be brought to the level demanded by the Reichsführer SS. The senior camp medical officers must use every means at their disposal to reduce the death rate in the various camps considerably. The best medical officer in a concentration camp is not the man who believes that undue harshness must be applied, but rather the one who, by means of careful control and interchanges at the various places of work, main-tains a high standard of efficiency.

"Medical officers in the camps should check the food of the prisoners more often than before, and with the approval of the administration they should submit to the camp com-mander suggestions for improvements. Naturally these must not merely appear on paper, but camp medical officers should make regular checks. Apart from that, the medical officers should see to it that the working, conditions at the various places of work are improved as much as possible. It is necessary, for that reason, that medical officers should thoroughly inspect the places of work and investigate work-ing conditions. The Reichsführer SS has ordered that the death rate must be reduced at all costs."

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Pelckmann, didn't you understand that we don't wish to have-can't you hear?

HERR PELCKMANN: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal has indicated to the Prosecution they don't want to hear these documents read which have already been put in evidence, and there you are reading every word of this document.

HERR PELCKMANN: I understand, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Surely you can summarize it-if you have question to put upon it, that must be possible.

HERR PELCKMANN: Do you know, Witness, whether such in-structions were actually carried out in the concentration camps?

REIN`ECKE: The investigating commissions of the head office "SS Courts" have repeatedly confirmed to me in personal reports that such instructions were in fact put into practice in the concen-tration camps. They reported to me that accommodation, hygienic conditions, medical care, feeding, and also the treatment and the physical appearance of the detainees were for the most part good. They also confirmed that the strict prohibition of ill-treatment of detainees was repeatedly made known in the camps, and was, in fact, observed.

The picture of the concentration camps under normal conditions is, therefore, quite a different one. To the outsider, the cleanliness and the smooth functioning of the working program was noticeable. If crimes have been committed in concentration camps, then they occurred in a way in which they remained hidden from the outside world and even from the inmates of the camp unless they partic-ipated in them.

THE PRESIDENT: Are you saying that you personally received this letter or that you had these facts before you?

REINECKE: I received reports from these investigating com-missions, which were submitted to me personally, and from these reports I was able to gather the facts which I have just related.

THE PRESIDENT: Well then, you knew in December 1942 that 70,000 arrivals in concentration camps out of 136,000 had died, did you?

REINECKE: No, that I did not know. I shall, have to supplement my testimony by giving now an answer which I was to have given in connection with a later question, namely, that the head office "SS Courts" instituted these investigating commissions for the disclosure of crimes committed in concentration camps only as from the second half of 1943.

THE PRESIDENT: I thought you said in answer to my question, "These facts were known to me."

Go on, Dr. Pelckmann.

HERR PELCKMANN: In this connection, I draw the attention

of the Tribunal to my affidavit Number SS-65 to 67 which was translated in its entirety at my request. It was deposed by a judge who conducted the investigations and it contains numerous additional details.

[Turning to the witness.] To what extent were the legal authorities of the SS responsible for the administration of the law in con-centration camps?

REINECKE: The SS jurisdiction did not apply to the detainees in concentration camps. Only the regular German courts had responsibility for them. To a certain extent the SS legal authorities

also had to administer justice to the political prisoners in the con-centration camps, but with the proviso that the Reich Security Main Office, in this case, had the preference in making investigations. Guards and members of the commander's staff in concentration -camps came under the jurisdiction of the SS legal authorities to the full extent laid down by military courts.

HERR PELCKMANN: You have already mentioned, Witness, that the legal authorities began prosecuting crimes committed in concentration camps in 1943. When in 1943?

REINECKE: In the second half of 1943 the legal authorities, while following up a case of corruption in which the former camp commander Koch was involved, came upon clues to crimes leading to other camps. It was from that moment that the legal authorities became active.

HERR PELCKMANN: How was it that the legal authorities became active so late?

REINECKE: So-called legal officers were attached to concentra-tion camps for purposes of supervision. These legal officers, who were the instruments of the appointing authority concerned, had the duty of writing so-called reports of evidence, if crimes of any sort occurred, and of submitting such reports to the courts so that they might take over the prosecution of the crimes.

HERR PELCKMANN: One intermediate question ...

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Pelckmann, I don't think he gave an an-swer to your question at all. Your question was: How was it that it was so late as the second half of 1943 that these investigating commissions began to become active? He did not answer that ques-tion at all.

HERR PELCKMANN: Your Lordship, the witness has not yet finished. I was just going to put an intermediate question, and in his further explanations the matter will become quite clear.

[Turning to the witness.] I want to pat an intermediate question, Witness. Were these legal officers subordinated to you, to the head office "SS Courts", or to the SS legal authorities, or to whom were they subordinated? Can you give names?

REINECKE: The legal officers were not subordinates of the legal authorities, but they were officials of the chief justice making the investigations.

HERR PELCKMANN: Who was that in the case of the concentration camps?

REINECKE: In the case of concentration camps it was Oswald Pohl, who was already mentioned yesterday.

HERR PELCKMANN: Now, will you please continue with the answer to the question, why did the legal authorities learn of these atrocities at so late a stage?

REINECKE: The reason was that earlier the legal authorities had not had any suspicions, owing to the fact that these legal officers, during the years until 1943, were continuously handing in such reports of evidence to the courts. These reports of evidence were very detailed. In cases of unnatural death of detainees, they con-tained photographs of the place of the crime, medical reports, evidence by detainees and guards. These reports were so detailed that the suspicion that other crimes could be committed behind the backs of the legal officers could not arise.

These reports of evidence which were submitted led in every case to the trial and sentencing of the criminal, and such sentences were pronounced throughout all the years.

HERR PELCKMANN: Might not the reports of evidence have been forged, and might not the actual facts have been covered up in that way?

REINECKE: In part this was the case. I just said that during the second half of 1943 we began investigations in the camp at Buchenwald. Already in 1941 we had carried out such an investiga-tion in Buchenwald, which, however, had no result.

During the later investigation, in 1943, it was in fact discovered that in 1941 the commander, Koch, had used forged reports, coached witnesses, and forged medical reports which had deceived the investigating judges. We then conducted investigations in other camps, where we found that these reports of evidence had been in order.

HERR PELCKMANN: Now, will you please describe briefly what further steps the SS legal authorities took with regard to these crimes in concentration camps?

REINECKE: The clues in the camp at Buchenwald were mani-fold and they led to many camps. The matter became more complex from month to month. It was evident that the investigating organs of the legal authorities had been utterly unsuitable for the task of conducting a purely criminal investigation of this sort, because the legal authorities, in view of their character as a military legal instrument, lacked- a fundamental basis, namely, an authority capable of carrying out criminal prosecutions.

For that reason, judges were quickly given short training courses in criminal proceedings, and at the same time, in collaboration with the Reich Security Main Office, experts from the Reich Criminal Police Department were made available for the investigation of these crimes.

Such commissions were detailed to many camps and they worked continuously until the collapse. The head office "SS Courts" created a special court which had almost exclusively the task of trying these cases involving crimes committed in concentration camps. In the head office "SS, Courts," which was the leading office of the legal authorities, a special head department was created which carried out the over-all direction of the investigations in concentration camps and which was to take over the task ordinarily discharged by the public prosecutor.

HERR PELCKMANN: Now, briefly summarized, what was the outcome of the fight of the SS jurisdiction against crime in con-centration camps?

REINECKE: Altogether, approximately 800 cases were investi-gated; 400 of these 800 cases were brought to trial, and 200 out of those 400 ended with sentences by the court. Among the cases investigated were proceedings against five commanders of concentra-tion camps; proceedings against two commanders were completed and ended with a sentence of death by shooting.,

HERR PELCKMANN: Were any difficulties put in the way of your commissions conducting these investigations?

REINECKE: Very considerable difficulties were put in the way of these commissions. These difficulties originated with Pohl, who was using every means in his power to prevent the investigating commissions from penetrating to the real sources of these crimes. In that way, the legal authorities, being unable to make rapid progress and being compelled to break up piecemeal the secrecy surrounding the evidence, were forced to work together with detainees. In almost every camp in which such a commission was at work, confidential agents were recruited from among the detainees who submitted material to the investigating judges. But it was very difficult to persuade these detainees to co-operate, because they' feared that they would be killed if their activities were discovered.

HERR PELCKMANN: But could you not easily have removed these obstacles by reporting, for instance, to Himmler? Pohl, as far as I know, was directly subordinate to Himmler, so that Himmler could have given him the necessary orders?

REINECKE: Oh no, this man Pohl did not proceed as clumsily as that. Outwardly he pretended to welcome and support with all means the investigating work of the head office "SS Courts." And that was how he represented the matter to Himmler, after we had drawn Himmler's attention to Pohl's somewhat doubtful role. In reality, Pohl sabotaged with all the means of his tremendously powerful position the investigations we were making and worked hand in glove with the detainees and the criminal commanders, as we proved on the basis of evidence.

In 1941, to mention one outstanding example, when our first investigation in the Buchenwald Concentration Camp failed, as I have described, Pohl wrote a letter to the camp commander Koch, which I have read myself, and which contained the following:

"I shall use all the power of my position to protect you if some unemployed lawyer should again stretch out his greedy hangman's hands toward your clean, immaculate person."

That is how Pohl always worked. He was not only caught in the death machinery of the concentration camps, but he became at the same time the most corrupt person in the whole Reich. Of that we found evidence toward the end of the war through the many proceedings against organizations which he headed in private busi-ness. As head of that criminal clique, he actually tried to under-mine the system of trustees among the detainees, which he knew might endanger his own person. He had one of our confidential agents in the camp of Sachsenhausen-his name was Rothe-locked up and was trying to elicit, under false pretenses, an order from the Reich Security Main Office, or rather the Reich Criminal Police Department, to have the man hanged publicly before all the detainees of the camp so as to intimidate them and at the same time make the investigation work of the legal authorities impos-sible. One of our investigating officers heard of this in time and was able to prevent it at the last moment.

HERR PELCKMANN: More slowly please, Witness, much more slowly. These are important statements, and the translation is not simple.

REINECKE: That was how this criminal Pohl worked. The most important support in his fight against the legal authorities was the Führer Order Number 1, regarding secrecy, which was posted in every office of the SS and Police. According to that order, matters which had to be kept secret could only be communicated to the persons immediately concerned, and even those could be told only as much as they absolutely had to know, and even then, only for the period in which they were actively concerned with the partic-ular matters.

Everything in the concentration camps was secret; only with special passes and credentials was it possible to enter them. The work done by the detainees was secret, ostensibly because "V" weapons were being, produced. The other doings of the detainees were secret, ostensibly for reasons of counter intelligence. Corre-spondence on concentration camps was "secret," and for that reason could not be checked at all. For years Pohl deftly withdrew behind this screen of close secrecy, and he surrendered to the advancing investigation of the legal authorities only step by step whenever on the basis of individual facts he was systematically cornered.

HERR PELCKMANN: Then, Witness, do you believe that with the results you have just described you came near to discovering the real extent of the crimes, as we have learned them from the pro-ceedings here?

REINECKE: To the extent to which I know them today, certainly not. And the reason for that is that the legal authorities of the SS and Police dealt with all these crimes as individual crimes, and were unable for long years to detect the system of criminality as it can be recognized today.

When toward the end of 1944 the legal authorities succeeded, on the strength of individual facts, in cornering the criminals Pohl and Grawitz, and also Müller from the Gestapo, who was covering up many of the crimes, it was for the first time that these men referred to orders from above. The investigations which the legal authorities then commenced along a new line collapsed together with the Ger-man war machine.

HERR PELCKMANN: Did you then, toward the end of 1944, come near to discovering the actual extent of the crimes, the mass exterminations?

REINECKE: It was clear at the end of 1944 that orders from above must exist, but it was not recognizable even then that they dealt with mass exterminations of a tremendous extent.

HERR PELCKMANN: According to the result of the investiga-tions you have just described, who was responsible for the crimes which were revealed? .

REINECKE: Of the highest superiors, Pohl; next to him the former Reich medical officer of the SS and Police, Grawitz; and next to him the Chief of the Gestapo, Miller. Apart from these, the commanders of the concentration camps, members of the com-manders' staffs, medical officers in concentration camps, and to a considerable extent, criminal detainees in the concentration camps.

HERR PELCKMANN: Would it therefore be correct to say that without distinction all members of the groups of persons which you have just mentioned participated in the crimes?

REINECKE: No, that is not correct. The investigations which we carried out proved clearly that certain camps were perfectly in order, that not every commander was a criminal, and that many, members of the commanders' staffs and many medical officers knew nothing about the crimes. Above all the guards in the concentration camps had nothing whatever to do with the crimes, because they themselves were unable to gain knowledge of the real happenings within the concentration camps.

HERR PELCKMANN: You have been speaking about the com-mander at the concentration camp of Buchenwald, Koch. His case has already been mentioned in the course of these proceedings, and the Prosecution at that time alleged, on the basis of testimony given by the detainee Blaha, that Koch had been sentenced for embezzle-ment and for the murder of three persons whose existence was in-convenient to him. The Prosecution described the case in a way which gave the impression that at that time the SS court had simply ignored the numerous other cases of killings. Is that correct, as far as you know?

REINECKE: No, that is not correct. The proceedings against Koch were based on a charge of corruption, and on that charge he was sentenced to death. The actual contents of the findings against Koch, that is, the reason for the death sentence imposed on him was the system of murder, a system which Koch invented and applied in many cases. This version of the findings had to be chosen because there was evidence of so many crimes which Koch had committed in the distant past and of which the traces had meanwhile been eliminated, that if it had been possible at all, it would have taken long months and years to clear up these individual cases. It was for that reason that, using the shortest possible means of proof to put a stop to Koch's activities at once, these three cases were taken up as being typical, but he was in fact sentenced for the system of murder in the Buchenwald Concentration. Camp.

HERR PELCKMANN: The testimony of this witness on these events is supported by the affidavits SS-65, 64, 66, 67, 68, and 69. No, not 68, 1 listed that by mistake; not 68, but 64 through 67, and 69. These affidavits were deposed by the investigating judge, Dr. Morgen, who was to have appeared here as a witness. Un-fortunately, he only arrived at the beginning of July, just before the hearings before the Commission were completed, and I was not able to prepare him for his examination in time. I have submitted his affidavit, however, and the High Tribunal will be able to judge whether it might possibly be necessary to hear Dr. Morgen in person, since his testimony concerns the most important matters.

[Turning to the witness.] What was Himmler's attitude with regard to these investigations?

REINECKE: When the crimes were discovered at Buchenwald, at the end of 1943, Himmler was given a report on the matter at once, and he was throughout kept informed of the progress of the investigations. Himmler displayed very considerable activity, and he himself ordered that the investigations be strictly carried out. Only with his authority was it possible at all to pass the gates of the concentration camps. Then in the middle of 1944, he suddenly issued an order to the contrary. As the highest legal authority, he ordered that the proceedings against Koch should mark the end of all judicial investigations in concentration camps. Koch had been sentenced to death and was to be hanged publicly before the assembled detainees. Pohl was to direct the execution personally and was to address the attending guards with appropriate words. The other perpetrators were to report their crimes voluntarily and in the event of such a voluntary report, he, Himmler, might possibly pardon or reprieve them. Any one who failed to report his crimes could only expect the court's sentence of death. The chief of the head office "SS Courts" protested against this order from Himmler. He did not, however, obtain a final decision from Himmler, though Himmler tolerated the future proceedings.

The head office "SS Courts" at that time intentionally delayed the completion of the case against Koch so as to have an opportunity of extending the investigating activities to other camps, and that was actually achieved. The investigating commissions of the Reich Criminal Police Department, which had already been withdrawn as a result of Himmler's order, resumed their activities, and from the autumn of 1944 the investigations were continued on a broad basis. Authoritative powers, which were necessary in view of Pohl's lasting resistance, were issued by the special judge of the Reichs-führer, and could not be ignored even by Pohl.

HERR PELCKMANN: The details of this dramatic exchange between Pohl, Himmler, and the SS legal authorities are also de-scribed in Dr. Morgen's affidavits Numbers 65 to 67.

Did you, Witness, in the course of these investigations, learn of measures or orders from Himmler or Hitler for the biological exter-mination of Jewry?

REINECKE: No. We neither saw such orders at any time, nor did we succeed, in the course of our investigations, in getting hold of them or in gaining knowledge of them in any other way. Such monstrous orders we could not imagine. Himmler had always shown us only an ideal face: cleanliness, decency, fight against crime at all costs. At the end of 1943, on the occasion of a con-ference, he confirmed these principles to me personally and in detail. That a system of mass extermination should exist was an idea which, under the circumstances, no one could possibly imagine. We found horrifying conditions in the concentration camps, and we learned many things which shocked us, but that idea was never in our minds. Names like Hoess and Eichmann did come up during our investigations and proceedings were, in fact, instituted against both, but at the end of the war they were still in their initial stages. Hoess and Eichmann were to us merely names like Brown or Jones. No one could possibly guess that behind these men the henchmen of a dreadful system of extermination were hiding. Even when, at the end of 1944 and the beginning of 1945, we came near to establishing the actual cause of the crimes committed in concen-tration camps, namely, that crimes were being carried out by order, this line of defense of Pohl, Miller, and Grawitz still appeared incredible, because if there really had been orders from above carried out by these three persons, then it should have been easy for them to go to Himmler and to demand the exclusion of the legal authorities from these matters.

And so we ourselves, in spite of these painstaking efforts of the investigations, had no clear judicial evidence that mass extermina-tions; on a large scale-not to mention the biological extermination of Jewry-had been carried out, and we continued, as before, to investigate the crimes from the point of view that they were indi-vidual crimes, although they had been carried out to an alarming extent and in alarmingly large numbers.

HERR PELCKMANN: There exists a pamphlet called SS in Dachau, issued by the American CIC, by a Colonel Quinn. Unfor-tunately I cannot submit it to the Tribunal at this time, because I had to return it. But it is in the library and is generally known. It contains testimony given by an anonymous inmate and signed ...

THE PRESIDENT: You should have taken a copy of the docu-ment. You cannot testify or tell us what the document is if you cannot produce it. The fact that it had to go back to the library is no reason why you don't have it. There would have been no objection to your bringing a copy of it.

HERR PELCICAANN: May I try to bring a copy after the recess, Mr. President?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, if you would like to.

HERR PELCKMANN: It contains a statement by an anonymous ...

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we do not want to know what it con-tains. We do not accept from you what it contains.

HERR PELCKMANN: In that case, I shall postpone this question.

Witness, evidence has been submitted to this Tribunal that in the gas chambers at Auschwitz and other places, millions of Jews were murdered. You, however, discovered in your investigations that individual persons and a small circle of persons committed the crimes which you described. Is it possible, as far as you know, that this comparatively small circle of persons is also responsible for the extermination of these millions?

REINECKE: Investigations of the head office "SS Courts," particularly the final stages of the investigations just before the end of the war, show that individual persons and a small circle of -persons are also exclusively responsible for these things. Other-wise, these outrageous things could not possibly have escaped the attention of the legal authorities for so long.

HERR PELCKMANN: Did you, in your conversations with Dr. Morgen, gather any further information which might support this assertion?

REINECKE: Dr. Morgen was a judge before me, who during all the years was attached to the Reich Criminal Police Department in order to carry out investigations in the concentration camps from there. Dr. Morgen has extensive knowledge. I know today that he himself talked with those responsible for these mass exterminations, and he gained a clear insight into all these matters. He can prove ,that the origin of the extermination of the Jews is not to be found in the SS but in the Chancellery of the Führer.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Pelckmann, I understood from you that you put-that you were putting in two affidavits from Dr. Morgen, is that right?

HERR PELCKMANN: Three, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, three-five, if you like; but this witness cannot tell us what Dr. Morgen says. Dr. Morgen must speak for himself from his affidavits.

HERR PELCKMANN: In that case, perhaps I may return to this when I submit the affidavits.

[Turning to the witness.] It is alleged by the Prosecution that these acts could not have been deeds of individuals, but that the logical application of the Party Program regarding the Jewish ques-tion had to lead to these crimes at Auschwitz. What can you say to that from your own knowledge and experience of the fight against these crimes?

REINECKE: I have already said that Himmler always showed the SS only his ideal face, and these ideals were considered by the SS as the expression of the Party Program. Hitler's order for the biological extermination of Jewry, as I know it today, is an absolute ...

THE PRESIDENT: He said that over and over again about Himmler showing his ideal face to the SS. He said it before, you know. He should not have to say it more than once.

HERR PELCKMANN: May I ask him, Mr. President, what his attitude is on the allegation of the Prosecution that the extermina-tion of Jews in Auschwitz was considered by members of the SS as a logical outcome of the principles which the SS had learned?

THE PRESIDENT: How can he give evidence about that? He can tell us what he saw and what he did. He hasn't told us yet whether he has ever been in the concentration camps.

HERR PELCKMANN: Witness, did you know anything about the activity of the Einsatzgruppen and Einsatzkommandos of the Security Police and the SD in the East, as they have been mentioned here in this Trial?

REINECKE: I knew nothing about them. I only knew that the Security Police was stationed in the operational zone in the East, where it was carrying out security measures, and I believed that this was the task of the Security Police in that area. The legal authorities never knew of any other orders in that connection, and it was only here that we heard of these things for the first time.

HERR PELCKMAN14: Was it possible for members of the Waffen-SS to leave the Waffen-SS if they did not agree with the tasks which they were given or the orders which were issued?

REINECKE: A possibility of this sort did not exist at all. Service in the Waffen-SS was military service, legally established and legally recognized. Even members of the Waffen-SS who had joined as volunteers were later subject to general conscription and bound by compulsory military service. It was therefore possible to leave the Waffen-SS only by means of desertion, and then the deserter would have had to expect the full consequences of the law.

HERR PELCKMANN: It is stated by the Prosecution that the criminal activities of- the SS were so extensive and applied to so many cases of illegal acts that their illegality could not have remained hidden from the members of the SS. Is that correct?

REINECKE: The SS was not a single unit. I have already de-scribed the various organizations of the SS, and the individual mem-ber of the SS had no insight into the various organizations. He saw his General SS and his Waffen-SS, in which such crimes were not committed, and so he could never hold the belief that he belonged to a criminal organization. He could actually not have any idea of the crimes which were established here.

HERR PELCKMANN: Your Lordship, finally may I be allowed to put one question to the witness arising from the fact that together with a staff of assistants he was occupied with the compiling of affidavits. If the High Tribunal desires to hear how these affidavits were obtained and compiled, then this witness can give information about it.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, very well. You may ask him.

HERR PELCKMANN: 136,213 affidavits were compiled and entered on printed forms in various files, together with a survey of the various fields dealt with and a numerical classification of the affidavits in the individual groups of subjects. Witness, who com-piled these affidavits?

REINECKE: They were evaluated and compiled under my direction by 15 SS internees who were judges. Some 170,000 of the statements sent in were evaluated. Of these, 136,213 affidavits and applications to appear as a witness were compiled to form a collec-tion of documents. The rest are only requests for a hearing, et cetera. Those 136,000 statements in the collection were classified according to the various subjects, and they form part of the defense case of the SS.

HERR PELCKMANN: Where did you obtain this considerable number of affidavits?

REINECKE: Mostly from camps in the American and British Zones; to a smaller extent from the French Zone; none at all from the Russian Zone and from Austria.

HERR PELCKMANN: What procedure did you adopt in evalu-ating and compiling these affidavits?

REINECKE: I have just explained that in outline.

HERR PELCKMANN: Yes, we do not need details. Thank you. Did the selection ...

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Pelckmann, what I understood the wit-ness to say was that there were 170,000 statements utilized, and somehow, from these 170,000 statements, 136,000 affidavits were obtained. Well, how were they obtained? The Tribunal would like to know. Before whom were they sworn?

HERR ~ PELCKMANN: The witness will be able to explain that, Mr. President.

REINECKE: These 170,000 affidavits were sworn by interned members of the SS. Of this total figure of 170,000 these 136,213 affidavits were, in fact, utilized by my colleagues. The remaining affidavits were not used, because they were either irrelevant or submitted inaccurately or too late.

THE PRESIDENT: You mean the whole 170,000 were sworn affidavits?

HERR PELCKMANN: Sworn before whom, Witness?

REINECKE: Part of these 170,000 affidavits were not sworn. The 136,000 affidavits, however, were all sworn. We knew the decision of the High Tribunal that an affidavit sworn before a German lawyer would only be valid if it had been sworn before May of this year, and that after May of this year affidavits would have to be sworn before an Allied officer. That, however, was not done in all the camps. After May 1946 some affidavits were still sworn before lawyers and courts and in accordance with the decision of, the High Tribunal those had to be discarded as invalid. For that reason, only 136,000 affidavits remained.

HERR PELCKMANN: Were the affidavits selected and evaluated with a view that only affidavits favorable to the defense of the SS should be considered?

REINECKE: No, all affidavits were fully considered.

HERR PELCKMANN: How is it that on some subjects many thousands of statements are available, whereas on others only a few affidavits are contained in the list?

REINECKE: From the mass of the affidavits submitted, it is evident that the bulk of the SS members did not understand the Indictment. They cannot imagine, for example, that they were active in a conspiracy; they cannot imagine that they were preparing a war of aggression. For that reason, members of the SS testified only on such subjects which appeared to them typical of their work in the SS, the combat soldier on his experiences at the front, and the member of the General SS on the nature of his work in the years from 1933 to 1939.

HERR PELCKMANN: To give an example-the Tribunal will be able to see it later from the affidavits-under IV, Numbers 1 to 9, here the question is raised: "Was ill-treatment in concentration camps forbidden?" Now, if there are only two statements on this point, does that mean that only two out of hundreds of thousands of members of the SS can confirm this prohibition, while all others- and this would be important-know the opposite to be true?

REINECKE: No, that is just what it does not mean. It does mean that the members of the SS who were questioned could not make a statement on that point at all, because they did not know anything about it; they could give an answer neither in a negative nor in a positive sense, and for that reason they passed it without making any statement at all.

HERR PELCKMANN: Do you think, judging by your knowledge of the various branches of the SS and their activities and of the attitude of the bulk of the SS men, that these 136,000 or so affidavits represent the average knowledge of the bulk of the SS men, even though the entire strength of the SS was, of course, considerably more than 136,000?

REINECKE: One must bear in mind that most of the men and junior officers who represent the bulk had already been released at. the time when the affidavits were deposed. It must also be con-sidered that in many camps a great many technical difficulties existed and inquiries were not made everywhere on uniform lines. In addition, statements of opinion from the Russian Zone and from Austria are missing altogether. In spite of these considerable defi-ciencies, I believe that I can say on the strength of my own knowl-edge of the typical activities of the SS that the whole picture which these affidavits present can be considered as typical of the SS.

HERR PELCKMANN: Your Lordship, I have no further ques-tions to put to this witness.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn.

[A recess was taken.]

DR.LATERNSER: Mr. President, may I ask for permission to put a question to the witness in order to clear up one point which came up during this examination? It will take about three minutes.

THE PRESIDENT: What is the point, Dr. Laternser?

DR. LATERNSER: I should like to ask the witness about a point which came up during the direct examination by the defendant's counsel for the SS and which concerns the guarding of concentration camps.

THE PRESIDENT: How does that affect the High Command?

DR. LATERNSER: There could be a connection through the higher official channels, a connection which might possibly in-criminate the accused organization.

THE PRESIDENT: No, Dr. Laternser, the Tribunal reject your application.

Does the Prosecution wish to cross-examine?

MAJOR JONES: Witness, you were an SS man from 1933 on, were you not?

REINECKE: Yes.

MAJOR JONES: And during most of that time you were con-nected with the SS legal &tem?

REINECKE: Yes.

MAJOR JONES: Would a serious view have been taken in the Waffen-SS or the German Army about the murder of Jews by SS men?

REINECKE: I did not understand the question.

MAJOR JONES: I will repeat it. Would a serious view have been taken in the Waffen-SS or the German Army about the murder of Jews by SS men?

REINECKE: If the extermination of the Jews on Hitler's orders had been known in the SS, or as you say, in the Wehrmacht, I am certain that there would have been concern.

MAJOR JONES: If an SS man had murdered 50 Jews, would that have resulted in a death penalty being inflicted on him?

REINECKE: I cannot answer this question in simple words, because it touches on a basic problem.

MAJOR JONES: I want you to look at the document dated September 1939, which shows the tolerance of murder in the SS by the highest judicial authorities and the German Army. It is Document D-421, which will be Exhibit GB-567. The first page of the memorandum:

"The Chief of the Army Judiciary announces by telephone. The Field Court Martial of the Kempf Armored Division has sentenced an SS man of an SS artillery regiment to 3 years' imprisonment, and a military police sergeant major to 9 years' penal servitude for manslaughter. After about 50 Jews, who had been used during the day to repair a bridge, had finished their work in the evening, these two men drove them all into a synagogue and shot them all without any reason. The sentence is submitted to the Commander of the 3rd Army for confirmation. The proposal of the representative of the prosecution is capital punishment for murder."

Then there follow initials. Then there is a marginal note: "General Halder requests information on the decision of the Com-mander of the 3rd Army." Then purple pencil notes: "To the Adjutant of the Commander of Army III."

And on the next page you will see the course of this history: "Telegram ... to the Oberstkriegsgerichtsrat (military judge of the fourth rank) attached to the Quartermaster General in Berlin .... SS Sturmmann Ernst is granted extenuating cir-cumstances because he was induced to participate in the shooting by a corporal handing him a rifle. He was in a state of exasperation owing to numerous atrocities committed by Poles against persons of German race. As an SS man, he felt at the sight of the Jews the anti-German attitude of Jewry very deeply and therefore acted rashly as a hot-blooded youth. An excellent soldier not punished before."

And that is signed by Oberkriegsgerichtsrat (military judge of the third rank) Lipski.

And then there are purple pencil notes on the document: "To the Adjutant of the Commander-in-Chief of Army III," and a lead pencil note: "Telephone call from Oberkriegsgerichtsrat Dr. Satt-mann to the effect that so far as has been ascertained the Chief of the Army High Conunand will not confirm either sentence." Then added, in lead pencil-

"The sentences have been dropped under the amnesty. Punishment was announced before the amnesty. Nine years penal servitude for the police sergeant major changed to 3 years' imprisonment. Three years' imprisonment for SS man, unchanged. Confirmed by Army headquarters."

Now, that was a clear countenancing of mass murder by the judicial authorities of the German Army, was it not?

REINECKE: In my opinion this document represents, in the second part where it gives an explanation for the mild sentences on the two SS men, a personal opinion of Kriegsgerichtsrat Lipski, who as the presiding judge passed the sentences. Therefore, since I do not know other details of the case, I am not in a position to say whether the reasons which the presiding judge gives deviate from the facts or not.

MAJOR JONES: But just for a moment: Do you appreciate that for the murder of 50 Jews-and if the facts as reported in this German document are true it could have been nothing but murder -there was, first of all, a finding of manslaughter? You as a lawyer will appreciate what I am implying. And secondly that this Army judge passed a sentence of 3 years' penal servitude for the murder of 50? He was one of your legal colleagues of the Army and I suggest to you that this is typical of the attitude of you-particularly the SS' and the Army's judicial authorities, to the murder of what you pleased to call subhumans.

REINECKE: May I say the following: A question of law as to whether the verdict is based on manslaughter or on murder is undoubtedly at issue here. The actual grounds which caused the judge to convict the men of manslaughter instead of murder are not indicated in the document. For that reason I cannot take a stand on the question put to me.

MAJOR JONES: But, you know, it is indicated perfectly clearly. The reason why it was reduced to manslaughter was that this man Ernst, being an SS man, was particularly sensitive at the sight of Jews, and therefore it was just a youthful adventure, that is the

that was operating in the judge's mind. You know it is perfectly clear. You ...

REINECKE: I should like to say that as the document states, the prosecution in this case obviously asked for a verdict of murder and for the death sentence. The presiding judge did not, in his verdict, convict the men of murder but of manslaughter. According to the German penal law, the difference between manslaughter and murder is that murder is an action carried out after previous deliberation with the aim of killing a person, while manslaughter is an act of impulse, resulting in the death of a person. The judge, after con-sidering the circumstances described here, based his verdict on this latter legal qualification.

MAJOR JONES: Witness, I am obliged to you for your disserta-tion on the difference between manslaughter and murder. I think the Tribunal is familiar with it. But, at any rate, the end of this story was that the Army commander-in-chief crossed the whole thing?

REINECKE: That is correct.

MAJOR JONES: The sentences were dropped under the amnesty That is the end of this suit of murder by the Army judicial authorities-amnesty and pardoning of the whole thing.

I want you now to turn to, another document so the Tribunal can judge how zealous the German authorities were in the pursuit of the SS crimes. It is Document D-926, to be Exhibit GB-568. This comes from an earlier period, not from the days when the Poles or the others who you said were responsible were operating. These were the pioneer days of the SS, 1933, when you joined them. 'this is a file relating to the deaths of prisoners in protective custody at the concentration camp of Dachau. It starts with a letter dated 2 June 1933, from the provincial court public prosecutor to the State Ministry of Justice. It is headed: "Deaths of prisoners in protective custody at the concentration camp of Dachau." It relates to the Schloss, Hausmann, Strauss, and Netzger cases:

"In accordance with my instructions, I had a lengthy discus-sion on 1 June 1933, with Police Commander Himmler in his office at the Police headquarters, Munich, about the incidents at the concentration camp of Dachau, which I have already reported to the Ministry of Justice separately. I particularly reported to him briefly, by showing the photographs from the investigation files, about the Schloss, Hausmann, Strauss, and Netzger cases, of which he appeared to have been informed already. I pointed out that particularly the four above-men-tioned cases, in view of the result of the findings to date, offer good reason for strongly suspecting serious punishable actions on the part of the individual members of the camp guard and of camp officials, and that both the public prose-cution and the Police authorities to whose knowledge these incidents have come, are under the obligation, under the threat of heavy punishment, to carry out the criminal in-vestigation of the above-mentioned incidents without con-sideration for any persons whatsoever...."

I don't think I need trouble you with the rest of that document. Document 2 is a letter from the provincial court public prosecutor to the State Ministry of Justice again. It is 11 August 1933. So you see, Witness, no action had apparently been taken from 2 June until 11 August. And then the provincial court public prosecutor, in the last sentence of that letter, after referring to the dossiers relating to Schloss, Hausmann, Strauss, and Netzger, says:

"Should the dossiers not be required at present, I would request the return of these files for the purpose of examining whether the decree of 2 August 1933 regarding the granting of immunity, from punishment has to be applied."

I need not trouble you with the third document, or the fourth. If the Tribunal turns to Page 5 of its copy, and if you, Witness, turn to Document 8, which is the next I wish to refer to-that is a report again, from the provincial public prosecutor to the State Ministry of Justice: "Death of the prisoner in protective custody, Hugo Handschuch, in Dachau Camp." Have you found that, Witness?

REINECKE: Yes, I have found it.

MAJOR JONES: I am reading from Page 5 of the English text:

"Subject: Death of the prisoner in protective custody, Hugo Handschuch, in Dachau Camp.

"The judicial autopsy ordered by me took place in Dachau on 23 September 1933."I am reading from Page 5 of the English text now. --"It showed that death was due to a brain injury owing to hemorrhage in the soft membrane and that this hemorrhage was caused by blows with a blunt instrument, which hit the skull particularly in the region of the left temple and the back of the head. In addition, profuse bleeding was established on the corpse round the left cheek, in the right shoulder and left upper arm regions, on the buttocks and the upper thigh and of the lower part of the left thigh -the results of blows on the body of the deceased with a blunt object, while alive. On the findings based on the post mortem, the preliminary medical opinion gave grounds for assuming outside responsibility.

"I intend to continue the further necessary search for the per-petrators in collaboration with the Political Police."

And it is brought to the attention, as you see, of the Prime Minister with a request to take note and forward to the Reich Governor in Bavaria. And then there is a notice given to the State Minister of the Interior.

Then Document 11, Page 9 of the English text-proposal made by the Minister of the Interior to quash the inquiry into the deaths of the protective custody prisoners, Handschuch, Franz, and Katz. Handschuch, you'll remember, Witness, was the subject of the autopsy which indicated outside responsibility.

This is a letter from Adolf Wagner to the Defendant Dr. Frank, the representative Nazi jurist. The letter, which has been in Court, is dated 29 November 1933.

THE PRESIDENT: What Dr. Frank do you refer to?

MAJOR JONES: That is the Defendant Frank, My Lord.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, go ahead.

MAJOR JONES:

"The Commander of the Political Police in the Ministry of the Interior presented to you, on 18 November 1933, a proposal according to which the inquiry into the cases of the prisoners in protective custody, Hugo Handschuch, Wilhelm Franz, and Delvin Katz, should be quashed for State political reasons. In connection with this case you sent to me the liaison man of the State Ministry of Justice with the Bavarian Political Police, Public Prosecutor Dr. Stepp. Meanwhile, in a dis-cussion with the Commander of the Political Police, Reichsführer SS Himmler, I have ascertained once more that by the pursuance of this inquiry the reputation of the National Socialist State would greatly suffer, because this inquiry would be directed against members of the SA and SS, and thus the SA and the SS, as the main pillars of the National Socialist State, would be directly affected. For these reasons,

I support the proposal of the Commander of the Political Police in the State Ministry of the Interior for quashing the inquiry presented to you on 18 November."

I don't think I need trouble with the rest of that letter. It states that the inhabitants of the concentration camp are almost exclusively criminal types. The next document, Document 10 of the German pile ...

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Elwyn Jones, the document you have just been reading from, which is on Page 9 of the English text, is dated 29 November 1933. Is that a misprint?

MAJOR JONES: No, My Lord, that ' is correct.

THE PRESIDENT: The document on Page 5, which you read before, from the public prosecution, is dated 26 September 1936. Is that correct?

MAJOR JONES: No, My Lord, that is a misprint and I should have called Your Lordship's attention to it. That should be 1933, My Lord, and I am much obliged.

THE PRESIDENT: That is Page 5. In referring to the document, you should state that the pages which you did not refer to, Pages 3 and 4, show that the other dossiers, in connection with the public prosecutor, Provincial Court, Munich, were apparently lost and were not forthcoming and that inquiries were going on about them until 1935.

MAJOR JONES: Yes, My Lord. Much obliged. I was trying to deal with the essential contents of the file.

THE PRESIDENT: Go on then.

MAJOR JONES: I want you, Witness, to look at Page 6 of the English text and Document 10 of your file. That is a memo from Dr. H. Frank, the defendant, dated 2 December 1933, to the Prime Minister, and the subject is "Quashing of criminal proceedings":

"A merchant's wife, Sophie Handschuch, of Munich, in a writ- ten accusation received by the public prosecution at the Provincial Court Munich II, on 18 September 1933, stated that her son, Hugo Handschuch, taken into protective custody on 23 August 1923"-that should be 1933-"died of heart failure in Dachau Camp on 2 September 1933. In the inquest certificate, heart failure following on a concussion of the brain was given as the cause of death. The body was not shown to the relatives and was released only after great difficulties on condition that the coffin would not be reopened. The lid of the coffin was so firmly nailed down that it was impossible to reopen it. The writer asked that the coffin be opened and a judicial post mortem held, as she wanted the body identi-fied and the cause of death established.

"In order to clear up the matter, the public prosecutor at the Provincial Court, Munich II, at first personally questioned the plaintiff, Sophie Handschuch, and the flanc6e of the deceased, Thea Kink. From their evidence, the assumption seemed justified that already on the day of his arrest, on 23 August 1933, Handschuch was badly mauled in the Braune Haus in Munich; and in connection with the further established fact that the relatives of the deceased were expressly refused per-mission to view the body, sufficient grounds were given for the suspicion that Handschuch did not die a natural death. In order to establish the cause of death beyond all doubt, the body was exhumed in Dachau on 23 September 1933, and a judicial autopsy carried out on the orders of the public prose-cutor. It showed that death was caused by injury to the brain, as a result of a hemorrhage of the soft membrane of the brain and that this hemorrhage originated from blows with a blunt object which hit the skull particularly on the left temple and at the back of the head."

Then there follow further details of the autopsy which have been given in another document I have read. The findings of the judicial autopsy gave ground for assuming outside responsibility.

Paragraph H:

"In the forenoon of 19 October 1933 the public prosecution at the Provincial Court, Munich II, was informed by telephone through the Bavarian Political Police that in the afternoon of 17 October 1933, Wilhelm Franz, of Munich, a prisoner in protective custody, born on 5 June 1909, and that in the night of 17 to 18 October 1933, Dr. Delvin Katz, of Nuremberg, a prisoner in protective custody born on 3 August 1887, hanged themselves in their solitary confinement cells in Dachau Con-centration Camp. The public prosecution on the same morning ordered a legal examination to be held in the camp, followed by a post mortem. The corpses had already been removed from the cells and were lying on stretchers in a locked shed ,of the camp. With the exception of the feet they were com-pletely stripped. In Franz' cell fresh blood spots and splashes were observed on the plank bed."

And then it goes on to say that a judicial autopsy was ordered on 20 October. In the next paragraph there is the autopsy7

"The autopsy gave grounds for a well-founded suspicion that in the case of both corpses force by an outside hand had been applied. According to the preliminary opinion of both coroners (Landgerichtsarzt Dr. Flamm and Gerichtsarzt Dr. Nieden-thal) death by suffocation, as a result of strangulation and throttling, was established in both cases. The strangulation marks found on the neck do not correspond to observations in the case of persons hanged. In respect to Franz!s body, it is also stated in the preliminary opinion that fat embolism is not, prima facie, to be excluded as a contributing cause of death. On this corpse fresh weals were found on the thick head of hair and especially on the body and the arms, accom-panied by profuse hemorrhages and ruptures of the fat tissue. Besides the injuries on the neck, the body of Katz showed also bruises, abrasions, and cuts of the skin.

"At the examination, the public prosecution had demanded the production of both belts with which Franz and Katz had allegedly hanged themselves; they could not be handed over at once. The Dachau lower court had ordered the confiscation of the belts in accordance with the application. Until now, the objects confiscated had not yet been received by the public prosecution."

Then Paragraph III:

"In each case I informed the Ministerpräsident, and through him, the Reichsstatthalter in Bavaria, as well as the State Minister of the Interior, of the public prosecution's reports.

"In a letter of 29 November 1933, addressed to me, the State Minister of the Interior proposed that, for State political reasons, the inquiry pending at the public prosecution of the Provincial Court, Munich II, into the death of Hugo Hand-schuch, Wilhelm Franz, and Delvin Katz, former prisoners in protective custody, should be quashed. As a reason it is pointed out that the conducting of investigations would seriously injure the prestige of the National Socialist State, since these proceedings would be directed against members of the SA and SS, whereby the SA and the SS, as the chief pillars of the National Socialist State, would be immediately affected."

And then Frank goes on to give an opinion in law that the Reichs-statthalter in fact has the right of pardoning. He states that in the last part of the last paragraph but one:

"The Constitutional Deed of the Free State of Bavaria of 14 August 1919 forbade the quashing of criminal investiga-tions. The law of 2 August 1933 regarding the quashing of criminal investigations removed the ban of quashing. Accord-ing to the Bavarian State law at present valid, the legal possibility therefore exists of quashing individual criminal proceedings by means of an administrative act in the form of a pardon."

And then he states that this right is vested in the Reich Governor of Bavaria, and goes on to suggest that "in view of this legal posi-tion the proposal of the State Minister of the Interior be submitted to the Council of Ministers."

The next document, Page 10 of the English text, Document 12 of the German text, indicates that the Council of Ministers was not prepared to countenance the quashing. Page 10 of the English text, My Lord-and it states:

"The proposal of the State Minister of the Interior that the inquiry pending at the public prosecution at the Provincial Court, Munich II, into. the death of the prisoners Handschuch, Franz, and Katz, who were in protective custody, be quashed was the subject of a debate during the meeting of the Council of Ministers of 5 December 1933. As a result, the State Minis-ter of Justice communicated the following to the undersigned official:

"'The criminal proceedings regarding the happenings in the Dachau Concentration Camp are to be continued with all determination. The facts are to be cleared up with the utmost speed.'"

Then there are various instructions with regard to the inquiries. The next step of this story is Document 12 of the German file, Page 11 of the English text:

"Presented to the State Minister with the request that he take note. The note of the first public prosecutor, Dr. Stepp, regarding the carrying out of his instructions is attached with the request that note be taken....

"By order of Ministerial Counsellor Döbig, I communicated to the Reichsführer SS Himmler the decision taken yesterday by the Council of Ministers concerning the cases of Hand-schuch, et cetera. The Reichsführer SS told me that the mat-ter chiefly concerned the Chief of Staff of the SA, Reich Minister Röhm. He (Himmler) had to discuss the matter with Röhm first."

Then Röhm gives certain" instructions which this correspondent, Dr. Stepp, writes down from memory:

"The Dachau Camp is a camp for prisoners who were appre-hended for political reasons and are kept in protective custody. The incidents concerned are of a political nature and must be decided under all circumstances first of all by the political authorities. To my mind they are not suited to be dealt with by the legal authorities. This is my opinion as Chief of Staff and also as a Reich Minister who is interested in the Reich not suffering politically because of the proceedings in question.

"I shall get the Reichsführer SS to issue an order that no investigating authorities may enter the camp for the time being and that people in the camp may not be interrogated for the present."

Then there is a note:

"The Chief Prosecutor, Munich, was instructed by a directive from the Minister to refrain for the time being from making an application for the opening of preliminary investigations."

Then follows the next document, Document 13, a letter to the public prosecution on the death of these men Franz and Katz:

"With regard to the above-mentioned matter I have, as in-structed, on 12 July 1934 requested the Bavarian Political Police to clear up the matter further in conjunction with the commander's office of the Concentration Camp Dachau, and to endeavor to find out the persons who are suspected of having been the culprits. In this request I mentioned also that I have not yet received the legally confiscated instruments of suicide (belt and braces) of the dead men.

"The Political Police have apparently transmitted the files without any written direction to the political department of the Concentration Camp Dachau...."

The first paragraph of this letter reads:

"The latest application by the Public Prosecution, Munich II, for production of evidence shows what far-fetched means are employed in order to saddle the Concentration Camp Dachau with allegedly perpetrated crimes."

In the second paragraph of the letter regret is expressed that the two dead men were able by their suicide to escape impending punishment for smuggling letters. The third paragraph refers to the confiscation' and reads:

"After the two corpses had been dissected according to law and had been released, the commander's staff had no further interest in the preservation of the instruments with which the men had hanged themselves. The commander's staff do not belong to those, that loathsome type of cultured people, who preserve such articles as souvenirs, as was done in America in the Dillinger case."

The letter is signed on behalf of the camp commandant by SS Obersturmbannführer Lippert. Then there is a request by the public prosecution for action.

In the next letter there is a reference to this letter from the camp commandant of Dachau, which shows that the request of the Oberstaatsanwalt arose from the impartial observation of his official duty and then the file closes with this entry: "Munich, 27 Septem-ber 1934, Public Prosecution" It is a letter from -the Oberstaats-anwalt to the Generalstaatsanwalt at the Court of Appeals Munich:

"Subject: Death of the prisoners in protective custody, Wil-helm Franz and Dr. Katz, in the Concentration Camp Dachau.

"I have quashed the proceedings, as the investigations have not produced sufficient grounds for the assumption of outside guilt in the deaths of the two prisoners in protective custody."

MAJOR JONES: Well now, Witness, I have taken some time to read that document. That is a characteristic Mustration of the fact that the SA and SS abominations in the camps were protected by the highest authorities of the Third Reich, is that not so?

REINECKE: This document is from the year 1933, at a time when the Concentration Camp Dachau was not manned exclusively by SS men. The document indicates that the prosecution of the Provincial Court in Munich suspected, for given reasons, that some persons in protective custody had been murdered.

MAJOR JONES: Are you suggesting that conditions improved after the SS men took complete charge of running the camps?

REINECKE: I want to point out that this document contains in-dividual cases of the year 1933. But conclusions on the general con-ditions in concentration camps, particularly in the coming years, cannot be drawn from the document.

MAJOR JONES: Did you know that the Waffen-SS was making quite a profitable business out of killing people in concentration camps? Did you know that? Did you know that?

REINECKE: No.

MAJOR JONES: I want you to look at the Document D-960, which will be Exhibit GB-569. It is a very short document, this one, it is from-it is headed:

"Waffen-SS, Natzweiler Concentration Camp, Commander's office, 24 March 1943.

"Bill to the Security Police and SD, Strasbourg.

"For the 20 prisoners executed and cremated in this concentration camp, costs amounting to 127,05 Reichsmark arose. The Commander's office of the Natzweiler Concentration Camp requests the early payment of the above-mentioned sum."

The tariff for killing was very low in Natzweiler, wasn't it- -- 6 marks 38 pfennigs for each dead man? Did you know that moneys were paid to the funds of SS for activities of that kind?

REINECKE: No. And as I understand it, this document does not show that at all. The concentration camp command here uses the stamp "Waffen-SS," but in this connection I must refer to what I said yesterday, that the term "Waffen-SS" is misleading insofar as the concentration camp organization was an independent police institution. This document seems to support my statement, since it shows that this horrible bill here was sent to the Security Police, that is, again to an executive organ. The Waffen-SS ...

MAJOR JONES: Just a moment. Assuming that the Security Police paid this bill, where would the money have gone to? It would have gone back to Natzweiler. What would have happened to it? Would it have been credited to the funds of the Waffen-SS or not?

REINECKE: The commands of the concentration camps, includ-ing Natzweiler, settled their accounts with the Reich, not with the Waffen-SS. I cannot say how this money was used and for what purposes it was spent, because ...

MAJOR JONES: Do you know-you have no knowledge of the financial arrangements of these camps vis à vis the Waffen-SS, have you? If you have not that suffices for me for the moment.

REINECKE: No, no. From my activity in the head office "SS Courts" I happen to know a little about the economic control of the concentration camps, and as to this point here, I know that the commands of concentration camps settled their accounts directly with the agencies of the German Reich and had no connection at all with other treasuries or agencies of the Waffen-SS as such.

MAJOR JONES: If you please. Now you said in your testimony that the guards in concentration camps had not committed crimes, that whoever else was responsible, Pohl and one or two others, certainly it was not the SS guards. Were you serious when you said that, Witness?

REINECKE: In order to avoid misunderstanding, I should like to make it clear here that when I spoke of guards, I meant only those persons who guarded a concentration camp from the outside in contrast to the personnel of the concentration camp who were employed in the command and on the command staff; that is to say, people who had the control within the camp.

MAJOR JONES: But both those categories of guards were SS men, were they not?

REINECKE: As I have already said, they belonged to the so--called nominal Waffen-SS without having anything to do with it organically.

MAJOR JONES: Well, I shall return to that point in a moment.

First of all, I want you to look at Document D-924, which will give you a picture of the humanity and ethical attitude of SS guards. I am using a phrase which you used yourself vis à vis the SS. That is Exhibit GB-570, My Lord. It is a report this time from a Dutch source of the evacuation of the Rehmsdorff Camp to Theresienstadt.

The first page is a statement by Peter Langhorst, who says: "I am an ex-political prisoner and I have been detained in various prisons and concentration camps, finally in the Rehms-dorff Camp.

"At the approach of the Allied armies this camp was evac-uated and the prisoners, about 2,900 men, were put on transport from Rehmsdorff to Theresienstadt.

"Mostly these prisoners were Czechs, Poles, Russians, and Hungarian Jews, while there were only a few Dutchmen among them.

"Of these prisoners only some 500 men actually reached Theresienstadt; the others were simply killed off during the transport by the so-called 'shot in the neck.'

"The corpses were thrown into mass graves which were filled up afterward."

Then-I need not trouble you with the rest of the statement, but you see a further statement with regard to that matter by Baron Van Lainsweerde of Amsterdam, who was on this transport, who says that-at the end of the second paragraph:

"Finally, on 12 November 1944, 1 was imprisoned in the Concentration Camp Rehmsdorff where I stayed until my escape on 20 April 1945.' At the approach of the Allied Forces, the camp at Rehmsdorff was evacuated in great haste and the political prisoners of this camp were transported to the Theresienstadt Camp.

"At first the prisoners were transported by train and in goods vans. We arrived by train at Marienbad, where, for causes I do not know, we had a delay of about one week. The vans with the prisoners were kept standing at the station. In the course of that week Allied bombers attacked the Marienbad station and in the confusion some 1,000 prisoners escaped into the surrounding woods. Naturally the entire local service (the SS, Volkssturm, and Hitlerjugend) was set to work to recapture the escaped prisoners, and practically all prisoners, who of course wore their camp clothes and could easily be recognized, were recaptured. These prisoners, about a thousand men, were led back in groups to Marienbad station and there they were killed by the SS guards by a shot in the neck. As both engines of the train had been wrecked during the air attack, the prisoners had to walk all the way from Marienbad to Theresienstadt, Many among them were unable to go so far, and fell down along the road, totally exhausted; without an exception these prisoners were murdered by the guards by a shot in the neck. That evening their bodies were removed by lorry and buried in mass graves in the woods." -- And he says he thinks that he could identify where it was. -- "I am fully prepared to assist in tracing them. When the transport started I heard the SS guards saying that the total number of prisoners amounted to 2,775. Only some 500 of these prisoners reached Theresien-stadt. The others were murdered during the transport. Near Lobositz, about 7 kilometers from Theresienstadt, I myself escaped. The leader of the transport was SS Ober-scharführer Schmidt, one of the hangmen of Buchenwald, who also there behaved in a most scandalous way toward the prisoners, and who was known to be a sadist."

Do you still, say that the SS guards betrayed the characteristics of decency?

REINECKE: I should like to emphasize that I did not say that the SS guards had the characteristics of SS members. I said that our investigations showed that the actual crimes in the concentration camps were committed by members of the commands and that we found no evidence that the guards had any part in them, and ...

MAJOR JONES: Then let me show you-let me show you another document, the Document D-959-it will. be Exhibit GB-571-which is a report to the Ministry of the Interior of the Czechoslovak Republic. I want to turn to Page 3 of the report:

"Crimes committed by the members of the Allgemeine SS and the Waffen-SS.

"The crimes committed by the members of the SS troops against the Czechoslovak and foreign citizens on the territory of the Czechoslovak Republic ...

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Elwyn Jones, isn't it rather late to put in documents of this sort, which are general reports by the govern-ments of Allied countries? The case has been already fully made by the Prosecution and to put in a new document of this sort, which is only a report of an Allied country, seems to the Tribunal to be .an unusual course to take.

MAJOR-JONES: With great respect, My Lord, I submit that the Prosecution is entitled to put in documents of this kind in rebuttal of the sort of testimony that this witness is giving. The conception that a witness should solemnly say that SS guards com-mitted no atrocities was one which certainly did not occur even to the Prosecution, and in face of testimony of that kind I submit that the Prosecution is well entitled to put in documents which do mot deal with individual cases, which might possibly be objectionable to the Tribunal, but with the whole mass of testimony. I submit that until the very last moment the Prosecution is entitled to put in such documents, regrettable though it is, perhaps, that they, have not been put in before, but I do submit that the Prosecution is entitled to put them in. If Your Lordship pleases, if I might add a further comment to Your Lordship's inquiry: the Defense have, after all, produced over 100,000 affidavits and I do submit that in these circumstances, in view of that mountain of evidence, it is only right that there should rest upon the record the authority of state-ments submitted on behalf of the Prosecution.

THE PRESIDENT: What is your submission, with reference to the construction of Article 21, with reference to this document?

MAJOR JONES: If Your Lordship pleases, I submit that the terms of Article 21 make it mandatory upon the Tribunal to accept reports of this kind by governments which are submitted by the Prosecution.

THE PRESIDENT: Which are the special words to which you refer?

MAJOR JONES: The second sentence:

"The Tribunal... shall also take judicial notice of official governmental documents and reports of the United Nations, including the acts and documents of the committees set up in the various Allied countries for the investigation of war crimes, and the records and findings of military or other tribunals of any United Nations."

Now this document, My Lord, is-it has a certificate from the Czechoslovak Minister of the Interior on the face of it, certifying that it is a, state document within the meaning of Article 21, and it bears the signature of the Minister of the Interior himself, so that I submit that quite clearly within the terms of Article 21 it is properly admissible and that in that respect the Tribunal should accept it.

THE PRESIDENT: Was there any committee or commission which drew up this document?

MAJOR JONES: It is a report of the Czechoslovak Ministry of the Interior itself; it is a report of the State Department.

THE PRESIDENT: Report to whom?

MAJOR JONES: Furthermore, My Lord, my learned friend, Mr. Griffith-Jones, draws my attention to Article 19 of the Charter:

"The Tribunal shall not be bound by technical rules of evidence. It shall adopt and apply to the greatest possible extent expeditious and non-technical procedure, and shall admit any evidence that it deems to have probative value."

I do submit that even if you were to find, and I find it hard to think that you would, that this is not a document within the meaning of Article 21, it is admissible under Article 19.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Now, do you want to say anything, Dr. Pelckmann?

BERR PELCKMANN: I believe, Your Lordship, the decision of the Tribunal on this document should be the same as that on the two documents which we attempted in vain to introduce yesterday. Whether this document falls under Article 21, 1 cannot judge;' the Tribunal will decide that. But I refer to the other point of view which Your Lordship has already mentioned. It is very late to submit these documents now. Article 21 can only be interpreted to mean that such documents can be submitted during the presenta-tion of the case by the Prosecution. The Prosecution case is now closed, and documents can only be introduced by submitting them to a witness; but since there may be hundreds, perhaps thousands of these cases, the Defense must be given an opportunity to com-ment on them. It is not a question of testing the credibility of the witness, but it is actually a question of new evidence being presented by the Prosecution, and the Defense must have an opportunity of answering it. I do not believe that this is the intention of Article 21, otherwise the Trial would be extended indefinitely.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn and we will sit again at 2 o'clock.

[The Tribunal recessed until 1400 hours.]

Afternoon Session

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Elwyn Jones, the Tribunal will take judicial notice of the document which you were submitting under Article 21, But they do not think that you need deal with it at great length.

MAJOR JONES: If Your Lordship pleases. The Document D-959 will be Exhibit GB-571.

[The witness Reinecke resumed the stand.]

Witness, have you any knowledge of the part played by SS units in the arrest and ill-treatment of the students of Prague on 17 November 1939?

REINECKE: No. About that subject I cannot testify, as the fact of their participation is now becoming known to me for the first time.

MAJOR JONES: You had no knowledge of the participation of the 6th SS Totenkopf Standarte in that matter, did you? I am referring to ...

REINECKE: No.

MAJOR JONES: I am referring, My Lord, to an entry in the previous Czechoslovak report, USSR-60.

[Turning to the witness.]

You say you had no knowledge of that? This report ...

REINECKE: No, I had no knowledge.

MAJOR JONES: This report refers further to reprisal measures against civilians suspected of contact with the partisans, in which the SS took part. Do you have any knowledge of SS troops taking part in reprisal measures against civilians?

REINECKE: I can testify to that insofar as it is known to me in which manner the Waffen-SS was being employed. I know that the Waffen-SS-and in this case it can only be the Waffen-SS which is meant-was fighting at the front.

MAJOR JONES: I just want you to look at the last paragraph but one in Paragraph 2, Page 4 of Document D-959, Page 4, the paragraph-it is the fourth paragraph down in the English text.

"On 5 May 1945, after having plundered the village of Javorisko in the district of Litovel, the SS burned it down. During this execution the SS troops shot in the nape of the neck or killed in the burning houses all the male inhabitants of the village from the age of 15 to 70 years. Women with children, after having been ill-treated, were driven away. The execution, at which 38 men lost their lives, took place because the inhabitants of the village were suspected of hiding partisans."

Have you any knowledge of that action or of actions of that kind that the SS took part in?

REINECKE: No. Such actions never became known to me. Obviously, we are here concerned with the last fight for Prague.

MAJOR JONES: I want you to turn to some further evidence about the ill-treatment by SS guards of transports of prisoners from concentration camps. The fifth paragraph on Page 5 of the report refers to 312 persons being beaten to death or shot, and their bodies buried in a coal pit. And you see it stated there that the beatings and killings were done by SS guards. It is very much like the Dutch report, is it not? And then there follows in the last section, crimes committed during the Prague revolution in May 1945, further accounts of SS atrocities.

Now, Witness, I want you to look at a new Document, D-878, which will be GB-572, which is a r1eport from the Statistical-the Scientific Statistical Institute of the Reichsführer SS on the com-position of the SS. I want you to look, if you will, at the third page of the account, that is a page marked "Page L" That sets out the-I am sorry, My Lord, I have not a translation of this, but I think the entries will speak for themselves. They are' quite clear. That is headed "Total strength of the SS as on 30 June 1944." You will see it shows "Allgemeine SS" excluding-and the translation, I think, is, excluding those members who, at the moment, are serving as reserves of the Waffen-SS, "Nicht einberufen." Total called up 66,614.

THE PRESIDENT: 64,000.

MAJOR JONES: 64,000. Called up in the Wehrmacht, 115,908. Called up to the labor front, 722. In miscellaneous duties, 19,254, a total of 200,498 of the Allgemeine SS. Now, can you tell the Tribunal whether those "not called up" among the 64,000 odd were performing police duties, or were some of those performing police duties?

REINECKE: In my view the figures which are contained in the document refer to members of the General SS who were neither called up nor were carrying out any other type of activity -- in other words, who were following their civilian occupations at home, that is to say, who were used in economic life.

MAJOR JONES: The last category of 19,254 "on miscellaneous duties," were those people who were forming the personnel of the Einsatzkommandos?

REINECKE: That is absolutely out of the question, because the personnel of the Einsatzkommandos only consisted of a few hundred men. The conception of the "sonstiger Einsatz" (on miscellaneous duties) must refer to some other function which I cannot define at the moment.

MAJOR JONES: Well, now, you see that that page shows the total in the Waffen-SS of 594,443. Now I want you to turn to

Page 24 of this report.

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Elwyn Jones, what is the final total described as?

MAJOR JONES: The total SS total 794,941.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, but what does the second German word there mean?

MAJOR JONES: "Insgesamt"-"altogether," My Lord.

THE PRESIDENT: "Altogether." I see.

MAJOR JONES: You turn to Page 24 and. you will see that the-that total of members of the Waffen-SS of 594,443 is divided up into various categories: There are first, the Feldtruppenteile, which are field units, 368,654. Then the next is, I understand, the recruiting staff, 21,365. The next category, training and reserve, 127,643. The schools, 10,822. Then other units and offices directly subordinate to the SS leadership head office, 26,544. And then in the head offices, 39,415, making the grand total of 594,443. Now, those-that entry of 26,544, other units and offices directly sub-ordinate to SS leadership head office, who were those men? Were they the personnel of the Einsatzkommandos?

REINECIKE: I beg to repeat the answer I have just given you. That number cannot refer in any way to the personnel of these Einsatzkommandos; because the personnel of the Einsatzkommandos had nothing to do with the SS itself, but came from various depart-ments of the executive, in particular from the Police. This figure of 26,544 members of the SS must refer to members of offices and units who were not employed at the head offices, but who, on the other hand, were not fighting at the front either, but who were in the Reich territory with some..

MAJOR JONES: Witness, will you next turn to Page 28 of this document, which- shows how the 39,415 described on Page 24 as being members of the head offices of the Waffen-SS are employed. It starts:

SS Main Office, 9,349; Waffen-SS men engaged in the SS Eco-nomic and Administrative Main Office-I beg your pardon, the second line-Waffen-SS men engaged in the Race and Resettlement Main Office of the SS, 2,689. That was the office headed by Himm-ler which yesterday you said-you said had nothing to do with the SS, the Waffen-SS, at all. And then:

Third, the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office, WVHA that is, is it not-24,091 Waffen-SS men. Personal Staff of the Reichsführer SS, 673. SS Personnel Main Office, 170; Main Office SS Courts, 599; Office of the SS Obergruppenführer Heissmeyer, 553; Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of German Folkdom, 304; Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of German Folkdom, Die Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle Office, 987. Making a total of 39,415.

4

That makes it clear, does it not, that Waffen-SS, men were engaged in all this hideous network of Himmler's machinery of terror, was it not?

REINECKE: I do not believe that that is shown by this docu-ment. Yesterday I described in detail that the various head offices did not have a unified supreme command. If, for instance in this case, members of the Waffen-SS appear in the various head offices, then this is due to the fact that the employees were drafted into the Waffen-SS during the war because in that way it became unnecessary to claim them as indispensable, and they could thus be kept out of the clutches of the Armed Forces.

MAJOR JONES: All those men were carried on the strength of the Waffen-SS; they were members of the Waffen-SS; they wore Waffen-SS uniforms, and they were paid by the, Waffen-SS. That is so, is it not?

REINECKE'- That may well be, but that has a different sig-nificance, insofar as that did not make them members of the original organization but, as was often the case in wartime, they merely donned the uniform and were paid accordingly. If I pick out, for instance, on Page 28 of this document, the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office, with 24,091 alleged members of the Waffen-SS, I have to say that this can only refer to guards in con-centration camps, and it shows that these men, as so-called nominal members of the Waffen-SS, were merely detailed to the Economic and Administrative Main Office, but, had in reality nothing to do with the Waffen-SS.

MAJOR JONES: If Your Lordship pleases, I submit that the document speaks for itself, and I have no further questions.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal would like to have translations of the documents, of these two documents that you have referred to.

MAJOR JONES: If Your Lordship pleases, they will be put in.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: My Lord, I do not wish to subject the witness to a detailed examination; I would like merely to be allowed to put one single question to him -upon a matter which he dealt with yesterday and in connection with a very short docu-ment which was mentioned yesterday.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. You may do so.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Witness, did I understand you yesterday to say that there were honorary members of the SS?

REINECKE: Yes.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: You asserted that this quality was only conferred in order to allow them to wear a uniform? Did I understand you correctly?

REINECKE: Yes.

MR. COUNSELLOR ST~IIRNOV: I would7like to show you a let-ter to Himmler from one of those people whom you named yester-day as honorary members of the SS. I would like to read this very short document into the record. I quote: "22 July 1940. Berlin W-8, Wilhelmstrasse 73."

THE PRESIDENT: Is it 1944 or 1940?

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: 1940, My Lord. It is a new docu-ment which bears the Number USSR-512. It was found by the Red Army in the Berlin archives. It will be submitted now to the Tribunal. I quote:

"My dear Himmler: I was highly pleased to learn of my promotion by the Führer to the rank of Obdrgruppenführer of the SS. You know my attitude to your SS and how greatly I admire their development, which was the fruit of your own work. I shall always consider it a special honor to belong to this proud corps of the Führer, which is of decisive importance for the future of our Great German Reich. I remain your faithful friend, Joachim Ribbentrop."

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Tell me, Witness, does not the first sentence of the document testify to the fact that the members of the SS whom you ' called honorary members were actually promoted by Himmler according to his estimation of their activity?

REINECKE: This document, in my opinion, proves something which I tried to describe yesterday. I said that it is typical for the honorary leaders that they did not actually come from the SS as such; that is to say, they had not performed any duty in the SS for many years like all the other men, but who at some stage and quite suddenly were awarded a high rank and given SS uniforms, without in ...

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: No, Witness, I am asking you something quite different. You are not answering my question. I asked you if it was not a fact that Himmler promoted the so-called honorary members according to his estimation of their activity? From the SS point of view, naturally.

REINECKE: Yes, that is correct, insofar as it was typical of Himmler's policy that personalities who were holding certain posi-tions of power were granted the right to wear the SS uniform, and those are the honorary leaders.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I have no further questions to, put to the witness, Mr. President.

DR. ALFRED SEIDL (Counsel for Defendant Frank): Mr. Pres-ident, this morning the, Prosecution submitted a Document D-926, also numbered GB-568. The subject of that document is files of the Bavarian Ministry of Justice which deal with the death of prisoners of war in the concentration camp at Dachau. I ask for permission to read into the record Figure 12 of that document now, which was not read out by the Prosecution.

As reason for my application, I should like to explain that this is the same document which I applied for 6 months ago and which could not be found.

The portions of this document read by the Prosecution may create the impression that the statement by the Defendant Frank in the witness box with reference to this question may not be correct. Figure 12, however shows ...

THE PRESIDENT: Whom are you applying on behalf of-Frank?

DR. SEIDL: I make the application on behalf of the Defendant Frank.

THE PRESIDENT: I think on Page 10 of the English copy, and. with the Heading 12, the two top paragraphs were read this. morning.

DR. SEIDL: Only the two first sentences of Paragraph 2 were read. The remaining sentences were not read. Paragraph 3 was not read either.

THE PRESIDENT: Very well, Dr. Seidl, you may read what you want to read.

DR. SEIDL: I shall then quote under Figure 12 a note for the files:

"Concerning: Dachau Concentration Camp.

"I. Memorandum. The proposal of the State Minister of the Interior to quash the inquiry now pending at the public prosecution office at the Provincial Court, Munich II, into the death of the prisoners Handschuch, Franz, and Katz, who were in protective custody, was the subject of a discussion during the meeting of the Council of Ministers on 5 Decem-ber 1933. As a result, the State Minister of Justice communi-cated the following to the undersigned official:

"The criminal proceedings regarding the happenings in the Dachau Concentration Camp are to be continued with all determination. The facts are to be cleared up with the utmost speed. If necessary the Landespolizei are to be brought in to assist. Any attempts to hush up the case must be opposed by all available means.

"The Oberstaatsanwalt (public prosecutor) at the Provincial Court, Munich II, was instructed, in accordance with the decision of the Council of Ministers, to continue the proceed-ings immediately with all energy, and try to clear up the incidents as soon as possible. He will apply for preliminary court investigations and see to their being completed rapidly -in the case of Franz and Katz immediately, and in the case of Handschuch after the arrival of the documents from the Political Police, who have been requested to return them. He has been instructed to keep the State Ministry of Justice informed about the course of the proceedings and to produce the files with an attached report about the result after the closing of the preliminary investigation, stating also what further action is intended. The public prosecutor at the Oberlandesgericht (Court of Appeal) in Munich has been notified and instructed that he also for his part is to pay particular attention to the proceedings. The preliminary in-vestigations will probably be conducted by Landgerichtsrat (Provincial Court Counsellor) Kissner, competent for the district of Dachau.

"The liaison officer with the Political Police, I. Staatsanwalt (first public prosecutor) Dr. Stepp, was instructed, according to orders, to communicate the decision of the Council of Ministers to the Chief of the Political Police, Himmler, and to the Chief of the Bavarian Political Police."

DR. SEIDL: Thank you, Mr. President.

HERR PELCKMANN: Witness, once again, I shall come back to the document which has just been read out by my colleague Seidl. When this document was put to you, you pointed out that this was an instruction concerning an incident which took place very early in 1933. During your interrogation, you, yourself, said that in the course of your investigation in later years you discovered that mur-ders had been hushed up by means of false reports on the facts. For that reason I would like to ask you once more: Is it correct that, when in the course of your investigation in later years you discovered cases of concealment, you fought against such procedure?

REINECKE: That was precisely one of our main activities. We had to counter these attempts of concealment which cropped up everywhere in the course of current proceedings. Repeatedly, in many different camps, we were able to ascertain by our commissions that such cases of concealment did exist, and in those cases we at once called the guilty party to account.

HERR PELCKMANN: Could your SS legal authorities take proceedings against such crimes already in 1933?

REINECKE: In 1933 there was not yet an SS jurisdiction, that is, no penal jurisdiction. Responsibility for carrying out such criminal proceedings lay with the criminal prosecution authorities of the general justice, and this becomes apparent from this document. It was their task to bring to judgment the guilty men responsible in such cases.

HERR PELCKMANN: A report, a document, has been put before you, Document D-924, GB-570, which refers to the horrible shooting of deportees by the escorts. You commented upon that and I noticed that you could not quite finish your statement, because I believe you wanted to add some details reflecting your personal impressions. Would you like to do that now?

REINECKE: Yes. I wanted to say that this deals with a convoy of prisoners and the accompanying escorts, and that my own state-ments about the guards referred exclusively to those in the camps, that is to say, those guards who were on duty outside the camps on watchtowers, et cetera, and who had to return to their billets after duty. These men, therefore, had nothing to do with the in-ternal affairs of the camps. Presumably such transports were carried out by members of the commanders' staffs.

HERR PELCKMANN: From the document containing the statis-tics regarding the strength of the SS on 30 June 1934-and I regret that the document number is not visible on my copy -- I should like to put to you the figure of 794,000 members of the SS in 1944. Wit-ness Brill yesterday told us higher figures, approximately 900,000 to a million. Since the witness Brill is no longer present, I should like to ask you if you are sufficiently informed as to whether the difference may be attributed to the fact that the figure mentioned by witness Brill also included the dead, those who had been killed, and therefore the figure given by witness Brill was not an incorrect statement on his part.

REINECKE: I have the knowledge necessary to answer the ques-tion because, working in the legal department, I constantly had to concern myself with the strength of the SS. I know that the state-ment by witness Brill corresponds to the facts. It is a fact, as stated by defendant's counsel, that the figure given by witness Brill includes the losses suffered by the Waffen-SS. The figures contained in this document must be increased by the number of killed in the course of the war, both of men and leaders, either low-ranking or senior, of the Waffen-SS, in order to draw conclusions regarding the real strength of the Waffen-SS.

BERR PELCKMANN: On Page 28 of the same document you have the numbers in the various offices. The final total is 39,415 members of the SS. -Do you still have the document before you, Witness?

REINECKE: No, unfortunately I have not.

[The document was handed to the witness.]

HERR PELCKMANN: You said that the figure representing the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office, which was respon-sible for the administration of the entire concentration camp system, was 24,091 persons. Does this mean persons who were carrying out purely clerical work? Were there in fact 24,000 clerks in that depart-ment? Or what does that figure mean?

REINECKE: The SS Economic and Administrative Main Office was a much inflated organization, which above all, as its name indicates, had at its disposal a large organization of firms and industries. All the employees of those industries which were for-mally attached to the Economic and Administrative Main Office were formally drafted into the SS in order to make them "uk.," that means to relieve them from compulsory service in. the Armed Forces.

HERR PELCKMANN: As I understood you earlier, you also said that the guards should be counted into that figure?

REINECKE: I had not finished my answer to that question. The guards in the concentration camps and the entire personnel in con-centration camps were also counted in the Economic and Administrative Main Office Department "Dora" as concerns personnel and organization, and thus they were exclusively under the jurisdiction of Pohl as the Chief of the Economic and Administrative Main Office. I assume that the number of those guards is included in the figure of 24,091.

BERR PELCKMANN: Would you please look at the figure of 987 SS members attached to the Reich Commissioner for the Strength-ening of German Folkdom, Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle. Merely as an example, were these 987 men the only employees of that depart-ment?

REINECKE: I know from my own experience as an SS judge that the department called "Reich Commissioner for the Strength-ening of German Folkdom" had at its disposal thousands of people who, as I said yesterday, were civil servants and were in no way connected with the SS. That figure of 987 members of the SS can be explained just in the same-way as all the other figures. They became members of the SS for the same reason; that is to say, in order to be classified as indispensable they had to be sheltered in an armed unit performing military duties, to prevent them from being drafted. Those persons had no real connection with the SS organization in any case, and it was merely for the technical reasons which I have described that they were taken over by the SS.

HERR PELCKMANN: Well then, these statistics which are before us show approximately 800,000 members of the SS. Is it correct,

Witness, that against that figure the statistics show that the con-centration camp organization employed only about 25,000 members of the SS?

REINECKE: In June 1944, which is the date of this document,

that is the correct proportion of men employed in concentration camps in comparison to the total strength of the SS, which is clearly evident from this document.

HERR PELCKMANN: May I now submit to Your Lordship the document which I unfortunately did not have at my disposal this morning.

[Turning to the witness.]

Witness, I will show it to you. Would you mind having a look at it. You know this document?

REINECKE: Yes, that document became known to me during the last 12 months.

HERR PELCKMANN: On Page 46 of that document there appears the testimony of a detainee who is referred to by the initials "E.H." The general impression is that the testimony was given before American interrogating authorities, and it reveals ...

THE PRESIDENT: Is this document in evidence?

HERR PELCKMANN: Your Lordship, it is not in my document book. I am merely putting it to the witness, but as Your Lordship desired to see the book, I submitted it to the Tribunal.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, but ... Well, what is the book? I do not know what it is. What is it? Where does it come from?

HERR PELCKMANN: I beg to be permitted to ask the witness just one question with reference to this.

THE PRESIDENT: No, no, you may not do that until you have told me where the book comes from. Where does the book come from?

HERR PELCKMANN: It comes from the library here. I just got it from the library. It is an official publication ...

THE PRESIDENT: I see.

HERR PELCKMANN: ... by a Colonel Quinn. On Page 46 there is the testimony of this detainee, and the impression given is that

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7 Aug. 46

that testimony had been given before interrogating authorities of the American Army.

[Turning to the witness.]

Can you say anything with reference to that testimony, which describes atrocious conditions and crimes?

REINECKE: Yes, I can give you information on that subject. This testimony is...

THE PRESIDENT: But, Dr. Pelckmann, the document is not yet in evidence, unless you offer it. Now, if you offer it, it is different. But you are carefully trying to contradict it. What is the good of contradicting a document which is not in evidence? We have never seen it.

HERR PELCKMANN: If Your Lordship would hear the witness, then you would discover that I am not trying to contradict the document.

THE PRESIDENT: Do you want to offer the document in evidence then?

HERR PELCKMANN: First of all, I should like to put it to the witness and then if I get your permission I should very much like to offer it in evidence.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, then, you offer it in evidence and you are relying upon the document, are you? Are you relying upon it or are you not?

HERR PELCKMANN: As far as I can quote from Page 46, yes.

TBE PRESIDENT: If you want to put it in for the purpose of relying on Page 46, you can do that.

HERR PELCKMANN: And the following pages, the entire testimony signed "E. H."

THE PRESIDENT: Go on.

HERR PELCKMANN: Witness, you understood my question?

REINECKE: Yes.

HERR PELCKMANN: Please will you answer it.

REINECKE: This testimony by "E.H." is the testimony of a female detainee, Eleanora Hodis from Auschwitz, and was made in the late autumn of 1944, under oath, before an SS judge. An investigating commission of the Main Office SS Courts had instituted proceedings against Grabner, Chief of the Police at Auschwitz, and various other participants, for the murder of detainees, and these people were indicted for murder in 2,000 cases.

As was always the case, considerable difficulties were met with in the attempt to clear up the facts. The female detainee, Eleanora

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Hodis, declared herself willing to assist the investigating commission of the SS court by giving evidence, provided the judges would guarantee her life. That guarantee was given, and it was possible to get Hodis out of Auschwitz and transfer her to Munich. In Munich, at the date indicated, she gave her testimony, with those gruesome details which were to form the basis of proceedings to be instituted against Hoess and many other people. However, due to the collapse of Germany the proceedings could not be carried through.

HERR PELCKMANN: Is it correct, therefore, Witness, that the conditions which are described here existed in the Dachau Concentration Camp, as it would appear ...

REINECKE: No.

HERR PELCKMANN: ... by being included in this book, because after all, this book deals with the Concentration Camp Dachau?

REINECKE: No, that is not correct. The testimony given by the witness Hodis refers exclusively to the atrocious and gruesome conditions at Auschwitz, and has nothing whatever to do with Dachau Camp.

HERR PELCKMANN: Finally, Your Lordship, I merely beg to be allowed to refer to Document D-959 which has been submitted by the British Delegation. When discussing the question ...

THE PRESIDENT: Give that document you just put in some number.

HERR PELCKMANN: The document "SS-Dachau"...

THE PRESIDENT: You can give it a number afterward. Do not delay now.

HERR PELCKMANN: I will merely look up the number of documents I have submitted up to now and then I will give them numbers.

When the Prosecution defined their attitude regarding the admissibility of that document, they said that it was regretted that the document could be submitted only so very late. In other words, as we all know, it ought to have been submitted during the presentation of evidence. At this stage, with reference to the hundreds of statements regarding the activity of the Waffen-SS in Czechoslovakia, I cannot now define my attitude and I, too, regret that the document arrived so very late. However, as it has now been admitted and as the Tribunal is taking judicial notice of it, I think I ought to have the possibility, therefore, of referring to the details which are brought up in support of the case for the Prosecution-its value cannot be assessed otherwise-so as to have the opportunity to define my attitude. For that purpose I beg to be granted a respite.

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THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Pelckmann, the Tribunal thinks that you must go on with your case and that you cannot be given further time. The Tribunal has said that they are bound to take judicial notice of the document under Article. 21 and this witness has told us he had never heard of the incidents-two incidents I think-to which counsel drew his attention.

HERR PELCKMANN: I am afraid I did not understand the translation of the last part of what you said, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: I said that you must go on with your case and that the Tribunal had admitted that document under Article 21, and that with reference to the two incidents to which counsel for the Prosecution referred, this witness has said that he has never heard of them.

HERR PELCKMANN: I have no further questions to this witness.

DR. GAWLIK: With reference to the Document D-960, submitted during cross-examination, I have a few questions to put to the witness.

THE PRESIDENT: Which document? Which document?

DR. GAWLIK: D-960, Exhibit Number GB-569.

[Turning to the witness.]

Witness, I shall once again have the document shown to you.

[The witness was handed the document.]

Was the SD responsible for dealing with this letter?

REINECKE: That question must be answered with "no." It becomes evident from its heading that the letter is addressed to the Security Police and SD at Strasbourg. The application of the term SD in this case is misleading; it was simply used by way of habit and had nothing to do with the organization of the SD.. It results from the Chief of the Reich Security Main Office calling himself "Chief of Security Police and the SD."

DR. GAWLIK: I have no further questions.

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Witness, I want to ask you a few questions about the investigation of the camps. You said your investigation began in 1943. What time in the year 1943 did your investigation begin of the concentration camps?

REINECKE: Your Lordship, that was during the second half of 1943, as far as I can recollect, either in June or July.

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): It lasted for a little under two years until the end of the war, I suppose.

REINECKE: Yes.

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THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): How many camps did you investigate?

REINECKE: It began in Buchenwald Camp, and thereafter investigating commissions were sent to every 'camp which had attracted suspicion.

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Witness, listen very carefully and answer the questions. All I asked you was how many camps did you investigate?

REINECKE: In all, investigations were made in 7 to 10 camps, but I cannot give you the exact figure at the moment. It varied from time to time.

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): You mean 7 to 10 in, all, altogether 7 to 10?

REINECKE: Yes, that is what I meant.

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Did that include labor training camps also?

REINECKE: By the 7 to 10 camps I mean the "Stammlager" (parent camps), that is the concentration camps themselves, and from there the investigation spread from the parent camp where the commission was stationed to the labor camps.

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): And that included Auschwitz and Dachau?

REINECKE: In both these concentration camps there were investigation commissions.

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): And Treblinka?

REINECKE: Not in Treblinka, Your Lordship.

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Did you investigate any camps outside of Germany?

REINECKE: Yes, for instance we had a commission in the Concentration Camp Hertogenbosch in Holland, and there proceedings were instituted against a camp commander, which ended in long terms of imprisonment.

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): How many investigators were you using at any one time?

REII,CKE: The total of investigating officials may have varied from 30 o 50 people, the majority of whom were not taken from the legal authorities but were experts from the Reich Security Main Office and from the Criminal Police.

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): No, I do not want-now, how many cases did you recommend for court action?

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REINECKE: Proceedings which ended with a sentence amounted to 200 up to the end of the war; that is to say, 200 sentences were passed which were actually carried out.

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Again I did not ask you that, Witness; I said, how many cases did you recommend for action. You made recommendations, did you not?

REINECKE: Altogether 800 cases, 800 proceedings were instituted in the course of the investigations.

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Where did you send your reports? Did you send them directly to the courts?

REINECKE: When the investigation was completed and when the case was ready for prosecution, the reports from the investigating commissions went, together with the judge's order to prosecute, to the court itself, which would then hold the actual trial and pronounce sentence.

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): And where did copies of the reports go? Did a copy go to the Minister of the Interior?

REINECKE: No, that I consider out of the question.

THE TRIBUNAL(Mr. Biddle): You mean the Minister of the' Interior was not concerned with any of this?

REINECKE: We are here concerned with criminal proceedings against members of the SS which, therefore, came under the penal jurisdiction of the SS and, as far as that is concerned, the Ministry of the Interior was not involved.

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): You mean you were only investigating cases that involved the SS?

REINECKE: All cases were investigated which originated in the camps, and these cases referred to SS members and also to Police members, that is to say, members of the Security Police who were brought to trial before the courts.

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Well now, you have not told us what conditions you found in the camps. You said they were very bad. What were they; what was going on in the camps?

REINECKE: We discovered through our investigations that in the camps there was to some extent a regular system of killing which was in use.

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): And as a result of discovering that there was a regular system of killing you thought there must be an order to that effect, although you never found it, is that right?

REINECKE: Yes, Your Lordship. The fact that an order from above was in existence became known to us at the end of 1944.

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THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Now, why did you think that there was a regular system of killing? Was it because there were so many killings?

REINECKE: For the reason that there were so many cases, and also because a system of co-operation between the concentration camp commanders with the criminal detainees could be established.

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): That is right. And how many of those 7 to 10 camps, how many commandants, were involved in these killings?

REINECKE: In practice the situation was such that practically every commander was brought under investigation and criminal proceedings were taken against five commanders in all.

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Five, five out of how many?

REINECKE: Altogether there were 12 commanders of concentration camps, because there were 12 large concentration camps, the so-called "Stamm" (parent) concentration camps.

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): So out of 12 investigated you started proceedings against 5, is that right?

REINECKE: Yes, that is so.

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Now, you said you thought that the killings must be on a large scale. Did you find any evidence of any of the gas chambers which added to your belief that it might be a large-scale operation? You found some evidence of gas chambers?

REINECKE: The first case in which a gas chamber appeared was the case of Auschwitz. That is the case, Your Lordship, that I have just mentioned here, with reference to the detainee Eleanora Hodis.

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): When was it that you got a report that a gas chamber was being used in Auschwitz? When?

REINECKE: That was at the end of October or the beginning of November 1944.

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Did you get figures of the numbers of persons who had died in these 10 concentration camps? Did you find out how many persons had died in the different camps? Did you get statistics?

REINECKE: No, Your Lordship, about that we received no information. We had to collect and look for all the material ourselves, but we had no survey.

TBE PRESIDENT: Can you remember the names of the five whom you prosecuted, the five commandants?

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REINECKE: They were the Commander of Buchenwald, Koch; the Commander at Lublin, whose name I cannot remember at the moment; and the Commander of the Hertogenbosch Camp, whose name I just remember, a certain Grunwald.

Further investigations were carried out against the Commander of Oranienburg, Loritz, and also against Kaindel, the later commander. The proceedings against him were discontinued, however, because proof was furnished that at the time when Kaindel was camp commander, no killings had occurred.

THE PRESIDENT: Did you prosecute Hoess? H-o-e-s-s?

REINECKE: At the end of 1944 we started proceedings against Hoess, based on the testimony of the detainee in protective custody who has just been mentioned.

THE PRESIDENT: What crime did you charge Hoess with?

REINECKE: May I please make this matter clear. Proceedings against Hoess had not advanced sufficiently to serve an indictment against him. It was still in the process of preliminary investigation. Material had to be collected first.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, you must have arrived at some decision about Hoess, surely. You must have known what crimes you were investigating. What were the crimes you were investigating against Hoess?

REINECKE: In the case of Hoess the crime of murder of unknown persons and unknown numbers of persons detained in the Concentration Camp Auschwitz was investigated.

THE PRESIDENT: Did you say that you never heard of the facts which were stated in Document EC-168, the document in which Himmler said that the number of deaths in the concentration camps must be reduced?

REINECKE: I had never seen that document before. The first time that I saw it was when it was submitted by defendants counsel here, but in the course of investigations, my judges had confirmed to me that instructions of that type were circulated in the camps and were actually observed.

THE PRESIDENT: The document, you remember, said that out of 136,000 persons in concentration camps, 70,000 had died.

REINECKE: I do not know at the moment which document you are referring to.

THE PRESIDENT: EC-168 is the document, and I wanted to know whether in the course of your investigations you found, you ascertained, those facts, namely, that 70,000 out of 136,000 had died?

REINECKE: No, such facts were not ascertained.

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HERR PELCKMANN: I have no questions, Your Lordship, but I should like to be permitted to make a suggestion. This witness until the end of the war was only the deputy chief of the Main Office SS Courts. The chief was a certain Herr Breithaupt, who has since died. In the first place the heads of the commissions reported to this departmental chief, and the SS judges who carried out the investigations in the camps are still alive, and the answer to all these questions which Your Lordship and Mr. Biddle have put, can be given in detail by the witness Morgen.

If I may be permitted another suggestion ...

THE PRESIDENT: But you have got some more witnesses to call, have you not? You have some more witnesses to call, have you not?

HERR PELCKMANN: During the entire Trial I have attempted to do without the witness Hinderfeld if possible. I have succeeded in putting the questions intended for witness Hinderfeld to the other witnesses I have called. If the Tribunal...

THE PRESIDENT: Well, Dr. Pelckmann. I do not understand what the object of this speech is. The witness has been examined, cross-examined, and re-examined, and examined by the Tribunal. Now he can retire and you can go on with your case.

HERR PELCKMANN: He can retire?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, the witness. can retire and the Tribunal will adjourn.

[A recess was taken.]

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Pelckmann, I am told that I may have misunderstood what you were saying to me just before the Tribunal adjourned and that you were asking whether you might be allowed to call some other witness in place of one of the witnesses you had already applied for. Is that so?

HERR PELCKMANN: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, who is ' it you want to call?

HERR PELCKMANN: Since I know the wish of the Court to shorten the proceedings, I had endeavored to ask the other witnesses the questions which I had intended for the fifth witness. I believe I succeeded in this, but from the interest that the Tribunal took in the question of the investigation of concentration camps, I thought that it might be very expedient, and I must say that it would be in the interest of the Defense, if the judge, Dr. Morgen, mentioned by the witness Reinecke, might be examined briefly on these matters. I would be in a position to examine this witness

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immediately, and would no longer require the witness Hinderfeld, who was to be examined.

THE PRESIDENT: You want to examine Dr. Morgen and to give up one of the other witnesses, is that right?

HERR PELCKMANN: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Very well, the Tribunal-he has been called before the Commission, I suppose, has he not?

HERR PELCKMANN: No, Your Lordship. There are affidavits from him. May I explain briefly why I could not examine him before the Commission? On 1 July the witness arrived here in Nuremberg after I had searched for him for a long time. Up to that time the witness was in Dachau without my being able to find out about it. On I July I was very busy with the last examinations before the Commission; for example, the witness Eberstein and the witness Reinecke I examined only on 5 and 6 July before the Commission, so that I could not prepare the testimony of this witness. As a result, I was able only after the end of the activity of the Commission to prepare affidavits with him. These are, I believe, Affidavits 65 and 67, but these affidavits do not show matters as clearly as if I were to examine him now, Your Lordship, and I respectfully submit that perhaps not I but the Tribunal might examine him if the rules allow this.

THE PRESIDENT: Who is the witness you are intending to dispense with?

HERR PELCKKANN: Hinderfeld.

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Elwyn Jones, what view do the Prosecution take to this application?

MAJOR JONES: I suggest, My Lord, that it is-that it might be possible for a fuller affidavit to be taken by this witness and that might possibly meet the case. But in view of the fact that the Defense are abandoning one witness, I would not press that view, but I do respectfully suggest that, in view of the time that has been taken on this organization, that an affidavit might be appropriate, particularly as Dr. Pelckmann is dealing with matters-dealing with that part of the case in which the Tribunal is especially interested.

THE PRESIDENT: What do you say to that, Dr. Pelckmann? Could you not put the same questions to this witness, and could he not incorporate into his affidavit the point you want him to? He has already had three affidavits.

HERR PELCKMANN: Certainly, Your Lordship. I have in mind the following. The Prosecution called a witness, Sievers, in order further to support their position and I think that if I want to support the testimony of the witness Reinecke by calling another witness here that might be more or less on the same basis, and by the

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testimony of a witness the matters of the concentration camps, the secret sphere of the concentration camp organization and the penetration of the legal authorities into it, might be cleared up more thoroughly for the Court than by an affidavit.

THE PRESIDENT: This witness of yours, is he here?

HERR PELCKMANN: He is in the witness building.

THE PRESIDENT: Were you proposing to call him next?

HERR PELCKMANN: I could do so. If the Prosecution wish to call their two witnesses first, I could interrupt, Your Lordship.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Pelckmann, have you any idea as to how long you will be with this witness if you do' call him?

HERR PELCKMANN: Forty-five minutes to an hour.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, then, if you wish it, and you dispense with calling the witness Dr. Hindenberg, or whatever his name is, you may call Dr. Morgen.

HERR PELCKMANN: Thank you, Your Lordship. I call the witness Dr. Morgen.

MAJOR JONES: If Your Lordship pleases, the witness is, of course, in the prison at the moment, and it might therefore be convenient to call the witness for whom Dr. Pelckmann has asked for cross-examination, who is available immediately, and no doubt the Marshal can make the necessary arrangements for the other one.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Sievers, is it not?

MAJOR JONES: No, My Lord, there is a short one first, the witness Izrael Eizenberg, whose affidavit is Document Number D-939, GB-563.

THE PRESIDENT: Eisberg?

MAJOR JONES: Your Lordship, Eizenberg, it is.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Marshal, will you bring in Eizenberg and send for Morgen.

[The witness Eizenberg took the stand.]

THE PRESIDENT: Will you state your full name, please.

IZRAEL EIZENBERG (Witness): Izrael Eizenberg.

THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat this oath after me:

I swear by God-the Almighty and Omniscient-that I will speak the pure truth-and will withhold and add nothing.

[The witness repeated the oath.]

THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down.

MAJOR JONES: Witness-I just want to put the statement to the witness, My Lord-Witness, are you Izrael Eizenberg, of 203, Reinsburgstrasse, Stuttgart?

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EIZENBERG: Yes.

MAJOR JONES: Will you look at the affidavit D-939, Exhibit GB-563. Just look at it. Is that your statement?

EIZENBERG: Yes, I signed it.

MAJOR JONES: And is it true?

EIZENBERG: Yes, it is.

MAJOR JONES: Witness, I notice you have a scar on your face. Will you tell the Tribunal how it was caused?

EIZENBERG: Yes, I can tell the Tribunal. In October 1942-at the end of October 1942-I was shot at in Maidanek Camp together with many other Jews. The bullet hit my left cheek and I lay there from 9:30 in the evening until 4:30 in the morning. When people were removing the corpses, I was taken away with another man whose name was Stagel; we were the only survivors.

MAJOR JONES: And how many were killed on that occasion?

EIZENBERG: At 9:30 in the evening groups composed of about 1,000 or more people were conducted to a field. I was among them. Then they fired at us and I remained, lying on the field until 4:30 in the morning.

MAJOR JONES: Now, just answer this last question, who were the killers?

EIZENBERG: They were SS men in SS uniforms.

MAJOR JONES: I have no further questions, My Lord.

HERR PELCKMANN: Witness, I know your affidavit. As far as I can see from it, you were in Lublin, at first in Lublin. Were there SS men there too, whom you got to know?

EIZENBERG: Yes, I knew many of them. I was working in the SS staff offices as an electrician and I was there very often in order to make electrical installations.

HERR PELCKMANN: In your affidavit you have given some names-Riedel, Mohrwinkel, and Schramm.

EIZENBERG: Yes, I knew them personally.

HERR PELCKMANN: They were on this staff?

EIZENBERG: Yes, they were on the staff, and its office was located at 21 Warsaw Street.

HERR PELCKMANN: Do you also know exactly the ranks which you mentioned in your affidavit as being held by these persons?

EIZENBERG: Yes, I know them.

HERR PELCKMANN: What, for example, was Riedel?

EIZENBERG: Riedel was an Unterscharfuehrer.

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HERR PELCKMANN: And Mohrwinkel?

EIZENBERG: At first he was a Rottenfuehrer and then, as a result of this action, he was promoted to Untersturmfuehrer.

HERR PELCKMANN: You just said that Riedel was an Unterscharfuehrer. In your affidavit you said he was an Oberscharfuehrer.

EIZENBERG: He had white braid on his shoulder-straps.

HERR PELCKATANN: Now, I show you a picture. Please tell me whether that is Riedel or Mohrwinkel, and what is the rank of this SS man.

EIZENBERG: This man is neither Mohrwinkel nor Riedel.

HERR PELCKMANN: And what is his rank?

EIZENBERG: It seems to me that he is a Rottenfuehrer, because there-is nothing on his shoulder-straps, and only a badge on his sleeve.

HERR PELCKMANN: Thank you. Now, I shall show you another picture. If I remember the other picture correctly, this would, also have to be a Rottenfuehrer?

EIZENBERG: I cannot tell with certainty, but the other one had on his shoulder-straps a white edge all round and here I see two white stripes on this photo,

HERR PELCKMANN: Thank you, Witness.

THE PRESIDENT: Is that all you wanted?

HERR PELCKMANN: I have no more questions, Your Lordship.

THE PRESIDENT: The witness can retire.

HERR PELCKMANN: For the information of the Tribunal, I should like to say that these photographs came from the book in Polish on the Warsaw atrocities submitted by the Prosecution yesterday, and the photographs do not show men of the Waffen-SS at all, but policemen. The witness did not notice that.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, the witness said he had never seen them before. The witness said he had never seen the man before. We do not need to argue about it. Now, who is your next witness?

HERR PELCKMANN: May I submit these pictures to the Tribunal or are they known? They are in the Polish book, in Polish, on Pages VIII, no, IX and XI. It is merely a question of uniform, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: You can certainly put them in if you think it worth while; but now will you get on with your case. Is there another witness that you are going to call before Dr. Morgen?

HERR PELCKMANN: Yes; I believe the witness Sievers was called by the Prosecution, Your Lordship.

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THE' PRESIDENT: Well, is he here?

THE MARSHAL: Yes, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, call him then.

THE MARSHAL: Both witnesses are here now, Your Honor, both Sievers and Morgen.

THE PRESIDENT: We will go on with Sievers now.

MAJOR JONES: Perhaps, My Lord-you did indicate, My Lord, it might be more convenient for Dr. Pelckmann to finish with his witness before Dr. Sievers.

THE PRESIDENT: Very well, I do not mind. Call Dr. Morgen then.

[The witness Morgen took the stand.]

Will you state your full name, please?

GEORG KONRAD MORGEN (Witness): Georg Konrad Morgen.

THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat this oath after me:

I swear by God-the Almighty and Omniscient-that I will speak the pure truth-and will withhold and add nothing.

[The witness repeated the oath.]

THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down.

HERR PELCKMANN: Witness, in view of the importance of your testimony, I will first ask you in detail about your person. Were you an SS judge of the Reserve?

MORGEN: Yes.

HERR PELCKMANN: Please speak slowly and pause after each question.

What training did you have?

MORGEN: I studied law at the Universities of Frankfurt on the Main, Rome, Berlin; at the "Acad6mie de Droit International" at 'The Hague and the "Institute for World Economy and Ocean Traffic" in Kiel. I passed the first examination and the State law examination. Before the war I was a judge at the Landgericht in Stettin.

HERR PELCKMANN: Were you a specialist in criminology and in criminal law?

MORGEN: No, I had specialized in international law, but later, during the war, when I had to deal with criminal matters and penal law, I did special work in that field.

HERR PELCKMANN: How did you come to the SS?

MORGEN: I was drafted compulsorily into the General SS. In 1933, 1 belonged to the Reich Board for Youth Training, whose ,students' group was completely incorporated into the General SS. At the beginning of the war I was drafted into the Waffen-SS.

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HERR PELCKMANN: What rank did you have there?

MORGEN: In the General SS I was Staffelanwarter and SS Rottenfuehrer. In the Waffen-SS I was in the end Sturmbannfuehrer of the Reserve.

HERR PELCKMANN: What example can you give that you did not believe you were joining a conspiracy when you entered the SS-very briefly; please.

MORGEN: In 1936 I published a book on War Propaganda and the Prevention of War. This book, at a time when war was threatening, showed ways and means to prevent war and to forestall the incitement to hostility between nations. The book was examined by the Party and published. Therefore, I could not suppose that the SS or the policy of the Reich Government was directed toward war.

HERR PELCKMANN: How did you come to make investigations in the concentration camps?

MORGEN: At the order of the Reichsfuehrer SS, and due to my special abilities in criminology, I was detailed by the Main Office SS Courts to the Reich Criminal Police Department in Berlin, which was equivalent to a transfer. Shortly after I arrived there, I was given an assignment to investigate a case of corruption in Weimar. The accused was a member of the concentration camp of Weimar-Buchenwald. The investigations soon led to the person of the former Commander Koch and many of his subordinates, and beyond that they affected a number of other concentration camps. When these investigations became more extensive, I received full authority from the Reichsfuehrer SS to engage generally in such investigations in concentration camps.

HERR PELCKMANN: Why was a special power of attorney from the Reichsfuehrer necessary?

MORGEN: For the guards of the concentration camps, the SS and Police courts were competent; that is, in each case the local court in whose district the concentration camp was located. For that reason, because of the limited jurisdiction of its judge, the court was not able to act outside its own district. In these investigations and their extensive ramifications it was important to be able to work in various districts. Besides that, it was necessary to use specialists in criminal investigation, in other words, the Criminal Police. The Criminal Police however could not carry on any investigation directly with the troops, and only by combining juridical and Criminal Police activities was it possible to clear this up, and for this purpose I was given this special power of attorney by the Reichsfuehrer.

HERR PELCKMANN: Now, how extensive did these investigations become? You can be brief because the witness Reinecke answered this point in part.

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MORGEN: I investigated Weimar-Buchenwald, Lublin, Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen, Oranienburg, Hertogenbosch, Krakow; Plaszow, Warsaw, and the Concentration Camp Dachau. And others were investigated after my time.

HERR PELCKMANN: How many cases did you investigate? How many sentences were passed? How many death sentences?

MORGEN: I investigated about 800 cases, that is, about 800 documents, and one document would affect several cases. About 200 were tried during my activity. Five concentration camp commanders were arrested by me personally. Two were shot after being tried.

HERR PELCKMANN: You had them shot?

MORGEN: Yes. Apart from the commanders, there were numerous other death sentences against Fuehrer and Unterfuehrer.

HERR PELCKMANN: Did you have any opportunity of gaining personal insight into the conditions in concentration camps?

MORGEN: Yes, because I had authority to visit concentration camps. Only a very few persons had this permission. Before beginning an investigation, I examined the concentration camp in question in all its details very closely, inspecting especially those arrangements which seemed particularly important to me. I visited them repeatedly and without notice. I was working mostly in Buchenwald itself for 8 months and have lived there. I was in Dachau for one or two months.

HERR PELCKMANN: Since so many visitors to concentration camps say they were deceived, do you consider it possible that you, too, were a victim of such deceit?

MORGEN: I have just pointed out that I was not a mere visitor to a concentration camp but I had settled down there for a long residence, I might almost say I established myself there. It is almost impossible to be deceived for such a long time. In addition, the commissions from the Reich Criminal Police Department worked under my instructions, and I placed them directly in the concentration camps themselves. I do not mean to say that in spite of these very intensive efforts I was able to learn of all the crimes, but I believe that there was no deception in regard to what I did learn.

HERR PELCKMANN: Did you gain the impression, and at what time, that the concentration camps were places for the extermination of human beings?

MORGEN: I did not gain this impression. A concentration camp is not a place for the extermination of human beings. I must say that my first visit to a concentration camp-I mentioned the first one was Weimar-Buchenwald-was a great surprise to me. The

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camp is situated on wooded heights, with a wonderful view. The installations were clean and freshly painted. There was much lawn and flowers. The prisoners were healthy, normally fed, sun-tanned, working ...

PRESIDENT: When are you speaking of? When are you speaking of?

MORGEN: I am speaking of the beginning of my investigations in July 1943.

HERR PELCKMANN: What crimes did you discover?

MORGEN: Pardon me, I had not-may I continue?

HERR PELCKMANN: Please, be more brief.

MORGEN: The installations of the camp were in good order, especially the hospital. The camp authorities, under the Commander Diester, aimed at providing the prisoners with an existence worthy of human beings. They had regular mail service. They had a large camp library, even books in foreign languages. They had variety shows, motion pictures, sporting contests and even had a brothel. Nearly all the other concentration camps were similar to Buchenwald.

PRESIDENT: What was it they even had?

MORGEN: A brothel.

HERR PELCKMANN: What crimes did you learn about?

MORGEN: As I said before, the investigations were based on a suspicion of corrupt practices. In time however, I was obliged to come to the conclusion that besides those crimes, killings had also occurred.

HERR PELCKMANN: How did you reach the suspicion that killings had occurred?

MORGEN: I learned that the starting point for the corruption was the assignment of Jews to the camps after the action of 1938. I made it a point to learn all the possible facts about this action, and in doing so I found that the majority of the prisoners who were suspected of knowing something about these cases of corruption, had died. This peculiar frequency of killings was noticeable; it struck me because other prisoners who were not in any key positions remained in Buchenwald for years in the best of health, and were still there, so that it was rather remarkable that it was just certain prisoners who might have been possible witnesses who had died. I thereupon examined the files concerning these deceased prisoners. The files themselves offered no clues to suspect illegal killings. The dates of the deaths were years apart and in each case different causes of death were given. But it struck me that the majority of these deceased, prisoners had been put into the camp

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hospital or in arrest shortly before their death. This aroused my suspicion for the first time that in these two places murders of prisoners might possibly have occurred. Thereupon I appointed a special official, whose sole task was to investigate the suspicious circumstances, and follow up the rumors which were circulating about the detention quarters, the so-called "Bunker," regarding this killing of prisoners. This very zealous and able detective had to report again and again that he had not found the faintest clue for my suspicions. After two weeks of completely unsuccessful activity, the detective refused further services and asked me ironically whether I myself believed that such rumors of illegal killing of prisoners could be true. Much later, and only by chance did I hit upon the first clue; it struck me that the names of certain prisoners were listed at the same time in the rolls of the camp prison as well as in those of the hospital. In the prison rolls, for example, it said, "Date of release 9 May, 12 o'clock." In the hospital register, "Patient died 9 May, 9:15 a.m." I said to myself, this prisoner cannot be in the camp prison and at the same time a patient in the hospital. False entries must have been made here. I therefore concentrated my efforts on this and I succeeded in getting behind this system, for it was a system, under Commander Koch.

The prisoners were taken to a secret place and were killed there, mostly in a cell of the camp prison, and sick reports and death certificates were prepared for the files. They were made out so cleverly that any unprejudiced reader of the documents would get the impression that the prisoner concerned had actually been treated and had died of the seri6us illness which was indicated.

HERR PELCKMANN: Then what did you do after learning of these facts?

MORGEN: I found out that the medical officer at Buchenwald, SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Dr. Hoven, was principally responsible and I had him arrested. I informed my investigating commission in the concentration camps, with which we had to deal, of these cunning forgeries and directed their particular attention to investigating systematically whether in other concentration camps such murders had also taken place. We satisfied ourselves at the time of the investigation-and I am speaking of the second half of 1943-that in the Concentration Camps Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, and Dachau to the best of our knowledge no such killings occurred. In the other concentration camps, however, such cases were found. The persons believed to be guilty were accused, arrested, and charged.

HERR PELCKMANN: Why was this not done earlier?

MORGEN: I have already said that these deceptive measures were so cunningly contrived that it was not possible to discover them earlier. Above all there was no possibility of clearing up the

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matter, and then those things-were always done without witnesses. These cases should at all events have been investigated by the SS courts and they were investigated, for every unnatural death of a prisoner had to be reported by teletype to the central offices. Besides that, the specially sworn-in court officer who was in the camp had to go immediately to the place of the occurrences to question the witnesses; sketches and photographs had to be made of the scene and it was a regulation that an autopsy had to take place in every such case of unnatural death. These reports of unnatural deaths, or of deaths suspected of being unnatural, were sent regularly to the SS and Police court; but as I have already said, these reports were so cunningly contrived and the files were in such good order, that even an expert could not have suspected an illegal killing. Of course, proceedings against members of the concentration camp personnel were frequently instituted, some followed by sentences, even death sentences. But these criminal acts seemed to be within range of the usual army rate of 0.5 percent to 3 percent.

If nothing at all had been reported to the SS courts from the concentration camps, or if numerous reports had been made, then it would of course have seemed suspicious. But it was a normal average and nobody could suspect that the concentration camps were a hotbed of such dangerous crimes. It was only through my investigation, which as I said was caused by accident, that we received our first insight into the true state of affairs.

HERR PELCKMANN: How did you come onto the track of mass killings? You have just spoken of individual killings.

MORGEN: I found traces of mass destructions also by chance. At the end of 1943, 1 discovered two trails at the same time, one leading to Lublin and the other to Auschwitz.

HERR PELCKMANN: Please describe the Lublin trail first.

MORGEN: One day I received a report from the commander of the Security Police in Lublin. He reported that in a Jewish labor camp in his district a Jewish wedding had taken place. There had been 1,100 invited guests at this wedding

HERR PELCKMANN: Go on witness, a little faster.

MORGEN: As I said before, 1,100 guests participated in this Jewish wedding. What followed was described as quite extraordinary owing to the gluttonous consumption of food and alcoholic drinks. Among these Jews were members of the camp guard, that is to say some SS men, who joined in this revelry. This report only came into my hands in a roundabout way, some months later, due to the fact that the Commander of the Security Police suspected that the circumstances indicated that some criminal acts had occurred. This was my impression as well, and I thought that this

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report would give me a clue to another big case of criminal corruption. With this in mind, I went to Lublin and called at the Security/ Police there, but all they would tell me was that the events happened at a camp of the Deutsche Ausrustungswerke. But nothing was known there. I was told it might possibly be a rather odd and shrouded (this was the actual term used) camp in the vicinity of Lublin. I found out the camp and the commander, who was Kriminalkommissar Wirth.

I asked Wirth whether this report was true or what it meant. To my great astonishment, Wirth admitted it. I asked him why he permitted members of his command to do such things and Wirth then revealed to me that on the Fuehrer's orders he had to carry out the destruction of Jews.

HEIRR PELCKMANN: Please go on, Witness, to describe your investigations.

MORGEN: I asked Wirth what this had to do with the Jewish wedding. Then, Wirth described the method by which he carried out the extermination of Jews, and he said something like this: "One has to fight the Jews with their own weapons, that is to say "pardon me for using this expression-"one has to cheat them."

Wirth staged an enormous deceptive maneuver. He first selected Jews who would, he thought, serve as column leaders, then these Jews brought along other Jews, who worked under them. With that smaller or medium-sized detachment of Jews, he began to build up the extermination camps. He extended this staff of Jews, and with these Jews Wirth himself carried out the extermination of the Jews.

Wirth said that he had four extermination camps and that about 5,000 Jews were working at the extermination of Jews and the seizure of Jewish property. In order to win Jews for this business of extermination and plundering of their brethren of race and creed, Wirth gave them every freedom and, so to speak, gave them a financial interest in the spoliation of the dead victims. As a result of this attitude, this sumptuous Jewish wedding had come about.

Then I asked Wirth how he killed Jews with these Jewish agents of his. Wirth described the whole procedure that went off like a film every time. The extermination camps were in the east of the Government General, in big forests or uninhabited wastelands. They were built up like a Potemkin village. The people arriving there had the impression of entering a city or a township. The train drove into a dummy railroad station. After the escorts and the train personnel had left the area, the cars were opened and the Jews got out. They were surrounded by these Jewish labor detachments, and Kriminalkommissar Wirth or one of his representatives made a speech. He said, "Jews, you were brought here to be resettled, but

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before we organize this future Jewish State, you must of course learn how to work. You must learn a new trade. You will be taught that here. Our routine here is, first, every one must take off his clothes so that your clothing can be disinfected, and you can have a bath so that no epidemics will be brought into the camp."

After he had found such calming words for his victims, they started on the road to death. Men and women were separated. At the first place, one had to deliver the hat; at the next one, the coat, collar, shirt, down to the shoes and socks. These places were faked cloakrooms, and the person was given a check at each one so that the people believed that they would get their things back. The other Jews had to receive the things and hurry up the new arrivals so that they should not have time to think. The whole thing was like an assembly line. After the last stop they reached a big room, and were told that this was the bath. When the last one was in, the doors were shut and the gas was let into the room.

As soon as death had set in, the ventilators were started. When the air could be breathed again, the doors were opened, and the Jewish workers removed the bodies. By means of a special procedure which Wirth had invented, they were burned in the open air without the use of fuel.

HERR PELCKMANN: Was Wirth a member of the SS?

MORGEN: No, he was a Kriminalkommissar in Stuttgart.

HERR PELCKMANN: Did you ask Wirth how he arrived at this devilish system?

MORGEN: When Wirth took over the extermination of the Jews, he was already a specialist in mass-destruction of human beings. He had previously carried out the task of getting rid of the incurably insane. By order of the Fuehrer himself, whose order was transmitted through the Chancellery of the Fuehrer, he had, at the beginning of the war, set up a detachment for this purpose, probably composed of a few officials of his, as I believe, the remainder being agents and spies of the Criminal Police.

Wirth very vividly described how he went about carrying out this assignment. He received no aid, no instructions, but had to do it all by himself. He was only given an old empty building in Brandenburg. There he made his first experiments. After much consideration and many individual experiments, he evolved his later system, and then this system was used on a large scale to exterminate the insane.

A commission of doctors previously investigated the files, and those insane who were listed by the asylums as incurable were put on a separate list. Then the asylum concerned was told one day to send these patients to another institution. From this asylum

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the patient was transferred again, often more than once. Finally he came to Wirth's institution, where he was killed by gas and cremated.

This system, which deceived the asylums and made them unknowing accomplices, enabled him with very few assistants to exterminate large numbers of people, and this system Wirth now employed with a few alterations and improvements for the extermination of Jews. He was also given the assignment by the Fi1hrer's Chancellery to exterminate the Jews.

HERR PELCKMANN: The statements which Wirth made to you must have surpassed human imagination. Did you immediately believe Wirth?

MORGEN: At first Wirth's description seemed completely fantastic to me, but in Lublin I saw one of his camps. It was a camp which collected the property or part of the property of his victims. From the piles of things-there were an enormous number of watches piled up-I had to realize that something frightful was going on here. I was shown the valuables. I can say that I never saw so much money at one time, especially foreign money-all kinds of coins, from all over the world. In addition, there was a goldsmelting furnace and really prodigious bars of gold.

I also saw that the headquarters from which Wirth directed his operations was very small and inconspicuous., He had only three or four people working there for him. I spoke to them too.

I saw and watched his couriers arrive. They actually came from Berlin, Tiergartenstrasse, the Fi1hrer's Chancellery, and went back there. I investigated Wirth's mail and I found in it confirmation of all this.

Of course, I could not do or see all this on this first visit. I was there frequently. I pursued Wirth up to his death.

HERR PELCKMANN: Did Wirth give you names of people who were connected with this operation?

MORGEN: Not many names were mentioned, for the simple reason that the number of those who participated could be counted, so to speak, on one's fingers. I remember one name: I think the name was Blankenburg, in Berlin.

HERR PELCKMANN: Blankenburg?

MORGEN: Blankenburg, of the Fi1hrer's Chancellery.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we had better adjourn now. We have already been 50 minutes.

[The Tribunal adjourned until 8 August 1946 at 1000 hours.]