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 What I want to know is, what date did you claim that that order was withdrawn?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 Q. I know you put it into effect, but you didn't get it withdrawn.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 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 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 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. |