Albert Hartl on Kiev

Source: NO-5384.  The Holocaust: Selected Documents in Eighteen Volumes. Vol 10, page 220-221

Comment:  Albert Hartl made a series of rather odd claims regarding Kiew.  This is one of them.

Text:
Affidavit
I, Albert HARTL, swear, despose and state:
1.  I was born in Roschholzen on 13 November 1904.  I attended elementary school in Hofkirchen from 1910 to 1914.  From 1914 to 1919 I attended the Latin School in Schayern and from 1919 to 1923 the Gymnasium in Freising.  Then I was at the High School there for a year and 4 years at Munich University.  I studied philosophy and theology.

2.  Early in 1934 I received an offer from Himmler to work on a scientific assignment for him.  In the year 1935 I took over the Intelligence Service concern church affairs.  Early in the year 1941 I came to Office IV.  Because I had differences of opinion with my officer chief Mueller, in which he reproached me for being too soft, Mueller as a punishment wanted to assign me to a shooting kommando in Kiev.  Since this task did not appeal to me, I went to Heydrich and complained.  Heydrich told me he saw my point of view and gave me a scientific assignment which I was to carry out in the east.


3.  In March or April 1942 I met Paul Blobel in Kiev.  When we were both making a trip to the estate of the commander in chief in Kiev, Dr. Thomas, on the outskirts of the city, in the vicinity of the cemetery, Blobel showed me a certain place and said that Jews whom he had killed with his Kommando were buried there.  It was an old tank ditch, which was later filled in.  Blobel menitoned that these executions were carried out on the advance march.

4.  I got to know Von Radetzky in Kiev.  He told me that he was liaison officer of the commander in Charkow to the High Command of the Army.  He lived in Charkow.  I saw him occasionally for short periods, but I do not know what he did the rest of the time.

5.  Twice while I was in the east I had a chance to see executions.  The first one I saw in Kiev from a distance.  Oberfuehrer Ehrlinger had the Kommando.  I saw the second execution in Krementschug, hwere Sturmbannfuehrer Platt had the Kommando.  In the first execution exactly 100 persons were executed; in the second execution more than 100 persons were executed.  The people were executed by a shot in the neck.  The corpses were buried in a large tank ditch.  The candidates for execution were already standing or kneeling in the ditch.  One group had scarcely been shot before the next came and laid themselves on the corpses there.

5.  I have read the above statement, consisting of two pages in the German language and state that it is the full truth to the best of my knowledge and belief.  I have had opportunity to make changes and corrections in the above affidavit.  I made this statement voluntarily, without any promise of reward, and I was subject to no duress or threat of any kind
Nuernberg, 9 October 1947  Albert Hartl