A. No. That is quite clear; it was ordered and what could we do? Q. And therefore the responsibility of it was yours? A. You mean for these orders when they came out? Q. Yes. Now, have you recollected about the order for the branding of Russian prisoners of war?* A. You mean the one that was shown to me a little while ago? Q. Yes. A. I did not give this order. General Graevenitz gave that order, and as soon as we learned about it, why it was recalled at once. Q. That doesn't correspond with the facts either. A. Well, that is certainly so. Q. No, it isn't so. I show you a photostatic copy of an order dated 20 July 1942, and ask you if you can identify that as an official order. (The document was submitted to the witness.)** A. Yes. I have already read this; I read it before. Q. What is the date of it? A. The 20th of July. It is quite clear that it was not issued by me, but by the Chief of the Prisoner of War Department; and it does not say "AWA" up here. Q. I don't care whether you issued it or not. I didn't ask you anything about that. It is your responsibility, whether you issued it or not. What I want to know is, what date did you claim that that order was withdrawn? A. That I don't know any more. Just as soon as we learned about this order Q. I am sure you don't know it any more, and you never did know it. A. Yes, I knew it, because we ourselves put it into effect: Q. I know you put it into effect, but you didn't get it withdrawn. A. Yes, it was recalled, and as far as I know it was never carried out. Q. That isn't true. A. As far as I know, it never was applied. Q. Are you trying to say that you personally withdrew it? A. As far as I know and as far as I remember I gave the order to Graevenitz to recall it, and that was with the consent of Keitel. That is, after we had learned that Graevenitz had issued such an order. Q. Why would you give an order to withdraw an order which you say you had nothing to do with? *See second footnote, p. 1606 of this volume. **Document referred to did not form part of prosecution case as finally prepared and hence is not published in this series. A. I didn't say I had nothing to do with it; I merely said I didn't sign it. Q. You said you caused it to be withdrawn. A. Yes, I said that. Q. I say, why would you cause to be withdrawn an order which you had nothing to do with issuing? A. Graevenitz was my subordinate. A. Well, as far as my powers of command were concerned, I had to do this. Q. Well, then, you knew all about the issuance of this order. A. As soon as we learned about it, we had it recalled at once. Q. How did you find out about it? A. That I don't know any more today, but it is very probable that somebody told me about it. Q. I don't care what is probable; if you don't know it, don't try to tell me about it. Now, did Speer tell you that he wanted you to stop killing off so many Russian prisoners of war so that he would have more to do work? A. That was discussed yesterday, but as far as I know Speer was not even the Minister for Armaments at that time. Q. Well, you saw the reference to Speer in the order which I showed you yesterday, didn't you? A. Yes. Q. What do you think it was there for? A. As far as I know, he always received copies so that he could commit labor. Q. So he could do what? A. For labor commitments. Q. Did you have any personal conversations with Speer with regard to Russian prisoners of war? A. Oh God, that is very difficult to say. I talked to Speer so many times. Q. And if Speer says he discussed that whole problem with you, would you say he was not telling the truth? A. I discussed this problem with many people, and it may well be that I discussed it with Speer. Q. Then you don't deny having discussed it with Speer? Q. Anything is possible. I say do you deny it or do you admit it? A. Well, what I mean to say is that we discussed these things with so many people because we were so much involved in them that it is difficult to say whether or not I discussed them with Speer. Q. I am glad to hear you say you were involved in them. XXIV. WALTER SCHELLENBERG* Excerpts from Testimony of Walter Schellenberg, taken Negotiations for Evacuation of Jews in Return for Asylum for High Nazis Q. Did you have some other note that you wish to refer to? A. I thought the situation of the concentration camps over, and I would like to add that during the final period, meaning from September 1944 on, since Kaltenbrunner was living near to Hitler, that he could take responsibility for the treatment given in the concentration camps. Q. When you use the term "living near to Hitler," just what do you mean? A. It was the time he appeared daily for reports at the Reich Chancellery. Q. Do you mean that they also were quartered near each other or only met on official matters? A. He did not actually live there, but he would stay from 3:00 or 4:00 p.m., till late at night and also up to 4:00 a.m. Q. Do you know that of your own knowledge? A. Yes. Q. Were you ever present at such meetings? A. No. I would only occasionally accompany him to the Reich Chancellery, and two or three times I would make reports to him there. Q. But you know it to be a fact that Kaltenbrunner and Hitler stayed late together at night? A. Yes. Q. And it is your own deduction that whatever actions Hitler recommended for the concentration camps in these later months Kaltenbrunner must have been informed? A. I have one concrete example. Q. Will you state it? *Walter Schellenberg was Chief of Amt VI (Foreign Political Intelligence Service) and Amt Mil (Military Bureau) of the RSHA, with the rank of Brigadefuehrer (Brig. Gen.). He also held the title of General of Police and Waffen SS. See Affidavit D, vol. VIII, p. 622. 768060-48-103 A. On the 10th of April 1945 when a certain Mr. Musy visited me in Berlin, he told me that the concentration camp Buchenwald had actually been evacuated, which was contrary to assurances given him by Himmler. Thereupon I phoned on the one hand Himmler, and on the other hand I discussed this matter at lunch with Kaltenbrunner. Kaltenbrunner stated, however, that this was done on a directive of Hitler, and that this camp had to be evacuated on his order, and Group Leader Mueller added “You Kaltenbrunner, told me already three or four days earlier tha: I should evacuate the Jews from this camp to the south." Ther Kaltenbrunner said, "Yes, yes, that's correct. Besides, there is a general directive of Hitler to the effect that all camps should be evacuated, and that especially Jews should be regarded as hostages and be brought to the south." Then he said, turning towards me, "There are still enough people remaining in the camp so that you can console Mr. Musy with that." Q. Musy was the former President of Switzerland? A. No. He was the son of the former President of Switzerland. Q. And his mission was to have as many Jews evacuated to Switzerland as possible? A. Yes. Q. And what had been the arrangement or agreement that Himmler was interested in? A. Himmler first gave the assurance that in February 1,200 Jews would be sent to Switzerland by train, and that from ther on every two weeks another train should be sent to Switzerland. I had to organize the whole thing, but suddenly a stop occurred. and we were threatened with the death penalty for every Jew who crossed the Reich frontier, and this was done on the basis of an order by Hitler. This order was given after a code message of the deGaulle office in Spain to an office in Paris was intercepted and decoded. which said that Mr. Musy and a representative of Himmler were in negotiations with a Jewish organization for the purpose of evacuating all Jews living in Germany, and that the price for it. so to speak, would be the right of asylum for about 250 Nazi leaders. Himmler furthermore gave the assurance to Mr. Musy, after Hitler had forbidden further transfers of Jews, that no concentration camp would be evacuated, and Musy was instructed by Himmler to inform the Allied Western Powers officially of this second agreement. And with this official instruction Mr. Musy left Berlin on April 7. Excerpts from Testimony of Walter Schellenberg, taken Use of Russian P/W's Behind the Russian Lines Q. You have mentioned the operation Zeppelin. Will you tell us about your participation in this? A. The operation Zeppelin was initiated in 1942. The purpose of this organization was to choose from a selection of Russian prisoners intelligent and suitable men to be deployed on the eastern front behind the Russian lines. This work was done by our own Commandos of the operation Zeppelin. The PW's thus selected were turned over to Commandos in the rear, who trained the prisoners. They were trained in assignments of the secret messenger service and in wireless communications. In order to furnish these prisoners with a motive for work, they were treated extremely well. They were shown the best possible kind of Germany. This was accomplished by trips around Germany where they were shown industry and farms, and superhighways. Q. What was your particular function in connection with the training of these units? A. I laid down the policy for the training, but did not myself participate in the execution of the plan. I remember only that one time in 1943 I called a meeting of the Commando leaders at Breslau. This was necessary because after Stalingrad and the general withdrawal in Russia, the influencing of the Russian prisoners had become increasingly difficult. Therefore, it became necessary to change from a mass deployment of Russian prisoners, such as dropping them by parachute, to using a few highlyskilled; intelligent Russians who were with us because of their conviction. Q. At approximately what period of time was this change noticeable? A. That was in January 1943. Q. Thereafter, you were confined to the very limited group that you have just described? A. Yes. Thereafter we attempted to select prisoners from the larger PW camps where every kind of category had been thrown together. We tried to select those who would be valuable to us and confine them to one special camp. |