tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45015825980809684842024-03-14T00:39:15.220-07:00Holocaust TextsA resource for sharing documents and texts relating to the Holocaust. As a resource for main blog: http://littlegreyrabbit.wordpress.comshipoffoolshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00107963600647441371noreply@blogger.comBlogger50125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501582598080968484.post-61490031547384803862015-12-13T16:16:00.001-08:002015-12-13T17:37:39.328-08:00Anne Spoerry and the Mau MauText: The Ghosts of Happy Valley by Juliet Barnes, pp 248-249<br />
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<br />
More unexpected Mau Mau stories emerged when I was doing some research for John Heminway, who was writing the biography of Dr Anne Spoerry. She'd always been revered in Kenya as the legendary 'flying docor', selflessly involved in humanitarian work in Kenya until she died in 1999. Then Heminway's article for the Financial Times had caused waves of shock and disbelief. He'd interviewed Dr Louise Le Porz, who'd known Spoerry in Ravensbrueck. Spoerry had been sent to this concentration camp in 1944, under the supervision of Carmen Mory, who became Spoerry's lesbian lover. Le Porz revealed a very different side of Spoerry, a woman who'd murdered and tortured hundreds of Jewish women.<br />
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Heminway wanted to see Spoerry's first Kenya home near Ol Kalou. We found the house - a small and Spartan affair. She'd lived there in the 1950s, then moved to Subukia in the early 1960s - where she learned to fly and became the fearless flying doctor who would land anywhere in the bush to help sick and injured people of any race or creed. What we weren't expecting was the rumours of her cruelty during the Mau Mau.<br />
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Back in the 1950s many white settlers inevitably became frustrated with British policies, as had earlier politically minded figures, including the 3rd Baron Delamere and Lord Erroll. And now, during Mau Mau, a few angry settlers sometimes took matters into their own hands. Ol Kalou, it seems, had its share of such farmers, with whom Spoerry could rub shoulders with ease.<br />
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A week later I drove to Wanjohi, where Solomon had arranged for me to meet and interview - in a secret venue - several maimed Kikuyu elders to whom Dr Spoerry remained a hated name. One old woman wouldn't see me at all: she never wanted to set eyes on another white woman. The old men were victims of torture, which they claimed had been perpetrated by Spoerry and her Kikuyu assistant in her Ol Kalou clinic. One was missing an eye, another had bullet wounds, a third had a badly scarred leg. They told worse stories of fates that had befallen other Mau Mau fighters, many of whom hadn't survived to tell their tales of castration and lethal injections. My informants still remembered who'd been good to their African staff - and who hadn't. Morgan-Grenville had been generally liked, Delap too, but Fergusson, it seemed, was not. He was part of the group of white people, they said, who met with Dr Spoerry regularly.<br />
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Feeling I needed to hear some validation of such stories from the 'other' side, I found an elderly memsahib, who was initially reluctant to talk about it and didn't wish to be named. She remembered Spoerry 'very mannish, but a character. And she got on with everyone up there - especially the men.' Anne Spoerry had regularly met up with some oft he local men at settlers' meetings in Ol Kalou during Mau Mau, while the wives went for a drink and a curry at the Ol Kalou Club. 'My husband walked out,' said my informant, ' he told me he couldn't handle the shocking cruelty, it was so bad. They were very cruel to get information out of the Mau Mau. They killed terrorists by putting gas masks on them.'<br />
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page 284 re murder of Earl of Erroll<br />
One puzzling detail emerging from several books is that Walter Harragin, Attorney General, also the chief prosecutor presiding over the entire affair, took little notice of the curious case of Hugh Dickinson, an adoring friend and avid admirer of Diana's. 'Hughsie Daisie', as Diana called him, had allegedly been allowed into her bed, albeit occasionally, since the early 1930s. An officer in the Royal Signals (as, interestingly, was the male agent Trzebinski describes in Operation Highland Clearance), Dickinson secured himself a posting to Kenya to coincide with the arrival of the newly married Broughtons; this puzzled his family as it made no sense career-wise. He met the newly-weds in Mombasa, taking custody of the marriage contract between Broughton and Diana: this stated that she was to get 5000 pounds a year for seven years if the marriage was annulled due to her meeting a younger man. Dickinson moved into the Broughtons' guesthouse in Karen, which he used as a pied-a-terre when he was in Nairobi - virtually every weekend.<br />
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In court Dickinson acutally lied, saying he'd been at the coast with septic toe at the time of the murder. In fact, it turned out, he'd been sent to Nairobi to recover from this affliction - Kenya's muggy coastal climate is hardly conducive to the rapid and clean healing of wounds. That the court was oblivious to this lie is puzzling, especially as Dickinson was hardly a reliable witness, having previously embroiled with the Broughtons back in England in two insurance frauds - paintings and pearls - engineered by Sir Jock himself.<br />
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Connolly and Fox interviewed Dickinson at the London Savoy in 1969. ...He lied to Connolly and Fox too, saying he was in Nyali in hospital after a cactus spine had poisoned his foot. But Fox picked up Dickinson's slip in the witness box. Dickinson had told Harrigan he'd been in hospital (at the coast) from around 17 January for about a month, but then told Morris he'd last seen Jock and Diana, he thought, on the last day in January - when they most definitely hadn't been at the coast.<br />
Fox writes in White Mischief: 'Dickinson did seem nervous when the murder was mentioned.' He'd dined out on it that Christmas, though, according to Fox's informant. He claimed to all present he knew who'd one it but was sworn to total secrecy. 'He had not done it himself, he said, neither had Broughton, although Broughton, he said, had engineered it.' He claimed he'd been offered 25,000 pounds for the story he refused to tell.<br />
[....]<br />
pp285-286<br />
Monty [Brown] sat at his father's old desk on the worm leather seat of a Uganda Railways chair, which Monty himself had rescued from the old Maktau Station. He showed me a copy of an unpublished memoir by the late writer and historian Arthur Wolseley-Lewis, who points out that on the night of Erroll's murder, Hugh Dickinson had been staying around the corner from the Broughtons, with Wolseley-Lewis's aunt, Molly Parker. She confirmed that Dickinson returned that night in the small hours. 'So why on earth should he stay there when he had a guesthouse on the Broughton plot?' Monty asked. 'Because he wasn't meant to be officially in Karen at all!' Wolseley-Lewis believes that Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (also known as MI6 and which focused on foreign threats) recruited the Broughtons and Dickinson; Erroll, a known Fascist at the time the British were attacking the Italians in Abyssinia, was also Assistant Military Secretary to the East Farican headquarters and thus 'was a great security risk'. Dickinson himself pulled the trigger and drove Erroll's body to the murram pit, then walked back. His exceptionally muddy shoes were noticed by Molly Parker's servant, who had to clean them. Wolseley-Lewis believes that Diana, even if she was on the payroll, probably didn't know Joss was going to be killed and had genuinely fallen in love with him, naturally arousing some jealousy on the part of both Broughton and Dickinson. The murder was actually a hushed-up disposal of a popular man who'd done much for the colony. Thus, Wolseley-Lewis believes, much was made of the playboy side of Joss and all his affairs, and 'many red herrings were dragged across the road intentionally.'<br />
...<br />
Monty gave me another perspective on Errol Trzebinski's informer, Tony Trafford: he was seconded to British Intelligence in 1940 (his father had also been in the Intelligence Service) where he would have been enjoined to keep the Official Secrets Act ['Susan Melanie' = Diana Broughton or Alice de Trafford and 'James Gregory' = Hugh Dickinson or Dickie Pemborke?]<br />
5 11 1940 Diana and Jock Broughton married in England<br />
12 11 1940 arrive in Kenya<br />
24 1 1941 Erroll murdered<br />
27 9 1941 Suicide of Alice de Trafford<br />
5 12 1942 Suicide of Jock Broughton<br />
1943 Diana Broughton marries Gilbert Colville.<br />
page 74-75<br />
When Erroll was murdered, Alice came under suspicion. Her 'houseboy' had apparently found a revolver on her land, by a bridge under a pile of stones. The car in which he'd been shot reeked of Chanel No. 5 - her perfume [....]<br />
Alice wasn't arrest this time: she'd supposedly been in bed with Dickie Pembroke when the murder took place. Pembroke, a young major, was apparently obsessed with Diana Broughton, who thought him boring - probably just as well considering the several complicated love triangles raging. Evidently Pembroke didn't mind a roll in the hay with another attractive female, while this conquest might have amused Alice, who hated Diana.<br />
Alice frequently visited Sir Jock Delves Broughton in jail, taking supplies and books. Many of her friends said she never got over Joss's death, believing this intensified the unhappiness that shadowed her remaining years. According to her letters Alice was still visiting Erroll's grave just before she died.<br />
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Trzebinski details the story of Joss's assassination. "Operation Highland Clearance' involved two agents one a blonde woman from South Africa [...] 'Susan Melanie' (doubtless a false name) and her colleague 'James Gregory', took instructions from Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE). Following instructions from Cairo and Nairobi, the female agent pretended to be broken down on the road she already knew Erroll would be driving at that lonely hour. After he'd stopped to give her a lift, the rest was easy. Plenty of people, Tzebinski points out, believed his killer was a woman and it wasn't difficult for MI5 to cleverly engineer the whole episode so that it looked like a crime of passion.<br />
The police handling of evidence after this carefully managed, top-secret assassination was too poor to be accidental. Even Broughton's baffling behaviour can be explained, Trzebinski thought, as it's possible he was also in on the whole thing - and of course very few documents to do with Erroll survived either. SOE Cairo's files were burnt in 1945. There were further eliminations, including 'Susan Melanie' herself.<br />
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[My solution: Diana arranged an assignation with Erroll so that his return along a certain road could be guaranteed. Alice de Trafford 'Susan Melanie' and Dickie Pembroke staged the breakdown to flag down Erroll with Pembroke doing the hit. Hugh Dickinson then followed in the unbroken down car to transport everyone away. The roles of Dickinson and Pembroke being reversible]shipoffoolshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00107963600647441371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501582598080968484.post-77067848803491674632014-06-06T12:55:00.000-07:002014-06-06T12:55:13.764-07:00All That I Am: Anna FunderContext: Bizarre fiction by Anna Funder.<br />
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pp 359-361<br />
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The action had been discussed in Berlin and London. It would have been simplest to shoot them of course, as they had Lessing and Rudi. There was no need to kidnap Dora because they had her source already. She just needed silencing. But a shooting in Bloomsbury would have upset the English and the English were upset enough. Also, she had contacts in high places. So shooting was ruled out, and they would need five men, two on each woman and one to give the order.<br />
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They'd approached Wolf in a bakery, when he was buying his morning rolls. He'd looked at them as if at the sudden incarnation of all his fears. They escorted him to a seat in Russell Square to discuss a proposition. It was hardly much to ask, they said: lend them some keys, write a letter, barely at all. Wolf stammered something about it not being possible; at the inevitable inquest his relationship with Dora would become known and his wife would find out. Then they mentioned his daughter, in Denmark, how convenient it was for her that she could walk to school. They spoke of other relatives in Germany who were still free; they terrified him with what might, in certain as yet undefined circumstances, happen to them. When he worried about having to imitate her handwriting they knew they had him. They were in a position, they said, to ensure that Scotlan Yard would hand the note over to the German embassy for translation and graphology. It would be 'taken care of'. Wolf came up with the idea of using shorthand himself, as an extra protection.<br />
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He wrote the suicide note on Sunday morning, typed his own address on the envelope. He dropped it through the letterbox around the corner from 12 Great Ormond Street, then walked swiftly past the children's hospital with his collar up and hat pulled low, lest one of the women come out, slowing only once he got to the corner.<br />
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They know from their previous visits to the flat how much Veronal was likely to be in the bathroom cabinet, but they hadn't been in there while the Swiss was staying so they brought their own just in case, along with a bolt-cutter. It was evening. They let themselves in with the keys; the door was not chained. They found Dora in her pyjamas, Mathilde still dressed. The flat smelled of coffee. There was a plan devised and approved at the highest level, rehearsed, and now to be implemented. They kept their gloves on.<br />
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They gagged each woman and tied her to a chair in the kitchen. Dora counted while they emptied three sachets into each cup. So this was how she would go. Tailor-made.<br />
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The boss man used this time to visit the famed hall cupboard he'd read about in the reports. When he came back into the kitchen he nodded at one of the men standing next to Mathilde, who placed the muzzle of his gun cold against her temple. He addressed Dora. They would shoot Mathilde if she did not drink. And quietly. Understand?<br />
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Mathilde moved her eyes, her head, almost imperceptibly, to indicate, no. Dora should not drink. It was nonsenical to think that Mathilde would be let go after this. When they took Dora's gag off for her to drink seh screamed. A glove slammed over her mouth and nose; the gag was retied, tighter. So they would make her watch instead.<br />
They removed Mathilde's gag. She kept her eyes firmly on Dora: the two of them were still there, together. Mathilde opened her mouth when they told her to. Dora knew the taste, bitter, granular. It took Mathilde three swallows. They put the gag back back on. There was no fear in her eyes. She was still Mathilde, for the time it would take. Dora's eyes filled.<br />
'Look what you've done now,' the boss man said.<br />
Where do they get these calm killers from? He nodded at the one standing to Dora's left, who yanked her head back by the hair and pinched her nose together. The other untied the gag and her jaw fell open. They poured the bitter stuff into her. Drops spilled onto her pyjamas.<br />
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They kept them tied to the chairs. The women watched each other, their eyes all they had. All the life in the world in them. An eternity of looking condensed here, into not being alone in this. Mathilde lost consciousness first. After fifteen minutes her head sank to her chest. Dora still held her in her gaze. Would not look at them. Would not give them the pleasure of the eyes of their prey in the intimate moments of death.<br />
When Dora's head fell they moved them to bedroom. Pulled the covers back and put the bodies, still breathing, on the bed. They took off Mathilde's shoes, placed them neatly against the wall. Turned them to face one another in a last embrace, entwined the fingers of Dora's left hand and Mathilde's right in a mock scene of sorrow. Then they pulled the covers back over them. How else, for God's sake, could the covers have been so firmly up to their necks? No two people ever lie so neatly, die so neatly, covers firmly tucked up.<br />
They placed Dora's key on the shelf next to the bedroom door, locked it with their own behind them. Straightened the kitchen chairs. A tabby cat watched from the corner near the stove, its white tail tip twitching. They locked the front door behind them, pocked their gloves. If the neighbours saw anything, it was nothing they hadn't seen before: five Germans coming down from a meeting in the attic flat.<br />
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pg 365-6<br />
Jaeger's equivalent at the German embassy in London was the (non Nazi) diplomat Herr zu Putlitz. Wolfram Wolf is an invented name....On the 'burglaries' at the flat, especially following Seymour Cocks's revelations in parliament, see the report after Dora and Mathilde's deaths in the Manchester Guardian, 6 April 1935(Brinson p 103, n.239). Dora is alleged to have said to her friend Ellen Wilkinson. 'The greatest asset the Nazi agents have is that no one, neither police nor one's friends, will <i>believe</i> that anyone can do the things here that we have proof they do.' (Brinson pp 131-2 n.150, italics are in the original.) On Seymour Cocks's address to the parliament, see Hansard, 5th Series, Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, vol. 285, cols 1019 ff., Brinson pp 130-31. For Winston Churchill on German rearmament see, for example, Hansard, 5th Series, Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, vol. 286, cols 2061-70. Dora is reported to have said to (Anton) Roy Ganz, "I suppose that one day I shall meet the same sot of end as those who have been working in different parts of the Continent.' (Brinson pp. 168-9, quoting Evening Standard, 'Refugees' Death Premonition', 5 April 1935, pp 1,5.)<br />
The inquest proceeding are no longer to be found in the National Archives at Kew. There is a gutted file containing only a few pieces of paper and a passport-sized photograph of Dora's friend, who cannot be named for legal reasons. References on the front of the file indicate there were other volumes, most likely destroyed. For Mrs Allworth's testimony, see Brinson p.164, n.54:Public Records Office Kew, MEPOL 3/871, 3G, p.1. On Dora's 'suicide note', see Brinson p.160, n. 36, Public Records Office Kew, MEPOL, 3/871, 3A, p. 4. Brinson quotes the coroner as directing the jury that "if she wrote the note, and if it was correctly translated", it indicated that she had committed suicide because of unrequited love' (p. 181). The coroner was so quoted in 'Tragedy of German Woman's Unrequited Love', Daily Mail, 11 April 1935.<br />
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page 221-22<br />
Dora's own coup came on the last day. In typical style, it was one that would never be attributable to her. A large, older man, very upright, with a balding head and protruding eyes under bushy eyebrows, lumbered up to the stand. This was Albert Grzesinski, the former President of Police in Berlin. Grzesinksi spoke in the deep rumble of a seasoned political operator. He told the court that after the Nazis had raided the offices of the Communist Party on Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse, they used the membership list they'd stolen to draw up arrest warrants for the four thousand people on it. The warrants, complete with addresses and, in most cases, photographs, were ready and signed the day before the fire; only the date of the action remained to be inserted.<br />
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Then Grzesinski told us he could confirm, from his own personal knowledge, 'There is an underground tunnel directly connecting the Reichstag with Minister Goering's residence.' There was a moment of shock and then heated murmuring started. There remained no doubt in anyone's mind.<br />
<br />
At the end, the commission could find no evidence against the four co-accused. The chairman announced that because those who lit the fire probably came through the tunnel from Goering's house, and because the fire greatly benefited the Nazis, 'grave grounds existed for suspecting that the Reichstag was set onf ire by, or on behalf of, leading personalities of the National Socialist Party.'<br />
<br />
People whooped and cheered, threw off their hats. Tears of relief welled in my eyes as I hugged Hans. I had been more afraid than I'd known.<br />
Back in Germany Hitler fumed. Later we listened to his address to the Reichstag on the wireless, because we wanted to see what effect the counter-trial had had on him. 'An army of emigrants is active against Germany,' the Leader thundered. 'Courts are being established in full public view overseas in an attempt to influence the German justice system....revolutionary German newspapers are continually being printed and smuggled into Germany. They contain open calls to acts of violence.' He paused, then added, 'Socalled "black radio" programmes made abroad are broadcast into Germany calling for assassinations.'<br />
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pp 347-8<br />
Six months after Dora died Jaeger's London posting had ended. He returned to Berlin, where he reunited in the Foreign Office through the years building up to the war, then for the war and its aftermath. Passing information between Erwin Thomas in Berlin and Dora in London, he wrote, though it had not even been his initiative, was the single shred of evidence he had of his own decency. When it was all over he had requested, in some kind of satonement, to be transferred to the Reparations payments Department in the Treasury of the Federal Republic of Germany.<br />
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pp 341-342<br />
Bertie wrote that he'd met Hans at the restaurant in Basel. Hans was at a table with two others, a man he introduced as Mattern, and the forger. Bertie hadn't been expecting anyone else, but Hans explained that both men worked together. Bert produced the photo he had brought for the passport, and the forger wrote down his date of birth, height and eye colour on a piece of paper. Without asking, the man wrote'Religion:Jewish' in his notes.<br />
They drank fairly solidly for an hour and a half. Then the forger said that 'for the money part' he would prefer them to come to his flat in Riehen. Bert said he looked at Hans, who nodded calmly: it must have been part of the plan. Downstairs a car was waiting. 'What self-respecting forger doesn't have a car with a chauffeur?' Bertie wrote.<br />
Bert and Hans got in the back of the car, Mattern and the forger sat in the front next to the driver. Bert didn't know where the district of Riehen was. They passed a train station on the edge of town, then drove into the night where there was nothing. The car was going fast. He looked at Hans, who shrugged his shoulders as if to say. Who kows how these things are done? There was enough alcohol in Bert's system to be second-guessing his first responses, telling himself to calm down.<br />
<br />
Until they got to a guard's hut with the Swiss flag hanging from it. The border! Instead of slowing as the sentry stepped out, the car accelerated. the man had to leap clear to save himself. Bertie cried out then, and Hans too. Mattern and the forger snapped around to rest the stubby snouts of Mausers on the back of their seat.<br />
'Gestapo swine!' Hans shouted. Mattern pistol-whipped him, hard, across the face. When the car reached the German boomgate, it was already raised.<br />
At Weil am Rhein they sped down Adolf-Hitler Strasse to the police station, pulling up around the back...<br />
Bertie added a postscript about Wolfram Wolf. The British, he said, though availing themselves of the Wolf's story so as to avoid any conflict with Berlin, didn't believe it themselves. Shortly after the inquest they expelled him from the country. Wolf wasn't politically active in any way, but they knew he was the cover guy for the Nazi action. A cover they themselves had made use of.<br />
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page 324<br />
I have failed too much, caused too much pain to you. I don't find any way back, neither to you, to myself not to life. Do not think that my death is the consequence of the last days, even if you had not come back I would not have continued to live. I have been too fond of you. I am sorry. Goodbye. I take with me the only person for whom my life meant anything.<br />
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<br />shipoffoolshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00107963600647441371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501582598080968484.post-7101723994050360332013-01-14T11:09:00.001-08:002013-01-14T11:40:53.005-08:00Propaganda at Radio Luxembourg 1944-1945by Erik Barnous in Film and Radio Propaganda in World War II, edited by KRM Short, page 192 -196 [Main source: Hans Habe: All My Sins; Publicity and Psychological Warfare: 12th Army Group: history, January 1943 - August 1945 (ETO, undated)]<br />
<br />
In the spring of 1940 the German armies, sweeping westward, took possession of the station and proceeded to use it over the next four years for their own propaganda needs. In 1944, the Allied troops drove in the opposite direction, Allied psychological warfare units were following closely behind, seizing and using any radio facilities they found intact or repairable. They especially wanted the facitlities of Radio Luxembourg, but scarcely expected to find it in usable shape. At the station the retreating Germans set dynamite charges, but inexplicably failed to detonate them. It is said that Radio Luxembourg's head engineer (who had served the Germans throughout their occupation and use of the station) encouraged them at the time of their departure to destroy the transmitter tubes; his idea was to divert the Germans from more castrophic destruction. When the Americans arrived, he dug up from the garden a complete duplicate set of tubes he had buried four years earleir for such a day. This enabled the station to resume broadcasting twelve days after the Allied entry into Luxembourg. On 22 September 1944, the psychological warfare unit of the 12th US Army group put Radio Free Luxembourg back on the air.<br />
Radio Free Luxembroug now launched a variety of programming. The activities came under the executive supervision - generally exercised from Paris - of such luminaries as William S. Paley and Davidson Taylor of CBS and Allied counterparts, all seasoned radio veterans who had gone into uniform for psychological warfare duty. The station's administrator was William Harlan Hale, but the propaganda strategy was the work of the remarkable Hans Habe.<br />
Hans Habe, born Janos Bekessy in Hungary in 1911, was a prominent journalist and newspaper editor in pre-war Vienna; he claimed credit for the discovery that Hitler's name was Schicklgruber. Bekessy fled Austria in 1939, enlisted in the French army, was captured by the Germans, managed a romantic escape through concealment in a brothel, made his way to Vichy and thence to the United States. Then he enlisted in the American Army and after special training was involved in psycological warfare both in North Africa and Italy. With the steady advance towards Germany, he became the key strategist at Radio Luxembourg. Because the name Bekessy was on a Nazi execution list, he lived under the Name Hans Habe. At Radio Luxembourg he directed both its 'white' and 'black'.<br />
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[Frontpost, Letters undelibered, POW messages to family]<br />
There were also grimmer features. Two Germans in civilian clothes had been captured nearby on an espionage mission. Radio Free Luxembourg broadcast their trial, and then interviewed the convicted prisoners en route to the prison courtyard. ASked if they realised that the penalty for what they had done was death, the prisoners said no, their officers had not told them that. Shortly afterwards, the radio audience was allowed to hear the click of the rifle boltsm the shouted command, the volley and the echo of the rifle fire. Yank, the serviceman's magazine, thought this was probably the first on-the-air execution. [Yank 11 May 1945]<br />
[Corporal Tom Jones, aka Richard Hanser New York newspaper editor PM]<br />
<br />
The programmes mention so far were part of Radio Free Luxembourg's daytime and evening offerings as an acknowledged American voice, heard over Radio Luxembourg's regular place on the dial, with its full available power. But the psychological warfare group also used the transmitter for an entirely different activity, which occupied the middle of the night, from 2 am to 6 am.<br />
Using lower power, 30 000 watts, the station now purported to be an underground German station operating behind German lines. It used a different frequency - 1,212 kilocycles - and called itself 'Twelve Twelve.' It went on air with: 'Hello, this is Twelve Twelve calling'. It was not overtly anti-Nazi but suggested that the German authorities were fallible and making mistakes. On every programmme Twelve Twelve carried detailed, scrupulously accurate reports about the military situation within Germany. Its task, at this stage, was to establish total credibility and trust. Only a few German voices, of a regional quality to suggest a location in the Rhine valley, were used on Twelve Twelve. The idea was to convey the image of a compact under ground group.<br />
Much of its strategy had been planned in advance. Music was never used - only talk. The Twelve Twelve team was made to live in isolation, to avoid any hint of interaction with other Radio Luxembourg programming. The group was housed in a fine villa in Luxembourg's Rue Brasseur, once the property of a German coalmine manager. Military police guarded the premises day and night.<br />
<br />
That the group's programmes were soon winning trust was reflected in the fact that German prisoners, when interrogated about the situation within Germany, began to quote Twelve Twelve. But the winning of trust was only the first step. The trust had purpose: it was a weapon, potentially devastating. During the Moselle assault and breakthrough by Allied troops, Twelve Twelve suddenly began to create chaos with disinformation. Among other bulletins, it reported Allied tanks near Nuremberg and Friedrichshafen, causing panic in those cities. This confusion was its ultimate task. Immediately afterwards, its job done and credibility shattered, Twelve Twelve vanished as abruptly as it had appear. It had been on the air just 127 nights.<br />
<br />
Japanese Overseas Broadcasting: A Personal View by Namikawa Ryo pages 319-333<br />
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Prisoners of war in South-east Asia and in the South Pacific totalled more than 100,000, and the Daihonei issued instructions to the ministries to use prisoners in seven fields of work, including propaganda. Three Allied officers were selected and sent to Tokyo where they were assigned to the overseas broadcasting section of NHK. They were Charles Cousens (Australian, former writer and announcer), Wallace Ince (American, announcer) and Norman Reyes (Philippino, announcer). They wore suits and were treated the same as Japanese employees. Many books written after the war said tehy were treated violently, but the fact is that they were subjected to no force, either physically or mentally. Of course it may have been painful for them to be prisoners; their Japanese coworkers were sympathetic and even compassionate toward them as a result of the traditional fighting ethic of Bushido. Some prisoners tried to affect lack of feeling in their announcing but they were genuine radio men who seemed to enjoy being in front of the microphone. Lieutenant Commander Charles Cousens was orderd by the Chief of the Army staff of the Daihonei to coopearte in the work of overseas broadcasting. I witnessed that impressive scene. Tsuneishi Shigetsugu, at that time Lt Colonel of the 8th Section of the Daihonei, transmitted the official order to Cousens. This stated, 'If you do not want to do this, you must return to the prison camp. Think about it and decide.' Everything went in a military way. Cousens' attitude was extremely fine and soldierlike. His dignified attitude never collapsed throughout the war. His soldierly and gentlemanly manner was long the subject of talk in the NHK.<br />
...<br />
The main Japanese strategy during the war was to draw the American army to the Chinese mainland where all Japenese army forces would ambush the American forces, but that shortwave broadcasst from Tokyo performed miracle.<br />
<br />shipoffoolshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00107963600647441371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501582598080968484.post-40338229965652388062013-01-14T08:40:00.000-08:002013-01-14T09:14:04.254-08:00William L. Shirer by Steve WickText: William L Shirer and The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by Steve Wick<br />
Comment: Some curious anecdotes regarding reliability of journalist witnesses<br />
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page 118 - 119. Birth of Eileen and Anschluss<br />
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After dark, Murrow and Shirer sneaked out of the building and walked to a nearby bar, where Murrow had spent the previous evening. There, as Murrow had watched, a man - Shirer quotes Murrow in his diary as sayin the man was 'Jewish looking' - had removed a straight razor from his jacket and dragged it across his throat.<br />
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Murrow returned to London the next morning, and Shirer went immediately to the hospital, where he found Tess back in critical condition from the phlebitis. His previous optimism that she would be okay abandoned him. Care in the hospital was negligible and chaotic, and Shirer realized that his wife could lose her life if he didn't intercede. On another scrap of paper written years later that he also saved and filed, Shirer wrote: "Atmosphere in hospital. Jews panic. Get in (you left it out of diary) T's doc was a Jew, and disappeared day of Anschluss. Later I located him, he performed in gr secrecy at convent in Wienerwald outside V. He's left some surgical instruments inside T."<br />
On another note, he added details: "New x-rays revealed that metal objects, apparently surgical instruments, had been left inside after her Caesarean operation. They would have to be removed - if possible by the pediatrician who had performed the operation. Being a Jew, he had gone into hiding since the Anschluss. I finally located him. He did not want to risk reappearing at the hospital, for which I did not blame him. He agreed however to do it in a safe place. I found a convent hidden in the Wienerwal a mile or two down the Danube."<br />
...<br />
On April 8, nearly a month after the Germans annexed Austria, Tess and her baby left the hospital, her body free of the surgical equipment. In a note he wrote years later, Shirer said: "Tess and baby home fr hospital. Since she went in Feb 25, she there 42 days, half of them fighting for life, mostly while I away. She still must have been weak for you say (in the diary): "I carried her upstairs from the car this morning and it will be some time before she can walk. But the worst is over.'"<br />
[page 113 "Bad bout of phlebitis infected on of Tess's legs". March 10. "he found Tess with a high fever; the staff was deeply worried that she had developed a serious blood clot in her leg."]<br />
<br />
Text page 204 - X informant on Euthanasia<br />
Who X was - an influential German journalist, a party official, someone high up in a ministry or the military?- Shirer did not reveal in his diary on the night he made the entry. Shirer had already begun to think of ways of getting all his personal papers - diaries, letters, official correspondence, and maps - out of the country when he left. To risk his diary's being read by the Gestapo and a name being revealed from his diary horrified him. Shirer did not reveal X's identity in his diary at the time, and he did not do so forty-four years later when he published the second installment of his memoirs, The Nightmare Years ....<br />
While it was happening, it was enough of an open secret in the country to be denounced by church leaders. X knew of it, but he also knew of the arrest several days before of Pastor Friedrich von Bodelschwingh.<br />
<br />
page 109 - assumes phone bugged<br />
He was certain his office was bugged, his phone calls listened to by the Gestapo. "I always assumed my telephone was tapped and that probably a listening device had been hidden in it. When anyone came with sensitive information I would toss a heavy blanket over the phone and adjourn to the bathroom for our talk."<br />
page 77-78<br />
While he was in Berlin, Shirer fretted daily that one of his sources - he had a number of them - would be arrested by the Gestapo and executed. Nowhere in the diary he kept in Berlin does he mention a name or position, fearing that the diary might be seized and used to incriminate someone. He wrote that he had been interrogated by the Gestapo, in his office and in the apartment, but he said little except that he offered them no help at all.<br />
Years later, Shirer wrote that two influential sources of his had been arrested, and the effect was to sink him into despair. "When sometimes one of my sources did get nabbed and, in two cases, sentenced to death, I would walk the streets of the capital, dazed and despairing, searching my conscience and my memory to try to discover if anything I had done, any slip I might have made, could possibly have implicated him," he wrote.<br />
In his writing a half century after the events recorded in his diary, Shirer identified on of his sources as a "fearless young Protestant pastor." They met after dark in the Tiergarten near Shirer's flat or on a busy street or at a railway station; other times, throwing all caution aside, the man came to Shirer's flat to talk. He does not name the pastor but says he was arrrested and sentenced to death. Another was a journalist he identified as 'X' in a January 1936 diary entry. The man was an editor of the Boersen Zeitung who secretly gave Shirer copies of the Goebbel's daily instructions to the foreign press. In the January 1936 entry, Shirer worte that the instructions for Goebbels "made rich reading, ordering daily suppression of this truth and the substitution of that lie."<br />
Later, Shirer was greatly relieved when he learned that both the editor's and the pastor's death sentences had been commuted. They would spend the rest of the Thousand Year Reich in prison. Shirer vowed in another diary entry not to talk to anyone, or encourage anyone to work with him, if it risked the person's arrest and execution. Shirer knew that other German officials had provided him with information he was sure was wrong, and he suspected that they were working for the Gestapo to try to entrap him. One, a young man in the Foreign Office, admitted to Shirer one night when they were drinking together that he had been assigned by the Gestapo to follow him. A very good and reliable source was a woman who held an important post in the radio division of the Propaganda Ministry [Hilda]. Shirer knew she loved a Jewish artist who had fled the country. She wore a party pin on her lapel as she went about her work, and Shirer came to both like and trust her. They met in secret, and she supplied him with information about the inner workings and plans of the government, at least as she knew them.<br />
<br />
[Donald Day for Chicago Tribune - worked for Germans in 1942. Robert Best, based in Vienna, tried after war and imprisoned]shipoffoolshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00107963600647441371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501582598080968484.post-6096078148108725972012-06-08T12:40:00.000-07:002012-06-08T15:19:59.899-07:00Eastern European Attitudes to the Holocaust<b>Source: </b>Operation Last Chance: One Man's Quest To Bring Nazi Criminals To Justice, pp 100-1<br />
<br />
<b>Text:</b><br />
The dedication ceremony at Ponar was, in that respect, a litmus test for the intentions of the Lithuanian government in regard to a whole range of Holocaust-related issues that it, and its fellow post-Communist democracies, was forced to face, almost immediately in the wake of independence. Under different circumstances, these issues would not have been granted priority, but several factors considered critical by these new East European states catapulted Holocaust-related subjects to near the top of the political agenda. For fear of the Russians, all of these governments viewed membership in NATO and the European Union as their primary foreign policy objectives, and virtually all of them believed that their success in achieving these goals would be seriously influenced by their relations with the Jewish people and the State of Israel.<br />
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<br />
Inn other words, the paths to Washington and Brussels went through Jerusalem. I twas clear to these leaders, however, that to enlist Jewish assistance, they would have to mend their fences with the Jewish people (represented primarily by Israel, American Jewry, and their own local Jewish communities), a critical element of which involved dealing with the crimes of their compatriots during the Holocaust. In essence, these countries faced six major issues directly connected to the destruction of European Jewry.<br />
<br />
1. acknowledgement of guilt and apology for crimes;<br />
2. commemoration of the victims,<br />
3. prosecution of perpetrators,<br />
4. documentation - rewriting the historical narratives<br />
5. education - writing new textbooks, and <br />
6. restitution<br />
<br />
In retrospect, as someone who has devoted a large part of the past 18 years to the issues in post-Communist Europe, I would distinguish between the issues that proved to be relatively easy, such as the acknowledgment of guilt and commemoration, and those that have proven to be the most difficult, such as prosecution and resititution. Practically all East European leaders were willing to acknowledge the pariticipation of their compatriots in the Holocaust crimes, apologize for them,and express deep regret, but very few, if any, invested any real effort in seeing to it that those still-unprosecuted Holocaust perpetrators would be brought to trial. Another important point, especially from my perspective, is that of all these issues, only one, prosecution, is time-sensitive and must be dealt with while the murders are still alive. All the others, including restitution, should obviously be dealt with promptly, but if worse comes to worst can be postpone and initiated at a later date.<br />
<br />
pp 122-125 Edvald Mikson/Hinriksson<br />
<br />
Advised by Hebrew University Professor Dor Levin to contact me, he [Yaakov Kaplan] sent me information rgarding Mikson's Icelandic name (Edvald Hinricksson) and details of his crimes, including the alleged rape and murder of 14-year-old Ruth Rubin, the niece of the famous Zionist leader Chaim Arlozoroff. In Kaplan's words, "It is unthinkable that the son of a bitch will continue to live in peae and tranquility."<br />
...<br />
Contrary to our expectations, we were granted access to the voluminous Mikson files in the KGB archives, which contained tens of witness statements on crimes committed by Mikson while he led the Omakaitse in the Vonnu district, including testimony from seven individuals who had seen him personally commit murder. Johannes Sooru, for example, related how Mikson had shot a young man from Piirsare and then decided that every third prisoner being held by the Omakaitse in Vonnu would be executed by his men. Raimund Punnar confirmed that the executions took place and described how Mikson had shot many of the victims himself. The most horrific testimony was that of Hilka Mootse, who described how Mikson had raped a Jewish mother and her daughter:<br />
<br />
"While arrested in the Vonnu rural district I saw together with other prisoners through a window in the basement how Mikson with a group of other Omakaitse members, about six or seven men, took two Jewish women out to the street, a mother aged about 40 and her daughter who was 17 or 19 years old, stripped them naked, put chains on their necks, tied their hands behind their backs, and began to make fun of them. The guards dragged the women on the ground, forced them to bend down and eat grass, then pushed them to the ground and raped them. I saw how Mikson raped the women first, and after him all the other guards did so as well. The women broke down, then they were dragged behind a shed and executed by shooting."<br />
<br />
page 209-10 Sandor Kepiro<br />
<br />
Artur Rosenstein was only 6 years old at the time, but he remembered it all. Years later, he could recount all the details of the horrible day - January 23, 1942 - when he and his parents were marched to the banks of the Danube to be shot by the Hungarianss. To this day, this event in Novia Sad is referred to as "the Razzia", or the raid.<br />
<br />
The operation had commenced two days earlier, as the Hungarian army and gendarmerie combed the area around Novi Sad, arresting and murdering Jews, Serbs, and Gypsies in the region, ostenibly as a reprisal against the local resistance to their occupation of the Voivodina province of Yugoslavia. On the third day, January 23, the Hungarians began the operation in the city, which was divided into sections, each with a Hungarian officer in charge of the roundups in that area. Thousands of men, women and children were taken to Sokolski Dom, the main cultural insitutution of the town, to be interrogated, after which their fate was decided. Some lucky people were released, but thousands of others were marched to the Danube to be shot. The temperature that day was minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit, and the Hungarians had to bring in a cannon to break the ice on the river so that those shot, but not killed, would drown in the freezing Danube.<br />
<br />
Artur Rosenstein was in the crowd with his parents, carried in his father's arms. They advanced slowly in rows, walking toward their own death. Soon, it would be their turn to be shot. "When the Hungarian police came to look for us, they told us to take only the bare minum, and they took us in small groups to the banks of the Danube," he recounted to me in a crowded Budapest cafe 64 years later. "There was a large crowd there. In the distance, we heard the sound of machine guns. We were queuing up, waiting out turn to be killed." They had not more than a quarter of an hour left to live. Suddenly, a plane landed. Officers got out. They spoke a lot, shouted. The order was given to stop the executions, and the Rosensteins' lives were saved. But when they returned home, they found the corpses of Artur's grandfather and his wife, who had been murdered. In total, during those three days of horror, 3309 Jews, Serbs and Gypsies were killed in the region, including 141 children. In Novi Sad (Ujvidek in Hungarian), two-thirds of the victims were Jewish.<br />
<br />
Polgar page 183<br />
<br />
In mid-February 2006, I was in Melbourne to deliver the Annual Hans Bachrach Memorial Oration as a guest of AIJAC and the Jerusalem College of Technology and had the opportunity and privilege to meet Susanne Nozick in person and hear her story.<br />
<br />
In the winter of 1944-45, she and her mother were caught hiding in a hospital in Budapest, trying to pose as non-Jews, and were taken to the cellar of Arrow Cross headquarters at 60 Andrassy Street, where they were repeatedly beaten, tortured and raped over the course of three days, along with dozens of other Jewish and Gypsy prisoners. The Arrow Cross guards forced they Gypsies to rape the Jewish women prisoners, some of whom, like Nozick, also had sticks shoved into them by the guards.<br />
<br />
Throughout this entire ordeal, all the prisoners were kept naked. After three days, during which quite a few of the prisoners had died, 40 to 50 of those still alive, including Nozick and her mother, were marched naked to the banks of the Danube under the guard of Arrow Cross men. There they were shot, and all of them fell into the river, Susanne Nozick, who luckily was not wounded, was the only survivor. She merged from the river after all the Arrow Cross had departed the scene. She was found by Hungarian soldiers who eventually brought here to the Budapest ghetto, which was liberated three days later by Soviet troops.<br />
<br />
[Sakic- Croatia 140-141]<br />
As it turned out the decision to prosecute Sakic did not exist in a vacuum. Croatia was extremely anxious to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel, which it considered critical to its main foreign policy objectives of joining NATO and European Union, and the prosecution of Sakic was clearly perceived in Zagreb to be part of the price, besides the obligatory acknowledgement of Holocaust guilt and requisite and the political circumstances for what turned out to be the most significant trial of a local Nazi war criminal in post-Communist Europe was absolutely perfect.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />shipoffoolshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00107963600647441371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501582598080968484.post-89984954009106920342012-05-27T14:02:00.002-07:002012-05-28T10:26:14.967-07:00British Security Coordination and Forged Maps<strong>Source: </strong>The Irregulars: Roald Dahl And The British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington. By Jennet Conant<br />
pp93-95<br />
<br />
<strong>Text</strong><br />
The BSC's anti-Nazi underground was from the start "a shoe-string operation", and relatively little had been accomplished by the spring of 1942 when Hoover moved to rein in Stephenson's activities and ordered him to curtail their defensive efforts in the southern republics. Hoover, Bryce noted, was a man for whom " jealousies and petty rivalries meant more than great causes." Although the FBI direction was "on good terms" with Stephenson, "he was immensely touchy at the thought of any British interference in what he regarded as 'his territory.'" In March, Bryce alterted Lippmann to the gravity of the situation: "If you felt at all inclined to write anything about the danger to S America, I could give you any number of facts which have never been published, but which my friends here would like to see judiciously made public, at this point."<br />
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Still preoccupied with Nazi designs on Latin America, Bryce, holed up in the BSC office, took to sketching worst-case scenarios on his blotter showing what the area would like it if forced to submit to Nazi rule. There would be the inevitable rearrangement of national borders, with nazi-orientated governments probably gaining territories, while some homelands might be totally eradicated. In his trial maps, he imagined what would happen if Hitler got his way and drew a logical extension of the idea: "The obvious aggrandizement of Paraguay, the land-locked and poverty-shricken but immensely militaristic kingdom of the great German dictator Storessner, would of course be enlarged: a great corridor to the Pacific, at the expense of Chile, Paraguay's old enemy. The abolition of, the Switzerland of South America.<br />
<br />
According to Bryce, after looking over his sketches, it occurred to Stephenson to try to pull a fast one and place a fake map in a known German safe house on the souther coast of Cuba, where Nazi agents stored radio equipment used for signaling U boats in the area. Stephenson then planned to tip the FBI, which would promply raid the Nazi outpost and fall upon a "monster prize." Bryce could only speculate on the immense value of such a find, especially when it came to sounding the alarm in America, whichs till felt safely removed from the Nazi threat: "Were a German man of this kind to be discovered or captured from enemy hands and publicized among the good neighbors themselves, and above all among the 'America Firsters' with their belief that America could get along with Hitler, what a commotion would be caused."<br />
<br />
One of Bryce's trial amps was immediatley given over to Station M, the BSC's technical facilities in Canada, where Eric Maschwitz ran a chemical laboratory and photograph studio, and had the ability to fabricate images, such as atrocity pictures, and to "reprint faultlessly the imprint of any typewriter one arth." Forty-eight hours later Maschwitz and his team of experts had created an uathentic-looking German map, slightly worn and discolored from frequent use, which Bryce marveled, even "the Reich's chief mapmaers for the German High Command would be prepared to swear was made by them."<br />
<br />
On this occasion, Stephenson may have outdone himself, passing the forgery on to Donovan, who gave it to Roosevelt. On March 11, 1941, the president made a dramatic announcement during his Navy Day radio address, revealing that he had proof that Hitler's plans for conquest extended across the Atlantic Ocean. "I have in my possession a secret map," he solemnly intoned, "made in Germany by Hitler's government - byt the planners of the new world. It is a map of South America and a part of Central America as Hitler proposes to reorganize it." Roosevelt went on to describe the principal features of the map, including the Panama Canal, "our great life line," and Germany's plan to carve the region up into five vassal states. "That map, my friends, makes clear the Nazi design not only against South America but against the United States as well." Bryce's map, which had been produced rather than procured by the BSC, was held up to the nation as one of the "grim truths" of Hitler's future plans and demanded a response. Americans, Roosevelt declared, were "pledge to pull our in oar in the destruction of Hitlerism."<br />
<br />
From the BSC's point of view, the map was a daring gambit that resulted in a propaganda coup. As expected, the German government responded to Roosevelt's radio broadcast by angrily denouncing the document as a fraud. The Italian government immediately demanded that unless the president published the map within twenty-four hours, Roosevelt would acquire "a sky-high reputation as a forger." Their furious protests only served to make the phony document appear more real. At a press conference the following day, FDR declined to make his "secret map available, assuring reporters that it came from "a source that is undoubtedly reliable." Bryce, who was sure the president's speech was inspired by his invention, was amazed by the impact of the broadcast. "The item was made full use of by the media," he recalled, "and gave distasteful but unanswerable food for thought to the many who believed that European wars could have no influence on the inhabitants of the Wester Hemisphere."<br />
<br />
While the map's trued origin was not discoverd at the time, Adolf Berle strongly suspected that Stephenson and his boys were behind it. Another document cited by Roosevelt in the same speech, supposedly detailing a Nazi plan to abolish all the world's reigions, seemed equally spurious. Berle knew that the BSC specialized in manufacturing fake documents, and the written proof outlining German plans for world domination struck Berle as a bit too convenient. In a memorandum forwarded to Cordell Hull, Berle warned that Americans should be "on our guard" against these "false scares" concocted by the British. Only a month earlier, Berle had written a detailed memorandum enumerating the potential dangers of the British operation being run by the "security co-ordinator" Mr William S Stephenson, arguing that it was developing into a "full sized secret police and intelligenc service" and was supported by shadow force of "regularly employed secret agents and a much larger number of informers, etc."<br />
<br />
<br />
page 272<br />
Since Dahl was putting his cards on the table, Wallace decided to venture a few questions about the clandestine intelligence organisation of which the airmen was a now a member. Who exactly was he working for? Dahl answered cautiously that the head of the BSC was "a secret" and known to only a handful. "I asked if he knew his name," Wallace recorded in his diary. "He said 'yes' He says this secret and powerful gentleman can go right in to see the King or Prime Minister day or night, unannounced, any time he wants. I asked if he himself could blow in on this high-power gentleman unannounced? Dahl was shocked at the thought."<br />
<br />
Wallace, who was not as wholly naive as Dahl supposed, was somewhat bemused by the extent to which the novice spy seemed to be in awe of his employer, especially when Dahl began boasting about the BSC's vast covert network, claiming the British had had "10,000 agents in Germany all through the war." Wallace found some of his claims strained credulity.<br />
<br />shipoffoolshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00107963600647441371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501582598080968484.post-72915590586195914182012-03-12T09:14:00.002-07:002012-03-22T20:26:57.731-07:00English Munitions and the July 20th 1944 Plot<strong>Source: </strong>Luck of the Devil by Ian Kershaw.<br />
<br />
<strong>Comment: </strong>Gestapo believed there was English involvement in assassination attempts on Adolf Hitler in 1939 (but no evidence survived the war). This is just to record some sources regarding the use of English munitions (which is generally accepted) in the July 20 plot.<br />
<br />
<strong>Text:</strong><br />
page 124-126<br />
SS Report on the Conspiracy, 26 July 1944<br />
Reich Chief Security Office - IV -<br />
Special Commission for July 20, 1944. Berlin, July 26, 1944<br />
<br />
Report on the plot against the Fuehrer of July 20, 1944.<br />
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<br />
On July 20, 1944, at about 12:50 PM, a detonation occured in the 'Wolfsschanze,' Restricted Area A, visitors' barrack, during the briefing session. The Fuehrer suffered only slight injuries, although in the immediate vicinity of the centre of the explosion...<br />
II.<br />
Immediately after plot became known, Reich Leader SS appointed speical commission of Reich Main Security Office for investigation of the attempt. Investigations began on the same day.<br />
Reich Leader SS noted during detailing of circumstances that perpetrator of attempt was presumably Graf von Stauffenberg, colonel, chief of staff at office of replacement army. He had been present at briefing session, then withdrew without notice before the explosion. Immediately afterward he went to Berlin by plane.<br />
<br />
III<br />
Specific place of the assassination attempt was conference room where daily briefing sessions took place, about 40 feet long and 15 feet wide. In the centre of the room stands a large map table; to the left, writing desk and radio phonograph. Room and all furnishings heavily damaged. To the right of entrance, 22 inch hole in floor. For wider radius, floor pressed in and charred. Points of impact of metal fragments not detectable, but wood splinters and leather fragments are impacted into fibre-board walls.<br />
<br />
Bomb crater shows that explosion occurred above surface of floor. Reconsituted fragments of the right section of three sections of table show clearly the direction of the pressure wave. It is indicated in photographs and sketches.<br />
<br />
Lower pressure wave from detonation continued through cavities under floor through the entire barracks and caused minor damage to a brick and cement framework of the barracks, particularly by a buckling upward of the floor. Upper pressure wave destroyed conference room to a large extent and found exit through window and door, as well as through partition wall. Very minute sifting of mass of rubble has led to discovery of extremely small leather and metal fragments, obviously from a brief-case; of pieces of sheet metal and two compression springs from English chemical-mechanical time-fuse firing pins; also, part of flat iron pliers. Other material discovered has no obvious connection with the explosive.<br />
<br />
Along the road leading from south exit to airport, an engineer search unit has found: a 976-g lump of explosive, with priming chambers of 20 g each and one English chemical-mechanical time-fuse firing pin, connected to English detonator cap, and set for 30-minute delay. Explosive was wrapped in brown wrapping paper.<br />
<br />
Medical report: Injuries and contusions attributed solely to pressure of blast. Additionally, considerable burns. In several wounds, fragments of wood, straw and, presumably, tattered leather. X-ray photographs reveal in all only two small metal spinters, presumably from lock of brief case.<br />
<br />
IV<br />
Leather fragments that were discoverd have been identified by witnesses as belonging to Stauffenberg's briefcase. Small parts of igniter found at place of explosion come from two igniters that are of same type as the two English chemical-mechanical time-fuse pins found along the road. As two compression springs from this type of time-fuse were found at place of explosion, the explosive charge must have contained two such igniters. The charge that was found along the road was also arranged for two igniters. Therefore the explosive that was used for the attempt was presumably of exactly the same kind as that which was found. According to report of explosive expert, the extent of damage at place of explosion correponds to potential power of explosive that was discovered.<br />
<br />
Driver of car that took Stauffenberg to airport observed that he threw an object out the window in the general area of the discovery, and driver has given an affidavit. Thus Stuaffenber's complicity has been objectively ascertained.<br />
<br />
-----------------------<br />
page 36-37<br />
On 6 July, Stauffenberg was present, for the first time in his capacity as chief of staff to Fromm, at two hour-long briefings at the Berghof. He had explosives with him. But, it seems, an appropriate opportunity did not present itself. Whatever the reason, at any rate, he made no attempt on this occasion. Impatient to act, Stauffenberg resolved to try at his next visit to the Berghof, five days later. But the absence of Himmler, whom the conspirators wanted to eliminate along with Hitler deterred him. Again, nothing happned/ on 15 July, when he was once more at Fuehrer's Headquarters (now moved back to the Wolf's Lair in East Prussia), Stauffenberg was determined to act. Once more, nothing happened. Most probably, it seems, he had been unable to set the charge in time for the first of the three briefings that afternoon. While the second short briefing was taking palce, he was telephoning Berlin to clarify whether he should in any case go through with the attempt in the absence of Himmler. And during the third briefing, he was himself directly involved in the presentation, which deprived him of all possibility of priming the bomb and carrying out the attack. This time, Olbricht even issued the 'Valkyrie' order. It had to be passed off as a practice alarm-drill. The error could not be repeated. Next time, the issue of the 'Valkyrie' order could not go out ahead of the assassination attempt. It would have to wait for Stauffenberg's confirmation that Hitler was dead. After the bungling of the opportunity on the 15th, the third time that he had taken such a high risk to no avail, Stauffenberg prepared for what he told his fellow conspirators, gathered at his home in Berlin's Wannsee district on the evening of 16 July, would be a last attempt. This would take place during his next visit to the Wolf's Lair, in the briefing scheduled for 20 July.<br />
------------------------------------------------<br />
page 18-21<br />
Already, as the Stalingrad crisis deepened towards the end of 1942, Tresckow - later described by the Gestapo as 'without doubt one of the driving-forces and the "evil spirit" of the putschist circles', and allegedly referred to by Stauffenberg as his 'guiding master' (Lehrmeister) - was pressing for the assassination of Hitler without delay. He had become convinced that nothing could be expected of the top military leadership in initiating a coup. 'They would only follow an order,' was his view. He took it upon himself to provide the 'ignition' (Initialzuendung)', as the conspirators labelled the assassination of Hitler that would lead to their removal of the Nazi leadership and takeover of the state. Tresckow had already in the summer of 1942 commissioned Gersdorff with the task of obtaining suitable explosives. The latter acquired and tested various devices, including British explosives intended for sabotage and for the French resistance that had been captured following an ill-fated commando expedition to St Nazaire and a catastrophic assault on Dieppe in 1942. Eventually, he and Tresckow settled on a small British magnetic device, a 'clam' (or type of adhesive mine) about the size of a book, ideal for sabotage and easy to conceal. Olbricht, meanwhile, coordinated the links with the other conspirators in Berlin and laid the groundwork for a coup to take place in March. The plans to occupy important civilian and military positions in Berlin and other major cities were, in essence, along the lines that were to be followed in July 1944.<br />
...<br />
[Hitler wore bullet proof vest and hat]. Nor was the chosen sharpshooter, bearer of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves Lieutenant-Colonel Georg Freiherr von Boeselager, sure that he was mentally equipped to shoot down a person - even Hitler - in cold blood. It was an entirely different proposition, he felt, from firing at an anonymouse enemy in war.<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, Boeselager made preparations for a group of officers, who had declared themselves ready to do so, to shoot Hitler ona visit which, it was hoped, he would soon pay to Army Group Centre headquarter at Smolensk. The visit eventually took place on 13 march. The plan to shoot him in the mess of Field-Marshal von Kluge, commander of Army Group Centre, was abandoned since there was a distinct possibility of Kluge and other senior officers being killed alongside Hitler. Given Kluge's wavering and two-faced attitude towards the conspiracy against Hilter, more cynical plotters might have thought the risk well worthwhile. As it was, they took the vieew that the loss of Kluge and other leading personnel from Army Group Centre would seriously weaken still futher the shaky eastern front. The idea shifted to shooting Hitler as he walked the short distance back to his car from headquarters. But having infiltrated the security cordon around him and set up position to open fire, the assassination squad failed to carry out their plan. Whether this was because Hitler took a different route back to his car, or whether - the more likely explanation - the danger of killing Kluge and other officers from the Group was seen as too great, is unclear.<br />
<br />
Tresckow reverted to the original plan to blow up Hitler. During the meal at which, had the origina plans been carried out, Hitler would have been shot, Tresckow asked one of the Fuehrer's entourage, Lieutenant-Colonel Heinz Brandt, travelling in Hitler's plane, to take back a package for him to Colonel Hellmuth Stieff in Army High Command. This was in itself nothing unusual. Packages were often sent to and from the front by personal delivery when transport happened to be available. Tresckow said it was part of a bet with Stieff. The package looked like two bottles of cognac. It was, in fact, two parts of the British clam-bomb that Tresckow had put together.<br />
<br />
Schlabrendorff carried the package to the aerodrome and gave it to Brandt just as he was climbing into Hitler's Condor ready for take-off. Moments before, Schlabrendorf had pressed the fuse capsule to activate the detonator, set for thirty minutes. It could be expected that Hitler would be blown from the skies shortly before the plane reahed Minks. Schlabrendorff returned as quickly as possible to headquarters and infomred the Berlin opposition in the Abwehr that the 'ignition' for the coup had been undertaken. But no news came of an explosion. The tension among Tresckow's group was palpable. Hours later, they heard that Hitler had landed safely at Rastenburg. Schlabrendorff gave the code-word through to Berlin that the attempt had failed.shipoffoolshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00107963600647441371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501582598080968484.post-89086507424592106702012-03-11T13:09:00.001-07:002012-03-12T08:41:00.213-07:00Jews and Polish Underground Press<strong>Source: </strong>Jan Gross, "A Tangled Web" in <em>The Politics of Retribution in Europe</em> ed Deak, Gross and Judt. pp 81-82<br />
<br />
<strong>Text:</strong><br />
An excerpt from an article published in the milieu of the Socio-Political Committee <em>Pobudka</em> (The Wake-Up Call). It was carried by the periodical <em>Words of Truth</em>, published on 30 October 1943:<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq">Who are the jews [small letter in original], whom they were for us, and whom they still may become - all should know this. Jews spread among us like pestilence, and Poland was a jewish breeding ground. One fourth of the 14 million jews of the whole world lived and fattened themselvs on our Polish misery. Did they feel any gratitutde because of this? No! In every war jews were on the side of our enemies, or in the best case - on the side of the stronger. The Polish nation suffered loss after loss, while the jews took advantage of every war and every national uprising to enrich themselves and enlarge their influence ... Germans did not kill all the jews ... about 2,275,000 jews were murdered, there are about 550,000 in the ghettos, in camps, and in hiding, and about 525,000 emigrated mostly to the Soviet land. This million of mostly young jews will come out of hiding, from ghettos, fromt he forests, and will return with the Soviet army when it approaches our borders. Jews will emerge in the critical moment, wrecking vengence on us and trying deprive us of the fruit of victory thanks to their influence in the West and possibilities in the East. But we grew wiser in the last quarter-century and we know that a jew is our enemy ....If jews would remain neutral we're ready to forgive them a lot and to support their emigration to depopulated territories of southern Russia, or anywhere else. During the peace conference we must insist on recognising jews as citizens of a nonexistent state, so that they cease to be Polish citizens. The jewish problem in Poland must come to an end.</blockquote></blockquote>Page 82-83<br />
[Karski] didn't have such horrible news to report on his first trip but what he had to say was enough for the Polish government in exile to falsify his report, so that allied governments or publich opinion in the West would not be informed about the extent of anti-Jewish sentiments in Polish society. "One can feel all over that the [Jews] hoped Poles would recognise that both nations are injustly exploited by the same enemy, and that Poles' attitude toward them would reflect this awareness. But such an understanding is lacking among the borader masses of the Polish society. Their attitude toward Jews is ruthless, often without pity. A large part avails itself of the prerogatives [vis-a-vis the Jews] that they have in the new situation. They use these prerogatives repeatedly, often even abuse them. To some extent this brings the Poles closer to the Germans ... The anti-Semitism of a broad strata of a the Polish society did not diminish at all." The Nazis, noted Karski in conclusion, were able to make of the Jewish question "something akin to a narrow bridge upon which the Germans and a large portion of Polish society are finding agreement."<br />
<br />
[Footnote 18, page 119. The manuscript of Karski's report can be found in the Hoover Institution archives (Stanislaw Mikolajczyk Collection, box 12) with handwritten lines scribbled across the cover page: "Attention!! Pages 6+9+10+11 have double pages." Indeed, doubled pages paginated as 6a, 9a, 10a and 11a are very carefully prepared. They begin and end exactly in the same place (once including a hyphenated word), for easy substitution. Karski was instructed, as he told me when I queried him about the document, to draft a sanitized version, omitting his descriptions of the anti-Semitisim prevailing in the Polish society, by a close confidant of then Prime Minister General Wladyslaw Sikorski, Professor Stanislaw Kot. Polish raison d'etat vis-a-vis the Allies required that the matter be covered up, he was told. For both versions of the document in their entirety, seeMowia Wieki, November 1992, 2-9]<br />
<br />
page 83<br />
The government delegate, the head of the civilian underground structure in occupied Poland, was more specific in an autumn 1941 report dispatched to London: "German policiees toward the Jewish minority stimulate two kinds of responses. The inhuman terror to which the Jews are subjected is universally condemned and evokes a lot of pity. But the social and particularly the economic isolation are generally approved. A certain faer, especially in merchant circles, goes with it - namely that the Jews might eventually return to their dominant position in the economy."......On 25 Setember 1941 - three months after the beginning of the Soviet-Nazi war and after the first wave of mass killings of Jews - the commander of the Home Army, Grot-Rowecki, sent the following telegram to London:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq">I report that all statements and policies of the government and the National Council concerning the Jews in Poland create the worst possible impression in the country and facilitate propaganda directed against the government. This was the reaction to the "day of the Jewry" (Dzien Zydowstwa), to Szwarcbard's speech, to the nomination of Lieberman, as well as to greetings conveyed on the occasion of the Jewish New Year. Please accept it as a fact that the overwhelming majority of the country is anti-Semitic. Even socialists are not an exception in this respect. The only difference concern how to deal with the Jews. Almost nobody advocates the adoption of German methods. Even secret organizations remaining under the influence of the prewar activists in the Democratic Club or the Socialist Party adopt the postulate of emigration as a solution of the Jewish problem. This becamea s much of a truism as, for instance, the necessity to eliminate Germans....Anti-Semitism is widespread now.</blockquote></blockquote>Nor would these attitudes change under the impact of the Holocaust. If we move three years forward, to the even of the Warsaw uprising, when the overwhelming majority of the Polish Jews had been killed, we find the political emissary Celt coming back from his mission to Poland with the following message: "The government delegate asked me to inform you that according to him 'the government exaggerates in its love for Jews.' The delegate understands that such moves may be necessary for the sake of foreign policy, but he advises prudence and restraint. Both under General Sikorski and now the government is too forthcoming in its philo-Semitism, because the country does not like Jews."shipoffoolshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00107963600647441371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501582598080968484.post-66314903055189649752012-03-07T20:37:00.000-08:002012-03-07T20:37:31.425-08:00Winston Churchill and Claus von Stauffenberg.<b>Source: </b>Hansard 12 July 1944. http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1944/jul/12/german-people-peace-terms#S5CV0401P0_19440712_HOC_172<br />
<br />
<b>Comment: </b>A striking feature of a number of resistance plots against Hitler was the use of English explosives/detonation systems. While it is usually claimed that these came from captured Abwehr or Wehrmacht stocks, it is worth keeping in mind the possibility of a direct connection with British intelligence. Von Klemperer in German Resistance Against Hitler states specifically that Stauffenberg believed he had a line of communication with Churchill (page 383). MP Richard Stokes was an independent minded Labour member of Ipswich. John Dugdale was also a Labour MP and Private Parliamentary Secretary to Clement Atlee.<br />
<br />
<b>Text:</b><br />
<a class="sitting-day" href="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/sittings/1944/jul/12">12 July 1944 </a> → <a href="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/sittings/1944/jul/12#commons" rel="directory up"> Commons Sitting </a> → <a href="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1944/jul/12/oral-answers-to-questions">ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS</a> <br />
<h1 class="title">GERMAN PEOPLE (PEACE TERMS)</h1><div class="house-of-commons-sitting" id="content"> <cite class="section">HC Deb 12 July 1944 vol 401 cc1732-3</cite> <a class="permalink column-permalink" href="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1944/jul/12/german-people-peace-terms#column_1732" id="column_1732" name="column_1732" rel="bookmark" title="Col. 1732 — HC Deb 12 July 1944 vol 401 c1732">1732</a> <div class="hentry member_contribution" id="S5CV0401P0-05649"> <a href="" name="S5CV0401P0_19440712_HOC_169"> </a> <blockquote cite="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/people/mr-richard-stokes" class="contribution_text entry-content"> <a class="speech-permalink permalink" href="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1944/jul/12/german-people-peace-terms#S5CV0401P0_19440712_HOC_169" rel="bookmark" title="Link to this speech by Mr Richard Stokes">§</a> <span class="question_no">40.</span> <cite class="member author entry-title"><a href="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/people/mr-richard-stokes" title="Mr Richard Stokes">Mr. Stokes</a></cite> <div class="first-para"> asked the Prime Minister whether His Majesty's Government will make plain at once the treatment which the German people may expect to receive from the United Nations, provided they themselves overthrow the Nazi regime, thereby encouraging them to that end and diminishing the loss of life and limb to our own Forces. </div><a name='more'></a><br />
</blockquote></div><div class="hentry member_contribution" id="S5CV0401P0-05650"> <a href="" name="S5CV0401P0_19440712_HOC_170"> </a> <blockquote cite="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/people/mr-winston-churchill" class="contribution_text entry-content"> <a class="speech-permalink permalink" href="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1944/jul/12/german-people-peace-terms#S5CV0401P0_19440712_HOC_170" rel="bookmark" title="Link to this speech by Mr Winston Churchill">§</a> <cite class="member author entry-title"><a href="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/people/mr-winston-churchill" title="Mr Winston Churchill">The Prime Minister</a></cite> <div class="first-para"> No, Sir, not at Question time to-day. </div></blockquote></div><div class="hentry member_contribution" id="S5CV0401P0-05651"> <a href="" name="S5CV0401P0_19440712_HOC_171"> </a> <blockquote cite="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/people/mr-richard-stokes" class="contribution_text entry-content"> <a class="speech-permalink permalink" href="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1944/jul/12/german-people-peace-terms#S5CV0401P0_19440712_HOC_171" rel="bookmark" title="Link to this speech by Mr Richard Stokes">§</a> <cite class="member author entry-title"><a href="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/people/mr-richard-stokes" title="Mr Richard Stokes">Mr. Stokes</a></cite> <div class="first-para"> Does the Prime Minister recollect his own statement that the best thing would be for the Germans to overthrow their Nazi taskmasters; and will he indicate what statement has yet been made which will encourage them to do so? </div></blockquote></div><div class="hentry member_contribution" id="S5CV0401P0-05652"> <a href="" name="S5CV0401P0_19440712_HOC_172"> </a> <blockquote cite="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/people/mr-winston-churchill" class="contribution_text entry-content"> <a class="speech-permalink permalink" href="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1944/jul/12/german-people-peace-terms#S5CV0401P0_19440712_HOC_172" rel="bookmark" title="Link to this speech by Mr Winston Churchill">§</a> <cite class="member author entry-title"><a href="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/people/mr-winston-churchill" title="Mr Winston Churchill">The Prime Minister</a></cite> <div class="first-para"> I am very glad to be reminded of that statement, to which I strongly adhere. I think it has been repeated in other forms by the Foreign Secretary and other Ministers. At any rate, it would certainly be a very well-advised step on the part of the Germans. </div></blockquote></div><a class="permalink column-permalink" href="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1944/jul/12/german-people-peace-terms#column_1733" id="column_1733" name="column_1733" rel="bookmark" title="Col. 1733 — HC Deb 12 July 1944 vol 401 c1733">1733</a> <div class="hentry member_contribution" id="S5CV0401P0-05653"> <a href="" name="S5CV0401P0_19440712_HOC_173"> </a> <blockquote cite="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/people/flight-lieut-wavell-wakefield" class="contribution_text entry-content"> <a class="speech-permalink permalink" href="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1944/jul/12/german-people-peace-terms#S5CV0401P0_19440712_HOC_173" rel="bookmark" title="Link to this speech by Flight Lieut Wavell Wakefield">§</a> <cite class="member author entry-title"><a href="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/people/flight-lieut-wavell-wakefield" title="Flight Lieut Wavell Wakefield">Sir Wavell Wakefield</a></cite> <div class="first-para"> Is my right hon. Friend aware that many people are of opinion that a punishment fit for these guilty Germans would be to fix them on their own flying bombs and discharge them into space? </div></blockquote></div><div class="hentry member_contribution" id="S5CV0401P0-05654"> <a href="" name="S5CV0401P0_19440712_HOC_174"> </a> <blockquote cite="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/people/mr-richard-stokes" class="contribution_text entry-content"> <a class="speech-permalink permalink" href="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1944/jul/12/german-people-peace-terms#S5CV0401P0_19440712_HOC_174" rel="bookmark" title="Link to this speech by Mr Richard Stokes">§</a> <cite class="member author entry-title"><a href="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/people/mr-richard-stokes" title="Mr Richard Stokes">Mr. Stokes</a></cite> <div class="first-para"> Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the second part of my question: what statement has yet been made by the United Nations which would encourage the Germans to overthrow the Nazis in so far as post-war treatment is concerned? No encouragement at all has been given. </div></blockquote></div><div class="hentry member_contribution" id="S5CV0401P0-05655"> <a href="" name="S5CV0401P0_19440712_HOC_175"> </a> <blockquote cite="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/people/mr-winston-churchill" class="contribution_text entry-content"> <a class="speech-permalink permalink" href="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1944/jul/12/german-people-peace-terms#S5CV0401P0_19440712_HOC_175" rel="bookmark" title="Link to this speech by Mr Winston Churchill">§</a> <cite class="member author entry-title"><a href="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/people/mr-winston-churchill" title="Mr Winston Churchill">The Prime Minister</a></cite> <div class="first-para"> That is a very interesting matter, but I am only pointing out that these very large topics cannot be adequately handled at Question time. </div></blockquote></div><div class="hentry member_contribution" id="S5CV0401P0-05656"> <a href="" name="S5CV0401P0_19440712_HOC_176"> </a> <blockquote cite="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/people/mr-john-dugdale-1" class="contribution_text entry-content"> <a class="speech-permalink permalink" href="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1944/jul/12/german-people-peace-terms#S5CV0401P0_19440712_HOC_176" rel="bookmark" title="Link to this speech by Mr John Dugdale">§</a> <cite class="member author entry-title"><a href="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/people/mr-john-dugdale-1" title="Mr John Dugdale">Mr. John Dugdale</a></cite> <div class="first-para"> Will the right hon. Gentleman see that at least those who form part of the German underground movement, few though they may be, receive better treatment than the mass of the Germans? </div></blockquote></div><div class="hentry member_contribution" id="S5CV0401P0-05657"> <a href="" name="S5CV0401P0_19440712_HOC_177"> </a> <blockquote cite="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/people/mr-winston-churchill" class="contribution_text entry-content"> <a class="speech-permalink permalink" href="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1944/jul/12/german-people-peace-terms#S5CV0401P0_19440712_HOC_177" rel="bookmark" title="Link to this speech by Mr Winston Churchill">§</a> <cite class="member author entry-title"><a href="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/people/mr-winston-churchill" title="Mr Winston Churchill">The Prime Minister</a></cite> <div class="first-para"> I have not been able to come into contact with them yet. </div></blockquote></div><div class="hentry member_contribution" id="S5CV0401P0-05658"> <a href="" name="S5CV0401P0_19440712_HOC_178"> </a> <blockquote cite="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/people/mr-richard-stokes" class="contribution_text entry-content"> <a class="speech-permalink permalink" href="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1944/jul/12/german-people-peace-terms#S5CV0401P0_19440712_HOC_178" rel="bookmark" title="Link to this speech by Mr Richard Stokes">§</a> <cite class="member author entry-title"><a href="http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/people/mr-richard-stokes" title="Mr Richard Stokes">Mr. Stokes</a></cite> <div class="first-para"> As it appears to be the Prime Minister's wish, may I give notice that I will raise the matter on the Adjournment? </div></blockquote></div></div>shipoffoolshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00107963600647441371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501582598080968484.post-73292734290024071392012-03-07T19:12:00.001-08:002012-03-07T19:15:00.644-08:00SS Eyewitness at Auschwitz?<b>Source: </b>(HQ BAOR, interrogation reports from No. 1 Sub-Centre, 10 Dec 1945. (D) Taped conversation held on 3 Nov 1945 between Ernst von Gottstein and Eugen Horak - Document 13 in <i>Interrogations: Inside the Minds of the Nazi Elite</i>, Penguin, 2001, pp. 371-74)<br />
<br />
<b>Comment: </b> Ernst von Gottstein (Hauptbauleiter OT, Gauamtsleiter fur Technik, Gau Karnten) and Eugen Horak (interpreter in Gruppe VI/C of the RSHA). If any subsequent information about Eugen Horak's service record and how he ended up in Auschwitz has come to light, I am not aware of it. Department VI/C was responsible for espionage and counter espionage abroad, C was responsible for Russia and Japan.<br />
<br />
<b>Text: </b><br />
<br />
<b>Horak</b>: <i>I was present in Vienna when they were loading up people for one of those mass evacuations. Hundreds were crammed into wagons, which normally took a couple of cows. And they were thoroughly beaten up as well. I went up to a young SS man and asked if the beating up was really necessary. He laughed and said they were only scum anyway. You know the whole thing was so unnecessary and one could well have got on without it ... what was the purpose of all that beating up? I have nothing at all against the gas chambers. A time can come when it is useful to the race to eliminate certain elements. Extermination is one thing but there is no need to torture your victims beforehand.</i><br />
<a name='more'></a><i>I saw some incredible things at Auschwitz. Some SS guard personnel could not stand it any longer and had to be sent to a nerve clinic. When my party arrived we were divided into two sections: those who were really keen on the whole affair, and those like myself who were continually asking for something to distract us. .... One SS company actually mutinied and tried to get themselves posted to the front. But they had to carry out their orders. It was just at the time that Ogruf [sic] Dix gave the orders to increase the death rate.</i><br />
<br />
<b>Von Gottstein</b>: <i>The motto of the SS ought to have been 'Meine Ehre ist Gehorsam' (My Honour is Obedience).</i><br />
<br />
<b>Horak</b>: <i>You're quite right. .... These people lose all feeling. Roschke for example once told me quite callously that he had volunteered for duty in the crematorium because they got so much time off afterwards. This duty was absolutely repulsive. One had to stand the whole night in the crematorium. There was only one door and no windows. The two sentries had to go in, lock the door and pass the key through the peephole to the officer outside. They were only connected to the outside world by telephone. An NCO and a private were normally on duty, but in a concentration camp experience counts a good deal more than rank. The one with more experience generally had a pistol and the other a rifle. There were nine people on duty in the crematorium, themselves known candidates for the gas chamber. They knew too much and were eventually exterminated as opportunity arose.</i><br />
<br />
<i>There were four ovens on the left side of the crematorium and the gas chamber was on the right - a normal size room with a narrow door and no windows. They did not use gas but a powder which at a certain temperature gave off poisonous fumes. It must have been quite agreeable because the people never made a mess. The sentries had to see that the nine people on duty didn't escape through the ventilators. And they watched them pulling the bones and the pieces of flesh which hadn't burned out of the ovens, or dragging the bodies from the gas chamber and cramming them into the ovens. There was only room for one body in each oven. There was a horrible smell of lime and burning flesh, something like the strong smell of urine ... (both laughing). But you get so used to it that you could eat your sandwiches in there too.</i><br />
<br />
<b>Von Gottstein</b>: <i>It's a wonder that the guards were not exterminated as well. </i><br />
<br />
<b>Horak</b>: <i>They always had one foot in the grave. After the wildest excesses the old SS people demanded that they should be 'racially examined'. What a circus it was! There was a Flamand who had volunteered for the SS, who was wounded at the front and posted for guard duties at Auschwitz. I think his father was a Belgian minister and he had a row with him because he went to the SS. He was eventually sent away and got a vacancy at the SS Cadet School with the help of my brother. He went to Berlin, had another row, was flung out and returned to Belgium. That was the kind of guard troop we got. What a crowd they were! If I saw Meister I would hand him over to the next soldier. He was a serjeant [sic] with the Bavarian Gendarmerie and came to the Waffen SS as an Oberscharfuehrer,a broad, thick-set beer swiller and a real swine. He was like death incarnate, always thinking out new methods. In June '41 I saw him chasing a Jew behind a dray until he was exhausted. Then he asked him if he would like some water. So he made him kneel down in front of a bucket and when he bent down to drink he pushed his head down under water with his foot and held him until he drowned. What a swine he was. Everybody knew about him. I can't prove all I heard about him, but I actually saw this. Then there was Untersturmfuehrer Mueller, or some quite ordinary name, a grey-haired elderly man, who used to practice the most incredible obscenities on the corpses when he was drunk. He was generally known as the 'crematorium clown'. Another of them, Emmerich, if he didn't like anyone's face, just ordered the guard to eliminate them. One couldn't bear the cries and screams very long, and the smell used to remain in your nostrils for days.</i><br />
<br />
<b>Von Gottstein</b>: <i>The only really good thing about the whole affair is that a few million Jews no longer exist.<br />
</i><br />
<b>Horak</b>: <i>But those who were responsible are now in the soup.</i><b> </b>shipoffoolshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00107963600647441371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501582598080968484.post-43147243760371247242012-03-06T19:42:00.000-08:002012-03-06T19:42:18.081-08:00OSS And Archaelogical Agents<strong>Text: </strong>Skulduggery: How the Allies' archaeological schools were used as a cover for intelligence work during the German occupation of Greece. By Richard Clogg<br />
<br />
<strong>Source: </strong>Times Literary Supplement, Feb 10, 2012, page 3. Review of Classical Spies by Susan Heuck Allen.<br />
<br />
<strong>Comment: </strong>Main interest is the integrity of OSS archives.<br />
<br />
The author appears to have consulted pretty well all possible archival sources. At times, however, she demonstrates an over-reliance on the written records and, in particular, on the self-promoting effusions of Colonel Ulius Amoss, who had worked for the YMCA in pre-war Greece. Amoss was given to feeding Donovan with ludicrously inaccurate intelligence on the situation in occupied Greece, and to flattering him with claims of the existence of such unlikely bodies as a 500-strong Cretan guerrilla force known as "Donovan's Band", and of a group of 300 andartes in Epirus which went under the name of "The American Legion".<br />
Included in the "controlled avalanche" of OSS material used by Allen is one particular document that seems problematic. Confusingly dated 10/9/99 and stamped "EYES ONLY", "DO NOT COPY", this records that Amoss, while in Cairo had "recruited, trained and launched numerous teams of assassins that carried out hits on various targets all over North Africa, Southern Europe, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal". It is true that Amoss was removed in 1943 from the Middle East for importing a contract killer from the US to Cairo and for what was euphemistically termed "financial mismanagement", but can it really be argued that he masterminded a mass programme of assassinations? After the war, this real-life Walter Mitty set up a private intelligence organization which was involved in a bizarre plot to kidnapp Stalin's surviving son in Moscow.<br />
Coudl this memorandum have been inserted by the CIA, the origianl custodian of the OSS archive? Or could it be a forgery placed in the archive by a prankster? In my experience of working in the OSS archive in the mid-1980s, it would not have been difficult to insert such a paper in the jumble of documents, rare ephermera and fascinating photographs that bore no indication of their belonging to the OSS archive. It occurred to me at the time that light fingered researchers could easily walk off with some of this material with no one being any the wiser. I had naively assumed that the US National Archive and Records Administration would prove to be object lesson in such archival excellence. This was far from being the case, at least as far as the thousands of cubic feet of OSS material were concerned.shipoffoolshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00107963600647441371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501582598080968484.post-14279575178479506572012-02-09T18:06:00.000-08:002012-02-09T18:06:19.903-08:00Hoess Affidavit: NI-4434-A<b>Source: </b>Nuremberg Document NI-4434-A<br />
<br />
<b>Comment: </b>Given in Warsaw 12 March 1947<br />
<br />
<b>Text:</b><br />
<br />
From May 1940, until 1 December 1943, I was commandant of the concentration camp at Auschwitz. Thereafter I was Chief of Office of the Department I of Wirtschafts Verwaltungs Hauptamt. Until 1 December 1943, one of my official functions was to inspect the use of labor (Arbeitseinsatz) of concentration camp prisoners from the Auschwitz camp and subsequently to inspect the use as labor of prisoners from all German concentration camps whenever Polh, the chief of the Main Office (Hauptamt); especially ordered me to do so.<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b> </b>According to my knowledge, the large scale use of concentration camp prisoners in the German private industry began in 1940/41. The utilization increased constantly until the end of the war.<br />
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<br />
Towards the end of 1944, there were approximately 400,000 concentration camp prisoners used in the private armament industry and in establishments essential for armament purposes. How many prisoners were used prior or after that time I cannot say. According to my estimate, in enterprises with particularly severe working conditions - for instance, in mines - every month one fifth died or were, because of inability to work, sent back by the enterprises to the camps in order to be exterminated.<br />
<br />
The concentration camps have at no time offered labor to the industry. On the contrary, prisoners were sent to enterprises only after the enterprise had made a request for concentration camp prisoners. In their letters of request the enterprises had to state in detail which measures had been taken by them, even before the arrival of the prisoners, to guard them, to quarter them, etc. I visited officially many such establishments to verify such statements and this was always before the inmates would be sent.<br />
<br />
The enterprises did not have to submit reports on causes for death, etc. On the basis of reports which we received in the camps from the SS guard personnel and from the leaders of the labor details, on the decrease of the number of prisoners working in the respective enterprises, the number of deaths and of persons unable to work was communicated, and on that basis new prisoners were continuously sent out to the respective enterprises for replenishing.<br />
<br />
During my official trips I was constantly told by executives of the enterprises that they want more prisoners.<br />
<br />
In the beginning of the war the enterprises paid little for this labor, perhaps Mk.1.-, Mk 1.20. Later on, they paid up to Mk 5.00 for skilled workers. Among the prisoners sent out to be used as labor, there were<br />
1) non-Jewish prisoners who were selected by reason of their professional training.<br />
2) Jews who were selected merely because of their ability to work.<br />
<br />
The age of prisoners utilized for labor ranged from approximately 13 years upwards. Prisoners over 50 years were but rarely utilized for labor - when they were particularly strong or were trained along special lines - otherwise they were exterminated at once.<br />
<br />
Prisoners utilized for labor who every evening returned from the plant to the concentration camp, had to work in concentration camp, had to work in the concentration camp on the same evening whenever collective or individual punishment to this effect had been imposed. Such additional collective or individual penal labor would be imposed because of minor offenses against the discipline, for instance, saluting not according to regulations. In such cases the prisoners had to work as long as daylight would permit, in the summer for two to three hours. In addition, the other customary punishments were imposed<br />
[signed] Rudolf Hoess<br />
[signed] John H E Fried<br />
[signed] Hertha C Knuth<br />
<br />
We, the undersigned, herewith declare that Rudolf Hoess signed his name on all three pages of this document by his own hand in our presence, after having carefully read, in our presence, every page including the corrections as they now appear.<br />
<br />
John H E Fried<br />
Consultant to the US Secretary of War<br />
Warsaw 12 March 1947<br />
Hertha C Knuth<br />
Interpreter, OCCWCshipoffoolshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00107963600647441371noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501582598080968484.post-42917955836079563082011-08-29T00:16:00.000-07:002011-08-29T00:16:13.700-07:00William Shirer's Berlin Diary and "Mercy Killings"<b>Source: </b>Two entries in late 1940 in William Shirer's Berlin diary.<br />
<br />
<b>Comment: </b>Written or prepared for publication in early 1941 it must represent one of the earliest descriptions of "Mercy Killings" in the Allied public sphere. Quite accurate in identification of 3 of the 6 major locations, but not accurate at all in his description of the genesis of the scheme.<br />
<br />
<b>Text:</b><br />
Berlin, September 21 1940<br />
<br />
X came up to my room in the Adlon to-day, and after we had disconnected my telephone and made sure that no one as listening through the crack of the door to the next room he told me a weird story. He says the Gestapo is now systematically bumping off the mentally deficient people of the Reich. The Nazis call them "mercy deaths". He relates that Pastor Bodelschwingh, who runs a large hospital for various kinds of feeble-mined children at Bethel was ordered to be arrested a few days ago because he refused to deliver up some of his more serious mental cases to the secret police. Shortly after this, his hospital is bombed. By the "British". Must look into this story.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
Berlin, November 25 1940<br />
I have at last got to the bottom of these "mercy killings". It's an evil tale.<br />
<br />
The Gestapo, with the knowledge and approval of the German government, is systematically putting to death the mentally deficient population of the Reich. How many have been executed probably only Himmler and a handful of Nazi chieftains know. A conservative and trustworthy German tells me he estimates the number at a hundred thousand. I think that figure is too high. But certain it is that the figure runs into the thousands and is going up every day.<br />
<br />
The origin of this peculiar Nazi practice goes back to last summer after the fall of France, when certain radical Nazis put the idea up to Hitler. At first it was planned to have the Fuehrer issue a decree of law authorizing the putting to death of certain persons found mentally deficient. But it was decided that this might be misunderstood if it leaked out and be personally embarrassing to Hitler. In the end Hitler simply wrote a letter to the secret-police administration and the health authorities authorizing the Gnadenstoss (coup de grace) in certain instances where persons were proved to be suffering from incurable mental or nervous diseases. Philipp Bouhler, state secretary in the Chancellery, is said to have acted as intermediary between Hitler and the Nazi extremists in working out this solution.<br />
<br />
At this point Bethel, already mentioned in these notes creeps into the story. Dr. Friedrich von Bodelschwingh is a Protestant pastor, beloved by Catholics and Protestants alike in western Germany. At Bethel,as I have noted down previously, is his asylum for mentally deficient children. Germans tell me it is a model institution of its kind, known all over the civilized world. Late last summer, it seems, Pastor von Bodelschwingh was asked to deliver up certain of his worst cases to the authorities. Apparently he got wind of what was in store for them. He refused. The authorities insisted. Pastor von Bodelschwingh hurried to Berlin to protest. He got in touch with a famous Berlin surgeon, a personal friend of Hitler's. The surgeon, refusing to believe the story, rushed to the Chacellery. The Fuehrer said nothing could be done. The two men then went to Franz Guertner, Minister of Justice. Guertner seemed more troubled at the fact that the killings were being carried out without benefit of a written law than that they were being carried out. However, he did agree to complain to Hitler about the matter.<br />
<br />
Pastor von Bodelschwingh returned to Bethel. The local Gauleiter ordered him to turn over some of his inmates. Again he refused. Berlin then ordered his arrest. This time the Gauleiter protested. The pastor was the most popular man in his province. To arrest him in the middle of war would stir up a whole world of unnecessary trouble. He himself declined to arrest the man. Let the Gestapo take the responsibility; he wouldn't. This was just before the night of September 18. The bombing of the Bethel asylum followed. Now I understand why a few people wondered as to <i>who</i> dropped the bombs.<br />
<br />
Of late some of my spies in the provinces have called my attention to some rather peculiar death notices in the provincial newspapers. (In Germany the custom among all classes is to insert a small paid advertisement in the newspapers when a death occurs, giving the date and cause of death, age of the deceased, and time and place of burial.) But these notices have a strange ring to them, and the place of death is always given as one of three spots: 1) Grafeneck, a lonely castle situated near Muenzingen, sixty miles south-east of Stuttgart; 2) Hartheim, near Linz on the Danube; 3) the Sonnenstein Public Medical and Nursing Institute at Pirna, near Dresden.<br />
<br />
Now, these are the very three places named to me by Germans as the chief headquarters for the "mercy killings".<br />
<br />
I am also informed that the relatives of the unfortunate victims, when they get the ashes back - they are never given the bodies - receive a stern warning from the secret police not to demand explanations and not to "spread false rumours". These provincial death notices therefore take on more meaning than they might otherwise. I will note down here some typical ones, changing the names, dates, and places, for obvious reasons.<br />
Leipziger Neuste Nachrichten, October 26: "JOHANN DIETRICH, FRONT SOLDIER 1914-1918, HOLDER OF SEVERAL WAR DECORATIONS, BORN JUNE 1 1881, DECEASED SEPTEMBER 23, 1940. AFTER WEEKS OF UNCERTAINTY, I RECEIVED THE UNBELIEVABLE NEWS OF HIS SUDDEN DEATH AND CREMATION AT GRAFENECK IN WUERTTEMBERG."<br />
From the same paper in October: "AFTER WEEKS OF UNCERTAINTY, THE INTERMENT OF MY BELOVED SON, HANS, WHO DIED SUDDENLY ON SEPTEMBER 17 AT PIRNA, WILL TAKE PLACE ON OCTOBER 10."<br />
Again: "WE HAVE RECEIVED THE UNBELIEVABLE NEWS THAT MY MOST BELOVED SON, THE ENGINEER RUDOLF MUELLER, DIED SUDDENLY AND UNEXPECTEDLY NEAR LINZ-ON-THE-DANUBE. THE CREMATION TOOK PLACE THERE."<br />
Another: "AFTER THE CREMATION HAD TAKEN PLACE WE RECEIVED FROndM GRAFENECK THE SAD NEWS OF THE SUDDEN DEATH OF OUR BELOVED SON AND BROTHER, OSKAR RIED, INTERMENT OF THE URN WILL TAKE PLACE PRIVATELY AT X CEMETERY UPON ITS RECEIPT."<br />
And: "AFTER WEEKS OF ANXIOUS UNCERTAINTY WE RECEIVED THE SHOCKING NEWS ON SEPTEMBER 18 THAT OUR BELOVED MARIANNE DIED OF GRIPPE ON SEPTEMBER 15 AT PIRNA. THE CREMATION TOOK PLACE THERE. NOW THAT THE URN HAS BEEN RECEIVED, THE BURIAL WILL TAKE PLACE PRIVATELY ON HOME SOIL."<br />
<br />
The last notice is signed October 5, indicating that the authorities delayed three weeks in delivering the ashes. Twenty four such advertisements, I'm informed, appeared in the Leipzig papers the first fortnight of last month.<br />
<br />
I am struck in the second from the last of these notices by the expression: "After the cremation had taken place, we received the sad news of the sudden death....." Struck too by the expression used in the first two: "after weeks of uncertainty" came "sudden death"; and by the use of the words: "inbelievable news".<br />
<br />
No wonder that to Germans used to reading between the lines of their heavily censored newspapers, these notices have sounded highly suspicious. Does sudden death come naturally after "weeks of uncertainty"? And why are the bodies cremated first and the relatives told of the deaths later? Why are they cremated at all? Why aren't the bodies shipped home, as is usually done?<br />
<br />
A few days ago I saw the form letter which the families of the victims receive. It reads:<br />
"We regret to inform you that your ---------, who was recently transferred to our institution by ministerial order, unexpectedly died on ---------- of ---------. All our medical efforts were unfortunately without avail.<br />
<br />
"In view of the nature of his serious, incurable ailment, his death, which saved him from a lifelong institutional sojourn, is to be regard merely as a release.<br />
<br />
"Because of the danger of contagion existing here, we were forced by order of the police to have the deceased cremated at once."<br />
<br />
This is hardly a reassuring letter, even for the most gullible of Germans, and some of them, upon its receipt, have journeyed down to the lonely castle at Grafeneck, it seems, to make a few inquiries. They have found the castle guarded by black-coated SS men who denied them entrance. Newly painted signs on all roads and paths leading into the desolate gorunds warned : "Seuchengefar!" ("Keep away! Danger of Pestilence!") Frightened peasants near by have told them how the SS suddenly took over and threw a cordon around the estate. They told of seeing trucks thundering into the castle grounds - but only at night. Grafeneck, they said, had never been used as a hospital before.<br />
<br />
Other relatives, I'm told, have demanded details from the establishment at Hartheim, near Linz. They have been told to desist, and that if they talk severe punishment will be meted out. Some of them obviously have taken their courage in their hands to publish these death notices, no doubt hoping to attract public attention to the murderous business. The Gestapo, I hear, has now forbidden publication of such notices, just as Hitler, after the heavy naval losses in Norway, forbade the relatives of drowned sailors to publish notices.<br />
<br />
X, a German, told me yesterday that relatives are rushing to get their kin out of private asylums and out of the clutches of the authorities. He says the Gestapo is doing to death persons who are merely suffering temporary derangement or just plain nervous breakdown.<br />
<br />
What is still unclear to me is the motive for these murders. Germans themselves advance three:<br />
1. That they are being carried out to save food.<br />
2. That they are done for the purpose of experimenting with new poison gases and death rays.<br />
3. That they are simply the result of the extreme Nazis deciding to carry out their eugenic and sociological ideas.<br />
<br />
The first motive is obviously absurd, since the death of 100,000 persons will not save much food for a nation of 80,000,000. Besides, there is no acute food shortage in Germany. The second motive is possible, though I doubt it. Poison gases may have been used in putting these unfortunates out of the way, but if so, the experimentation was only incidental. Many Germans I have talked to think that some new gas which disfigures the body has been used, and that this is the reason why the remains of the victims have been cremated. But I can get no real evidence of this.<br />
<br />
The third motive seems most likely to me. For years a group of radical Nazi sociologists who were instrumental in putting through the Reich's sterilization laws have pressed for a national policy of eliminating the mentally unfit. They say they have disciples among many sociologists in other lands, and perhaps they have. Paragraph two of the form letter sent the relatives plainly bears the stamp of this sociological thinking: "In view of the nature of his serious incurable ailment, his death, which saved him from a lifelong institutional sojourn, is to be regarded merely as a release."<br />
<br />
Some suggest a fourth motive. They say the Nazis calculate that for every three or four institutional cases, there must be one healthy German to look after them. This takes several thousand good Germans away from more profitable employment. If the insane are killed off, it is further argued by the Nazis, there will be plenty of hospital space for the war wounded should the war be prolonged and large casualties occur.<br />
<br />
It's a Nazi, messy buiness.[1]<br />
[1] On December 6, 1940, the Vatican condemned the "mercy killings." Responding to the question whether it is illicit for authorities to order the killing of those who, although they have committed no crime worthy of death, nevertheless are considered no longer useful to society or the state because of physical or mental deficiencies, the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office held that "such killings are contrary to both natural and divine law." It is doubtful if the mass of German Catholics, even if they learned of this statement from Rome, which is improbable, understood what it referred to. Only a minority in Germany know of the "mercy deaths"<br />
<br />
____________________________________________________________________<br />
<br />
<b>Text 2: </b>The Montreal Beacon: Sept 26 1941<br />
<br />
Mentally Deficient Systematically Put to Death in Germany<br />
[Direct quote from above text]<br />
Those Bombs on Bethel<br />
<br />
Shirer also suggests that the famous case of the bombing of the Bethel Asylum may have been a reprisal on the part of the German authorities against Pastor von Bodelschwingh, head of the asylum, who is stated to have refused to hand over patients to the authorities for "mercy killing."<br />
In its issue of May 2 the Catholic Herald reported a sermon by the pastor, which was very far indeed from giving the impression that he himself had the slightest suspicion of any such origin of the bombs.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
shipoffoolshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00107963600647441371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501582598080968484.post-79858479899651503322011-08-22T21:34:00.000-07:002011-08-22T22:01:35.450-07:00Selections of Hans Joseph Graf MATUSCHKA's affidavit on the Hungarian Jews<b>Source: </b>NG-2440, 26 August 1947 Nuernberg. The Holocaust: Selected Documents in Eighteen Volumes. Vol. 8, pp 248-254<br />
<br />
<b>Text:</b><br />
I, Hans Joseph Graf (Count) MATUSCHKA was employed in the German Foreign Service from 1918 to 1919 and from 1934 to 1945. From 1940 to the end of the war (1945), I was German Consul in Kaschau (Kassa), which then belonged to Hungary. During this period, I observed the following facts related to the policy concerning the Jews; I am noting down these observations in lieu of oath according to the best of my knowledge and conscience.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<b> </b>...<br />
All this changed all of a sudden when the Germans occupied Hungary. (19 March 1944). The first measures consisted in the introduction of the yellow Jewish star for all Jews, even for those who had been baptized decades ago. Furthermore, so-called "Autonomously Administrated Jewish Communities" were established which were segregated from the rest of the Hungarian citizens, and even the Christians of Jewish descent were forced to enter them. Soon afterwards, approximately in April/May, the Jews were deported from their homes, and they had to leave nearly all their belongings, often valuable furniture behind; they were interned in special streets, mostly in very poor and overcrowded houses (gettoes). Their previous homes were supposed to become "the property of the Hungarian nation", but most of them were confiscated by the SD and the innumerable police and SS units to be used as offices, messes and billets of the many SD-officials, who invaded the unfortunate allied country like locusts.<br />
...<br />
Some weeks afterwards, on or about June 1944, the whole Jewish population of Kaschau - approximately 11,000 to 12,000 out of a total of about 65,000 inhabitants - were concentrated in a huge camp at the town border (brickworks), the ghettoes being dissolved. There were no solid buildings in the camp, only brick sheds in which however, not all the people could be accommodated, so that many had to camp in the open. Beds and blankets are said to have been available in sufficient numbers, as the internees were allowed to take along as many as they needed. But even then there were already rumors of bad treatment by the Hungarian guards; one Hungarian police officer in particular is said to have made himself conspicuous by his brutal treatment of the internees were allowed to take along as many as they needed. But even then there were already rumors of bad treatment by the Hungarian guards; one Hungarian police officer in particular is said to have made himself conspicuous by his brutal treatment of the internees and the use of his riding whip.<br />
<br />
....<br />
Approximately in the end of July/August, deportation by freight trains of the camp inmates to unknown places outside of Hungary. At that time it was only known that the trains left Kaschau in a Northernly direction, crossing the Slovak frontier. Later on, I heard that some deportees had send postcards to acquaintances in Kaschau stating "that they were well". The transports as such are said to have been carried out in the most appalling conditions. The camp inmates - men, women and children - are said to have been crowded into the cattle trucks in much too large numbers, often but scantily clad, because overcoats, partly even coats and out garments had been taken away from them beforehand. The trains left only at night time, as on the way from the brickworks to the station an industrial railroad track along the Kaschau Main street had to be used. The heat in the freight cars is said to have been intolerable. In spite of this, the inhabitants are supposed to have been prohibited from handing water into the trains, from which the moaning of women and children was frequently heard. I did not witness these conditions myself, I consider these statements not exaggerated in view of the reliability of my Hungarian friends who made them. For this reason, it is, in my opinion, absolutely impossible that any person living in Hungary at that time considered these deportations of the Jewish population a kind of pleasure trip. On the contrary, I am convinced that the Jews living in other parts of Hungary, too, were deported in a similarly cruel way, and that all persons then staying in Hungary must have known this.<br />
...<br />
On the suggestion of Catholic clergymen and other Hungarian friends, I attempted to intervene at least in favor of those internees who were of Christian faith. I approached the then leader of the SD in Kaschau, Gottstein, trying to call his attention to the fact that it was politically inopportune to commit atrocities against members of the Catholic Church which was a Hungarian state institution. As the immediate reason for my intervention, I referred to a particularly blatant case of a well reputed wholesale merchant who had been a Christian for as much as 30 years. Gottstein replied rather curtly that he and the SD had nothing to do with this "ugly" affair. He stated that it was handled by "Sonderkommandos" (special detachments) of the SS and claimed that he himself did not even know all of their leaders. He advised me strongly, however, not to interfere in such matters, because first of all every Jew, - whether he was a "Jew by denomination" or "racially" - in favor of whom somebody intervened, was treated particularly severely, in order to stop such interventions; thus, he stated, I did only harm my proteges by steps of this kind; secondly he stated that a repetition of such steps from my part might well involve the loss of my official position and even endander my life.shipoffoolshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00107963600647441371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501582598080968484.post-80180986056151003942011-08-14T23:09:00.000-07:002011-08-14T23:09:20.811-07:00Testimony of Henri Henripierre re Strasbourg skeleton collection<b>Source: </b>Nuernberg Transcript of Proceedings, USA v. Karl Brandt, et all., pp 708-718. December 18, 1946<br />
<br />
<b>Comment: </b>The eyewitness who claims to have prepared the skeletons of Hirt's collection<br />
<br />
<b>Text</b><br />
DIRECT EXAMINATION<br />
<b> </b>BY MR. McHANEY:<br />
Q. Witness -<br />
A. Yes<br />
Q. Your name is Henri Henripierre?<br />
A. Yes sir.<br />
Q. You are a citizen of France?<br />
A. Yes, I am a French citizen.<br />
Q. When and where were you born?<br />
A. I was born in Lievres on the 23rd of August 1905<br />
Q. What was the year in which you were born again, please?<br />
A. 1905<br />
Q. What is your present address? That is your home address?<br />
A. My present address is 14 Rude De Lail, Strassbourg.<br />
Q. Will you tell the Tribunal just a bit about your personal history, what you have done and been doing up to the time you came to be a Clerk in the Anatomical Institute at Strasbourg?<br />
A. I should like fist of all to make it clear that I did not come here with any feelings of hatred or vengeance. I came here solely owing to a sentiment of having to do my duty and out of justice. I owe this to the 86 doctor victims whom we received in the month of August, 1943, I would, therefore, say before having to proceed with the preservation of the 86 victims that I made at least 250 preservations of Russian and Polish prisoners who died under the ill treatment at Mutzig. That is enough to show that I know how to appreciate the difference between a violent death and a natural death.<br />
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Q. Witness, let's find out just a little bit about you before you tell the Court about what happened at the Anatomical Institute in Strassbourg under Dr. Hirt. Now, were you ever arrested by the Germans?<br />
A. I was arrested by the Germans in Paris.<br />
Q. In Paris?<br />
A. I was arrested by the Germans in paris and was taken to the concentration camp at Compiegne, and it was after the intervention of Dr. Chezwolle, my principal officer, that I was transferred to the concentration camp at Compiegne, and before being liberated from the camp I passed before a Commission of High SS Officers, who told that I would have to return to my country if I wished to have my relatives spared, and it was on the 6th of June, 1942, which was the date i would have to leave Paris. It was as a result of that I was at Strassbourg.<br />
THE PRESIDENT: Will the witness speak more slowly?<br />
WITNESS: It was when i arrived there I tried to find employment at the hospital which might make use of my knowledge as a chemist's assistant at the chemist shop and there was no further employment there, and at the hospital they telephoned to Dr. Hirt and asked him if still required an employee and he answered "yes" and at that moment.<br />
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal is not receiving the translation.<br />
THE WITNESS: AT that moment I was taken on in Professor Hirt's Department, and naturally it was a principal anatomist who taught me to prepare bodies for preservation.<br />
BY MR. McHANEY:<br />
Q. Witness, just a minute. When was that when you took this job at Strassbourg under Dr. Hirt, what was the date?<br />
A. The date of my entrance was around about the 20th of June, 1942.<br />
Q. All right, who was your immediate superior on this job that you took?<br />
A. My immediate chief was under Professor Hirt, then the principal preparator Otto Bong, who taught me how to prepare bodies for preservation.<br />
Q. And who was that?<br />
A. He was a German subject, Mr Otto Bong, who came with the Professor to Strassbourg.<br />
Q. And how do you spell that name B O N G?<br />
A. B O N G.<br />
Q. all right, now let's go back just a minute. You stated you were arrested in 1942 in Paris by the Gestapo?<br />
A. Yes, that is right.<br />
Q. Why were you arrested?<br />
A. I do not know yet.<br />
Q. They did not tell you why you were arrested?<br />
A. They did not tell me why, no sir.<br />
Q. And then you went to the concentration camp at Compiegne?<br />
A. Yes, when I left the concentration camp at Compiegne I remained a month in Paris and on the 6th of June I had to leave Paris.<br />
Q. Now you went to Strassbourg then on the 6th of June, 1942<br />
A. Yes sir.<br />
Q. And you took this job in Hirt's institution?<br />
A. On the 20th of June I took the job.<br />
Q. And your task there was the conservation of corpses under the supervision -<br />
A. My employment was to proceed with the preservation of corpses, and to prepare for their lectures to students in the auditorium and I also looked after the central heating and I also had to go with the car that belonged to the section to fetch the corpses of the victims.<br />
Q. And I believe you stated that you had received about 250-300 corpses of Russian prisoners-of-war, is that right?<br />
A. Russians and Poles, yes sir.<br />
Q. How do you know were prisoners-of-war?<br />
A. Because every corpse was accompanied by a death certificate and for the 86 victims which we received in August there were not papers at all<br />
Q. Now, we will come to the eighty-six victims in just a moment; let's find out a little bit more about your job before then.<br />
A. My employment was principally to preserve the corpses, to fetch these corpses at Mutzig, and also to prepare for the lectures which were given to the students.<br />
Q. all right. Now, did there come a time in the middle of 1943 when you received some other corpses? I think you have been trying to tell us about that. Will you now relate the circumstances of that?<br />
A. What circumstances do you mean, sir?<br />
Q. You had mentioned the receipt of some eighty or eighty-six corpses. Will you tell us about that; when it happened, what you saw, and what you did?<br />
A. In the month of July, 1943, Professor Hirt received a visit from the senior officer of the SS. I thought that he was a senior officer because he came in his own car, accompanied by his own driver. Now, to have a driver and a car, you would need to be a senior officer.<br />
This officer came three times in the month of July. Professor Hirt took him and showed him the cellars of the laboratory. A few days later, Mr. Bong told me that he would have to prepare the tanks to receive a hundred and twenty corpses. We prepared the tanks. In these tanks there were synthetic spirits of 55 degrees.<br />
The first convoy which we received was a convoy of thirty women. It was supposed to arrive at five o'clock in the morning, but it only arrived at seven. After having interrogated the driver about the delay, the driver gave answer, "They gave us a lot of trouble." These thirty corpses of women were unloaded by the driver and two assistants, also helped by Mr. Bong and myself.<br />
The preservation of these corpses started straight away. The corpses arrived when they were still warm. The eyes were wide open and brilliant; they seemed congested and red, and they were popping out of the orbits. There were traces of blood at the nose and at the mouth, and there was evidence of fecal matter coming out. There was no rigor morits apparent. At that moment I judged for myself that it was a case of victims who, in my opinion, had been poisoned or asphyxiated, because in the case of no victim of any previous preservation were there presented the symptoms and signs that these victims showed when they arrived. That is why I made a note of the serial numbers that the women had tattooed in their left forearm. I made a note of them on a piece of paper, and I kept them in secret in my house. The serial numbers consisted of five digits.<br />
A few days later we received a second convoy of thirty men. These arrived exactly in the same state as the first, that is, still warm, with wide open eyes, congested, eyes brilliant, bleeding at the mouth and bleeding at the nose, and also losing their fecal matter.<br />
The preservation of these thirty men was also proceeded with immediately, with one slight difference. The left testicle in each case was removed, which was sent tot he Laboratory for Anatomy Number 2. That was a private laboratory run by Professor Hirt.<br />
Some time later, thereupon, we received a third and last convoy, namely, of twenty-six men. They also arrived in the same state as the two previous ones.<br />
I should like to make it clear once more - and I say this knowing it to be true - after the first convoy of women's bodies that we received, Professor Hirt, having met me at the door of an Anatomical Department, told me leterally [sic] "Peter, if you don't hold your mouth, you won't get out of this." That is word for word what Professor Hirt told me.<br />
Another peculiarity, Professor Hirt, some time before he received those bodies, said, in the basement of an Anatomical Department, talking to Mr Bong, "They are going to drop like flies."<br />
All this was a sign for me that it was literally a case of murder, I therefore was right in believing that those eighty-six victims which we had received had not died a natural death.<br />
Q. Witness, why do you assume that?<br />
A. I beg your pardon?<br />
Q. Why do you assume that these people were murdered? Did you get any death certificates with them, for example, with the bodies?<br />
A. What I mean is that having made the preservation of the first lots of corpses from Mutzig Camp, there was always a sheet with each body, whereas in the case of these eighty-six victims, there were no sheets at all; besides which, you should know as well as I that a person who dies a natural death does not leave a corpse with shiny, glistening eyes like those that I had seen nor in a state of complete congestion, nor with blood blowing out of eyes and mouth and nose. Also, these bodies were still warm. Therefore, it cannot be a case of natural death, so far as I can judge.<br />
Q. I see. Now, I am not sure that you told the Tribunal when the first shipment of bodies was received. Will you tell us that now, please?<br />
A. The first lot of women's corpses was received around about the 10th of August. I cannot state the date exactly, but what I do remember precisely is that it was at the beginning of August, the 10th of August, I believe.<br />
Q. And you saw these bodies with your own eyes when they were delivered?<br />
A. I was present myself; I myself helped unload them, and therefore I cannot be mistaken.<br />
Q. And then you received a second shipment of thirty bodies two weeks later?<br />
A. Yes, I received a second lot of thirty bodies, and a third lot of twenty-six bodies.<br />
Q. And what did you do with these bodies after you had received them?<br />
A. Once they were preserved, the corpses were placed in the tanks, about fifteen to each tank. These bodies were all superb. The bodies of prisoners which I had previously seen were all emaciated, whereas these eighty-six corpses that I am talking of were magnificent; finely muscled, and did not show any signs of neglect. The only thing that was remarkable was that there were a certain number of peculiar wrinkles in the back.<br />
Q. Do you know, witness, whether or not the people who were killed and delivered to you were Jews?<br />
A. At the time that I saw these bodies I did not know whether they were Jews or not. I merely questioned Mr. Bong and I asked him what he thought those people were. It was Mr. Bong who said, "Das sind alles Juden," "They are all Jews."<br />
Q. Now witness, will you tell the Tribunal just what happened to these bodies after they had been delivered to you and has been stored in the basement or in the cellar?<br />
A. Once the bodies had been preserved, they were put into the tanks. they remained in the tanks an entire year without anybody touching them. In the month of September, 1944, the Allies were advancing and therefore, at that time, Professor Hirt ordered Mr Bong and Mr Meier, the laboratory assistants to cut up these eighty-six bodies and to have them cremated in the Strasbourg City Crematorium. The work having been accomplished by Mr. Bong and Mr Meier in the actual room where these tanks were, I asked Mr. bong the following morning if he had cut up all of the bodies. He replied, "We couldn't cut them all up, it was far too much work. We left some of the bodies at the bottom of the tanks." I then asked Bong, "Were all the corpses burned with their gold teeth?" At that moment Bong replied, "The gold teeth that were already found on the Jews were handed over to Professor Hirt by Mr. Meier"<br />
The remaining corpses that were not put into coffins - because there weren't any coffins left - were tossed back into the tanks with the remainder of the others, so as to make people who would see them believe that they were the remains of anatomical defections.<br />
Q. Were you in Strassbourg when it was captured by the Allies?<br />
A. I beg your pardon.<br />
Q. I say, did you remain in Strassbourg, and were you there when it was captured by the Allies in 1944?<br />
A. When Strassbourg was liberated by the Allies I was still in that Anatomical Department. It is I who should have conveyed, in the car belonging to the Department, Mr and Mrs bong, and as Secretary of that Department I should also have evacuated them to the other bank of the Rhine. However, I was not anxious to do that.<br />
The day before the Allies arrived they were at that moment at Sauvergne. I knew it from the Allied wires. Therefore, the day before, I went around to the garage and I sabotaged the car so it would not be able to run. The next morning the Allies arrived, and of course when we wanted to use the car we couldn't. I considered it my duty to do that.<br />
Q. Now, these bodies which you say were not successfully dissected and burned, were they found in the Institute at Strassbourg University?<br />
A. Yes<br />
Q. Do you know whether pictures were taken of those bodies?<br />
A I beg your pardon?<br />
Q. Do you know whether pictures were taken of these bodies?<br />
A. Yes, photographs were taken of those bodies in several instances, and I know it well because I had to help. I emptied the tanks each time there were photographs so as to find those bodies that had not been dissected at the bottom. The corpses and the numbers which were on their arms corresponded exactly to the numbers that I had noted myself. Those corpses were subjected to post mortem examination by Professor Simona in my presence. I assisted him.<br />
Q. All right. Now, witness, I want to have handed to you a booklet of pictures. And this, if the Tribunal please, is document NO-483.<br />
A. I did not hear very well.<br />
Q. I say that I am going to have handed to you a book of pictures, and I want you to tell the Tribunal if these are pictures of the corpses which were left in Strassbourg.<br />
A. Yes, certainly, the photographs were taken at Strassbourg. Professor Simona made up an album with all the photographs, as well Commissar Commandant Jardin.<br />
Q. Will you look at this book of pictures, which is document number NO-483, and will you tell the Tribunal if these are pictures of the corpses which were delivered to the Institute at the Strassbourg University in August of 1943?<br />
A. Yes, sir.<br />
(Documents were submitted to the witness.)<br />
A (continuing) Yes, that is correct. Yes, very exact. I can therefore say that these photographs are authentically true. I was present myself when these photographs were taken. They are exact. It is true. There is no doubt whatever about it.<br />
Q. Now, then, witness, I will ask that you be shown another booklet of pictures. This is Document Number NO-807 and I will ask you to ell the Tribunal if that booklet, that document, contains pictures of these corpses at the Institute at Strassbourg University?<br />
A. (Witness commenting as he looks at the pictures): [..] these corpses ere in the Anatomical Department of Strassbourg. I remember that corpse, for instance, I remember that face. I laid out the bodies myself so that the photographs could be taken. I remember the remains of legs and arms were laying in that tank - arms on which traces of serial numbers remained that had been cut off so that serial numbers could be removed. Yes, this is exact; this is correct. This one here is a body on which we made a post mortem. Here are photographs which were taken during the post mortem. For instance, this one is a photograph that I described.<br />
Q. I think that will be sufficient, witness. I take it that you have been interrogated many times about this incident at Strassbourg, is that correct?<br />
A. Yes sir.<br />
Mr McHANEY: If Your Honor please, I do not think I have any further questions to direct to the witness. I have had him identify these two books of pictures which, unfortunately, we have not duplicate in your document book. However, I have not offered them at this time as Exhibits because we also intend to offer them under certifications made by the French War Crimes Commission which appear upon these documents and which, irrespective of the identification by this witness, would make them admissible under Ordinance No. 7.<br />
JUDGE SEBRING: Do you intend to duplicate them Mr Mchaney?<br />
Mr. McHANEY: We are trying to duplicate them now. There are just a delay in it. I would like to go ahead, though, and off them as exhibits, as soon as this witness has been excused, based first upon his identification and secondly upon the certification attached to each.<br />
JUDGE SEBRING: With the proviso that they will be duplicated.<br />
<br />
...<br />
JUDGE SEBRING: Any cross examination of this witness by defence counsel?<br />
DR. WEISGERBER (Counsel for the Defendant Sievers): I am also speaking in the name of my colleague, Dr. Kaufmann. I should like to have the opportunity to view the album which has just been submitted and it is only after that that I can state whether cross examination will be necessary or not.<br />
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel for the Prosecution will exhibit these two albums to the defense counsel. Counsel, do you desire a few moments to examine these exhibits? The Tribunal will take a short recess if you desire some time to look them over.<br />
DR WEISGERBER: Yes.<br />
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will be in recess for 10 minutes.<br />
<br />
<br />
shipoffoolshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00107963600647441371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501582598080968484.post-66645135112694055922011-08-14T00:13:00.000-07:002011-08-14T00:13:10.307-07:00Albert Hartl on Kiev<b>Source: </b>NO-5384. The Holocaust: Selected Documents in Eighteen Volumes. Vol 10, page 220-221<br />
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<b>Comment:</b> Albert Hartl made a series of rather odd claims regarding Kiew. This is one of them.<br />
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<b>Text:</b><br />
Affidavit<br />
<b> </b>I, Albert HARTL, swear, despose and state:<br />
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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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<br />
Nuernberg, 9 October 1947 Albert Hartl<br />
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shipoffoolshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00107963600647441371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501582598080968484.post-52760428707397280182011-08-02T23:50:00.000-07:002011-08-03T00:22:58.312-07:00The Memoirs of Field Marshal Keitel<b>Source:</b> The Memoirs of Field Marshal Keitel, edited by Walter Gorlitz, 1965.<br />
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<b>Comment: </b>Might have interest in Brauchitsch, resistance networks and other sundry matters.<br />
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<b>Text:</b><br />
Page 87 [Speech of August 22 1939 at Berghof]<br />
All the more remarkable was his Berghof speech delivered on 22nd August to the generals of the eastern armies ranged against Poland, a speech delivered with the finest sense of psychological timing and application. Hitler was an extraordinarily gifted orator, with a masterly capability of moulding his words and phrases to suit his audience. I would even go so far to say that he had learned his lesson from the ill-conceived meeting with the chiefs of staff, and had realised that trying to set them at odds with their commanders-in-chief had been a psychological error. Other versions of this particular speech have been subjectively distorted, as the minute taken by Admiral Boehm, who must be regarded as absolutely impartial, clearly shows.<br />
On 24th August, Hitler arrived in Berlin and on the 26th the invasion of Poland was due to begin. The events in the Reich Chancellery during the days prior to 3rd September are of such world-wide and lasting historical importance that it will be better for me to leave their logical analysis and exact interpretation to professional historians; I myself can contribute but little from my own experience, and unfortunately I dispose over no notes or memoranda upon which to base my own recollections.<br />
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Page 101-102 [1939. Brauchitsch presents his complaints]<br />
The conference with Brauchitsch took place in my presence [It was on 5th November, 1939.] Von Brauchitsch and I silently listened to Hitler's very extensive discourse on the War Office's point of view as far as it was known. Brauchitsch followed him, giving two reasons why he could not agree:<br />
1. During the Polish campaign the infantry had been shown to be over-cautious and insufficiently attack-minded; it also lacked training, it showed little command of the tactics of attack and its NCOs lacked proficiency.<br />
2. Discipline had unfortunately become very lax and there were at present conditions reminiscent of those in 1917 - there had been drunken orgies and bad behaviour in troop trains and on railway stations. He had been sent reports on all this by the stationmasters, and there was a series of affidavits on hand which had led to reprimands for bad breaches of discipline.<br />
He concluded that the Army needed intensive training before there was any possibility of unleashing it on a rested and well-prepared enemy in the west.<br />
After the Commander-in-Chief had finished speaking, the Fuehrer jumped up in a rage and shouted that it was quite incomprehensible to him that just because of a little lack of discipline a Commander-in-Chief should condemn his own Army and run it down. None of his commanders had said anything to him about any lack of verve in the infantry when he had been at the front, but he had to listen to such criticisms now after the Army had won a unique victory in Poland. As Supreme commander he, personally, would have to reject out of hand such charges against his Army. He concluded by demanding to see all the legal papers concerned so that he could read them for himself. Then he left the room, slamming the door behind him, leaving all of us just standing there. ....Every day I was asked for the legal papers he had demanded; I only ever saw one that Hitler threw onto my desk. [November 18 Blaskowitz?????]<br />
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Page 132-133 [Canaris and Gibraltar]<br />
From the beginning of December 1940 we had energetically thrown ourselves into the planning of a combined land and air attack on the Rock of Gibralter, from the Spanish hinterland. The Spaniards, and especially the Spanish General Vigon - a close friend of Field Marshal von Richthofen and of Admiral Canaris - and a general who enjoyed both Franco's confidence and the actual authority of a field-marshal, had not only given us permission to carry out a tactical reconnaissance of the Rock from the Spanish side of the frontier, but had in fact accorded us the greatest assistance in doing so. The plan of attack was elaborated with all the frills and close detail by a general of our moutain warfare troops and outline to Hitler in my presence early in December.<br />
.....<br />
On my own suggestion, Admiral Canaris was despatched to see his friend Vigon early in December, to negotiate Franco's agreement for the execution of the operation; General France had up to then turned a blind ey on the various General Staff and Intelligence. We naturally agreed that once we had succeeded in seizing Gibralter we would return the Rock to Spain just as soon as the war no longer required us to bar the Straits of Gibralter to British naval traffic, a military responsibility which we would naturally take care of ourselves.<br />
Some days later Canaris returned to report to the Fuehrer, who had personally entrusted him with and briefed him for the mission: Franco had refused to co-operate, pointing out that such a grave breach of neutrality might result in Britain's declaring war on Spain. The Fuehrer listened calmly and then announced that in that case he would drop the idea, as he was not attracted by the alternative of transporting his troops through Spain by force, with Franco then suitably publicising his wrath about it. He feared that that might lead to a new theatre of operations, because Britain might then with equal justification land troops in Spain, perhasp through Lisbon, just as in the case of Norway.<br />
Whether Canaris was the right man for that mission, I would now be inclined to question, in view of the treachery he now seems to have condoned for several years. I now assume that he did not make a serious effort to win Spain over for the operation, but in fact advised his Spanish friends against it.<br />
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Page 177-178 [1942 and Red Orchestra]<br />
There is not much time left to me, so I will refrain from depicting the progress of the Hitler offensive as it ground to a halt in the Caucasus and at Stalingrad - the prelude to the turn of the tide against us the east. I would like to restrict my narrative to some particular episodes and personal experiences of that period.<br />
The first, and completely inexplicable, event was the publication in the newspapers of the Western Powers of certain copies of our plan of attack. They reproduced at least one sentence of the Fuehrer's 'basic directive' so accurately that there could be no doubt but that there had been treachery somewhere along the line. The Fuehrer's mistrust of the staffs entrusted with the preliminary study found new sustenance: he renewed his charges against the General Staff, who, he said, could be the only source of this betrayal.<br />
In fact, as was discovered during the following winter, the guilty party was a renegade officer on the Air Force operations staff, who had been employed in their Intelligence section and who had established contacts with the enemy's espionage network. During a big trial before the Reich Military Tribunal in December 1942, a number of sentences were passed, because a major organisation of traitors and spies had been uncovered in Berlin. Even though they were largely civilians involved, both men and women, the most important of the enemy's sources of military intelligence had been this Air Force officer, a Lieutenant-Colonel Schulze-Boysen, and his wife. But until this had been established, Hitler continued to heap abuse on the Army's completely innocent General Staff.<br />
The second misfortune was when a divisional staff officer's aircraft crashed in no-man's land on the eastern front; he had been carrying upon his person the order issued to General Stumme's Army Corps for its attack during the big offensive due to begin very few days later. The hapless officer had lost his way in the plane, and, together with the documents, fell into Russian hands; he himself was shot out of hand on the spot.<br />
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Page 183 [General Thomas]<br />
But quite apart from all this, every situation only hardened in us a tacit realisation that the enormous quantities of men and material we were pouring in with no hope of replacement bore no comparison to the meagre expenditure it had forced upon the Russians hitherto. Almost every day Halder was waiting with new statistics on the enemy's tanks and spares outputs (date provided by General Thomas) and on the capacity of the enemy's armaents industry in the Urals (Thomas again) and so on; again and again the Fuehrer was provoked to refute the statistics.<br />
I was forbidden to circulate General Thomas' 'defeatist' reports any longer: they were pure fantasy, he refused to stand it, and so on.shipoffoolshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00107963600647441371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501582598080968484.post-68848662148866599312011-06-06T23:08:00.000-07:002011-06-17T05:44:44.326-07:00NO-508 Affidavit Dr Gerhard Schiedlausky - Buchenwald physician<b>Source: </b>NO-508 Affidavit of 7 August 1945.<br />
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<b>Comment: </b><br />
<br />
<b>Text:</b><br />
Freising, 7 August 1945<br />
<b> </b>I, Gerhard SCHIEDLAUSKY, MD, Hauptsturmfuehrer of the Reserve of the Waffen SS, declare the following:<br />
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I was drafted on the 28 October 1939. From the 21st of March to the end of September, 1941, I worked as a doctor in the concentration camp Mauthausen as Truppenarzt and also in the prisoners' wards. From that time I remember that so-called SMITH fratures ("Parierfracturen"), fractures in the lower third of the lower arm, and jaw fractures occurred which could be traced back to the roughness of the prisoners, especially to many of the Capos who were notorious for their brutality. Since there was a large number of professional criminals, it was unavoidable that some cases of unnatural death should occur; the prisoners among themselves exercised a hard and brutal system of justice. Through the most dire threats, thieves, especially those who sole bread, were driven to suicide which mostly took the form of hanging. I estimate that in about two cases they deliberately ran into the electric wire fence. There were also a series of men who were shot in flight. At one time attempted escapes, especially when a transport of Dutch Jews arrived, increased so much that the danger existed that a future increase in these suicidal flights would stir up the camp; consequently the camp headquarters armed husky prisoners with clubs and placed them near the line of guards and successfully, within a short time, stopped these attempts that had previously reached a toll of up to twelve deaths daily. In Mauthausen, I also witnessed punishment by beatings (Prugelstrafe) which were at that time administered by the block leaders after the required formalities had been met. These amounted up to twentyfive lashes. From the near camp, Gusen, I further remember that several cases of broken jaws occurred. During my time in Mauthausen, I remember the following SS members who worked in the Medical Detachment (Sanitaetsdienst);<br />
Station physician: SS Untersturmfuehrer Dr. MATTNER, till the beginning of July, 1941; later, for a short time: SS Obersturmfuehrer Dr. Joseph FRIEDL (deceased); finally: SS Strumbannfuehrer Dr. KREBSBACH. SS Untersturmfuehrer Dr. Ladislaus CONRAD (deceased) was another physician. Dentist: SS Obersturmfuehrer Dr. KAPPE, later an SS Untersturmfuehrer Dr. HENKEL. Dr KAPPE left Mauthausen for the front about August, 1941. Pharmacist: SS Hauptsturmfuehrer WASICKY. Of the non-commissioned medical officers, I remember SS Hauptscharfuehrer METZNAR who was in charge of the office; there were further four or five more enlisted men whose names I cannot recall. In the camp Gusen the following doctors were active: SS Untersturmfuehrer HESCHL, JUNG and SAITSCHIK, also SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Dr. Karl ABRAHAM, dentist. From the beginning of October to the beginning of December, 1941, I worked as troop and prison doctor in Flossenburg. An early winter brought along many serious illnesses and cases of collapse upon the job, especially in the stone quarry. These cases mostly ended in death. In November, 1941, the first transports of Soviet POWs arrived. They arrived in a bad overall condition, underfed, half-starved, and they brought spotted fever with them so there was immediately plenty of work for thenewly appointed prison docters. The SS doctors there were:<br />
SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Dr. TROMMER; my successor, SS Obersturmfuehrer Dr. OTTOKAR BLASCHKE. The dentists were: SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Dr. PUETZ, later SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Dr. HELLINGER.<br />
<br />
At the beginning of December, 1941, I received orders to proceed to Ravensbruck to relieve Hauptsturmfuehrer Dr. SONNTAG as station physician (Standortarzt). there were three camps:<br />
1.) The women's camp which had about six thousand prisoners in the beginning, and which in August, 1943, had eighteen thousand. I did not observe any cruelties on the part of the SS personnel or female guards, although occasional dog bites, almost always of a mild nature occurred due to the negligence of the women guards or the unpredictability of the dogs.. Cases of unnatural death were very rare: once it was a Russian woman who tired to escape over the electric fence and died in the attempt, and there were several cases of suicide by hanging, perhaps two or three. In 1942 and 1943 orders came from the Reichsfuehrer SS that in the women's camp Ravenbruck suitable volunteers were to be picked in order to establish brothers in some of the men's camps. In my capacity as camp doctor I had to take part in choosing suitable girls from among the applicants. They had to be healthy, of age and previously engaged in prostitution. Those who volunteered were mostly German prostitutes, also some Poles and one German gypsy halfbreed. During my time approximately the following camps were supplied with prostitutes: Mauthausen or Gusen with sixteen, Buchenwald with fourteen, Flossenburg with about ten. Dachau also received some, but in my estimation no more than two or four.<br />
<br />
The punishment inflicted upon women in Ravensbruck was different in that the Reichsfuehrer SS had reserved for himself alone the decision to have these German women flogged at least those who, as wives or widows of soldiers, had given themselves to foreigners. In this case there were floggings up to three times twenty-five blows under more severe conditions, that is, with a naked behind. In the beginning, this was done by women guards, but later exclusively by female prisoners. Depending on the number, the punishment took place once or twice a week and five to eight women were punished.<br />
<br />
On order of the Reichsfuehrer, Gruppenfuehrer Dr. GEBHARD, HOHENLYCHEN, carried out a series of experiments in about 1942 and 1943. The problem to be solved was the therapeutic effect of a number of medicines and possibly also surgery upon gangrene. Polish women who had been sentenced to death by court martial and who were awaiting execution, after their sentences had been approved by the Governor General, were chosen as subjects. The experiment proceeded as follows: a six to eight cam long incision was made in the lower calf. A certain bacteria culture which was sent especially for this purpose by the Hygiene Insitute of the Ss was placed deep in the calf muscle, and then the skin was rejoined. As camp doctor, my only responsibility was to see that clinical matters such as the operation itself, nutrition and special nursing, etc., were taken care of to the satisfaction of Professor GEBHARD. The operation itself was performed by Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. STUMPFEGGER and Hauptsturmfuehrer Dr. FISCHER; the camp docotr, Miss OBERHAUSER assisted them. I estimate that about thirty to forty women were used for this experiment with about ten to twelve dying. Oberarzt Dr. HEISSMEIR, head of the tuberculosis sanatorium Hohenlychen, intended to conduct another series of experiments with prisoners, but these were not approved by the higher authorities. Here the main interest was tuberculosis research, to check the reaction of the patient to increasing burdens of physical exertion.<br />
2.) The male camp Ravensbruck: This was purely a work camp for the development of industry. Because of the peculiar working conditions the rate of illness was always rather high. As station doctor I had to supervise the prisoners' hospital.<br />
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3.) The youth protection camp Uckermark - The female inmates were almost entirely German girls, on whom the efforts of ordinary reformatory education (Fuersorgeerziehung) had failed, who continued social activities [sic], loafed around and would not let themselves be influenced by their parents and would not obey them. Among them were girls, who because of inherited biological traits were considered inferior, partly because they were epileptics, or the offspring of drunkards, mental cases or sexual maniacs. Only a few of the prisoners were girls who had committed some sort of crime that would ordinarily land them in Ravensbruck, but who were sent there because of their youth. Thse were mostly cases of forbidden contact with foreigners, almost always sexual intercourse.<br />
<br />
As far as hygienic conditions went in all 3 camps, in the beginning there was sufficient space in the women's camp, but due to the mounting number of prisoners, there were not sufficient beds to go around, so that people working on day and night shifts had to alternate in a bed. Consequently scabies and also some lice were observed.<br />
<br />
My co-workers in Ravensbruck were:<br />
SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Dr. SONNTAG - my predecessor<br />
SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Dr. TROMMER - my successor.<br />
<br />
Camp doctors (female): Mrs SONNTAG, MD, Miss OBERHAUSER, MD; both left before my time.<br />
<br />
Camp doctor (male): SS Obersturmfuehrer Dr. R.IF ROSENTHAL who, after a special doctor was no longer assigned solely to the men's camp, took over the latter job, too. Previous doctors in the men's camp were:<br />
SS Obersturmfuehrer Dr. KI???ETTER, SS Oberstrumfuehrer Dr. Ottokar BLASCHKE and SS Untersturmfuehrer BERGER who was employed as a dentist, when a candidate for the state medical examination, temporarily took over the duties of doctor. The dentists at this time were: SS Sturmbannfueher Dr. Karl (?) MUECKE and SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Dr. HELLINGER; Dentist was SS Unterscharfuehrer FENCHEL at first, and later SS Hauptscharfuehrer GARMS was charged with the dental care of the men's camp; SS Untersturmfuehrer LORBEER (deceased) was the pharmacists; of the non-commissioned officers of the medical corps, there were present when I took over:<br />
SS Oberscharfuehrer BUETTNER and the two Unterscharfuehrer MUSIKANT and JANTZEN.<br />
<br />
In August 1943, I was relieved of my post by Hauptstandartenfuehrer Dr. Enno LOLLING, Chief of Amt D III. The reason was that some disciplinary action was taken against Obersturmfuehrer Dr. ROSENTHAL. He had had a love affair with a German prisoner nurse and performed an abortion on her. As his medical superior, I was accused of knowing of this affair, so I felt myself forced to ask to be relieved of my duties, especially since relations with the camp commander at the time, Sturmbannfuehrer Fritz SUHREN were not of the best. I was sent to Natzweiler, to relieve Obersturmfuehrer Dr. von BODMANN there.<br />
<br />
I spent from about the middle of August to the middle of October 1943, in Natzweiler, then got the order from the head of Amt D III to take over the duties of Dr. Waldemar HOVEN, who was under investigation, as station doctor of the Waffen SS, Weimar, and 1st camp doctor of Buchenwald. After I turned my own duties over to Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. Richard KRIEGER, my successor took over my new office.<br />
<br />
My activities in Buchenwald started on around the 15-18 October 1943, and ended 11 April 1945, the day the Americans entered. When I took over, there were sufficient facilities in the prisoners' hospital to handle the volume of work. I gave the prisoners self-administration and especially the capo (a prisoner who was in charge of other prisoners) Ernst BUSSE a free hand. He picked out war nurses, released those not suitable and occasionally meted out some sort of punishment. The assistant to BUSSE was Otto KIPP, vice capo. There were plenty of doctors around. Some of the departments were headed by prisoners with long years of experience. In the hospital, there were altogether 5 barracks for the sick, a sixth was added later. The dispensary of the little camp had two barracks.<br />
<br />
At the time I started to work, no experiments were conducted at Buchenwald. Later there were several series ordered as follows:<br />
1.) Experiment of Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. VAERNET <br />
2.) Experiments of Obersturmbannfuehrer Dr. SCHRICK [sp?]<br />
3.) Nutrition experiments with SAEMIGMARK [sp?]<br />
4.) Investigations of Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. ELLENBECK<br />
<br />
In reference to 1.) The experiments of Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. VAERNET, a Danish hormone expert, took place about the middle of 1944 on order of the Reichsfuehrer SS, who had directed the Reich physician of the SS, Dr. GRAWITZ, to have the experiments carried out in Buchenwald. The aim of the experiments was to change homosexuals so they would again react normally. My part in the experiments, which was detailed for me in written instructions from my superior, Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. LOLLING, was only to see to it that the necessary number of homosexuals were in the camp. In a preliminary examination, Dr. VAERNET picked out suitable subjects, then informed us by wire from Prag on about what day he would perform operations on the 4 subjects. He also desired to operate on 6 more prisoners, at a later date, one of whom was to be a eunuch and another an aged man who was no longer capable of sexual feelings. in the operation itself, a 2-3 cm long incision was made in the abdomen under local anesthasia. Then the artificial hormone, which he had developed himself and which was in the form of a normal pill, was inserted into the sub cutaneous fatty tissues and the wound closed.<br />
<br />
In reference to 2.) The experiments of Obersturmfuehrer Dr. SCHICK were concerned with the healing of boils and small carbuncles. Buchenwald was given the assignment to furnish sick men as subjects to test this method. The results were positive, many boils could be healed much quicker this way.<br />
<br />
In reference to 3.) In the nutrition experiments with "Saemigmark", an additional forgus [sic] (Pilzrasen) supposedly containing 50g albumen, was administered. It was a by product of the process of washing unfinished cellulose to remove excess sulfites with lye solutions wih which nothing can be done; it was gained by a complicated procedure.<br />
<br />
In reference to 4.) The interests of Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. Hans Dieter ELLENBECK aly in about the same direction as those of the nutrition experiments. His Job [sic] - was in the case of frequent occurence diseases, or complaints about the conditions of the prisoners, to investigate and find the cause. He was appointed by the Chief hygienist, SS Oberfuehrer Professor Dr. MRUGOWSKI to visit the various sites where building and armaments construction jobs were to be carried out. Many times these places were far underground, hard mining work had to be done, the distance to the place of work was too far and difficult shoes were impractical and unserviceable, clothes not sufficient so unnecessary colds occurred. Also the question of inspection, the distribution and receiving of food, recreation and time off and shelter came up. All these things may be contributing factors towards the recurrences of a disease of a similar condition a work detail. Experiments with nutrition re this problem were to be started in Buchenwald, but then called off in March 1945 due to the progress of war.<br />
<br />
Further experiments with human beings were carried on in block 48, which was affiliated with the Hygiene Institute of the Waffen SS, Dept for Spotted Fever and Virus research. It head was Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. Erwin DING, later SCHULER who did not work under me, but as heads of a dpeartment of the Hygiene Institute of the Waffen SS, worked directly under Berlin. I therefore never mixed myself up in the affairs of the Institute. Later SS Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. SCHULER requested me to represent him during his frequent absences from Buchenwald if a signature was urgently needed. Of the activities of the Institute, I only know that after vaccination with the various vaccines to be tested, the prisoners were infected with spotted fever. Then if a prisoner died, his case history was not sent in to the hospital, but collected for scientific purposes. Only a short notation was made on his card that the man had died in Block 48. On order of the Reich physician SS the cause of death on the prisoner records was changed to something else such as pneumonia, pleurisy or inflammation of the kidneys. As far as choosing the prisoners for the experiments went, I am acquainted with the fact that many prisoners, especially from among the security prisoners, (Sicherhietsverwahrten) volunteered. On order of Amtsgruppe D Professional criminals were transferred from other camps and sent tot he experimental laboratory in Buchenwald. I was asked by SS Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. SCHULER to help pick the victims because he did not chose to enter the limelight. A man from the Criminal Police Department of the Reich, a Kriminalrat Otto, appeared for this purpose. Only such prisoners were picked who had more than 10 years in prison, were under 40 years of age and who were able to meet the physical requirements of an SS man. Such examinations took place two times, each time 20-30 prisoners were picked. I very seldom had a chance to visit block 46, only when there was an inspection in which I took part. Only twice was I there and within a few days in order to observe patients. That was when, to comply with Dr. SCHULER's request, I went to observe the effectiveness of his vaccine. He then asked me to continue the observations because he had to leave within the next few days. I then did that. I cannot give the number of deaths among experimental patients, in block 46, but I imagine that during the beginning, there were more deaths than towards the end. I estimate the number of deaths recorded during the time I worked in the hospital building to be between 40 and 50.<br />
<br />
Another experiment of SS Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. SCHULER's was with a poison which the Russians supposedly used against Germans in Russia territory when they wanted to get rid of them. SS Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. SCHULER, as far as I know, had orders from the chief SS hygienist, SS Oberfuehrer Prof. Dr. Joachim MRUGOWSKI, to study how this poison takes effect and to use prisoners for the experiment. I don't know how prisoners were chosen for this nor upon whose orders. One day he asked me to visit the crematorium where the experiment was to take place. There were, as far as I remember 4 to 6 prisoners. When I got there the poison had already begun to take effect on some. This was visible because the victims threw up, had stomach cramps and their faces had begun to discolor, one was unconscious; with the others there was less effect to be observed. Since I had little time, I left soon and sent a Medical NCO down whom SS Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. SCHULER had requested. How the experiment continued, I don't know; I only heard later that all prisoners had died. Another responsibility of being camp doctor was everything that had to do with disinfection. The system of having a man in charge of hygiene in each block was new to me. Their job was to check cleanliness, haircuts and twice a week to check the men for lice. There were also many fleas, which had been imported by large transports of French, but they were gotten rid of quickly. Bugs were imported toward the end of 1944, from infested barrack parts of camp Plaszow, which was being evacuated at the time. Infested barracks were immediately disinfected and prisoners used for this purpose had to wash themselves thoroughly every night. In spite of that, bugs were later found in some of the barracks. The men supervising the disinfection were SS Unterscharfuehrers TRILLHASS, FRIEDRICH, BUTTE and HARRY, also the SS man SZAIKIS. They also did that work with the troops.<br />
<br />
Another responsibility was the checking of sanitary conditions in the kitchens etc. They all, and especially the modern mass kitchen were always without fault. Especially during the last months, due to the increasing number of prisoners, they had to be used day and night in several shifts. Guards had to be placed so not too much of the kitchen stores would be stolen, and to assist the prisoners picking up the food for their blocks, as they were sometimes attacked by the youthful prisoners who were always loafing about. Even when the food was distributed among the individual prisoners, it occurred that a weak man had to give way to a strong one and had to go away empty handed also that after they had already had the food, a fellow prisoner would take it from them by stealth or brutality. The consequences were clear, he would get still weaker and after a while become helpless. The block personnel were helpless because of the great overcrowding; and with all the nationalities represented, there wasn't even a reasonable way of making themselves understood. The camp headquarters was also helpless, they were lacking blockleaders who were able to exclusively devote to their attention of the needs of any one block. Those unpleasant conditions unfortunately did not get better as time went on, but got worse as more prisoners arrived in the camp. In the small camp they were able to distribute the food more justly by having a chow line in the movie hall.<br />
<br />
Pathology was another field under the supervision of the camp doctor. For this there was part of a barrack next to a dissecting chamber near the crematorium. The capo here was a chemist named MEGERER. He was arrested by the Weimar Stapo towards the end of last year, and his place was taken by a czech physicist named Sitto who was "Privatdozent" (unsalaried lecturer) at the University of Prague. Doctors wroking here were a Dutchman, Dr. HAMBURGER, a bacteriologist, and a French pathology expert. I had impressed on the Capo for pathology the necessity to call me in the case of each corpse where a suspicion of unnatural death existed, so I could make an investigation at once. This happened several times, in once case a Frenchman was beaten to death by his compatriots in the block because he was supposedly a stool pigeon who had betrayed many of his countrymen. Similar cases occurred when the details working outside were recalled; one Dutch Capo on such a detail was beaten to death by his fellow prisoners. When the outside detail working at Rheinmetall Borsig in Dusseldorf returned in the beginning of March 1945, three Capos were beaten to death by their fellow prisoners. One day a Russian with bad head wounds was delivered to the hospital. He had apparently gotten these in a political argument with his countrymen. He had at the same time been menaced to commit suicide. There was much political tension among the Russians. One bloody incident, caused by this happened in the winter of 1943-44 when a Russian was beaten to death with an iron bar on the Campstrasse.<br />
<br />
Those who got sick in one of the outside camps belonging to Buchenwald, were sent back to the main camp thus overcrowding the already plentiful sick, infirm and weak. For those returnees a special war was arranged. The Hungarian Jews, who came to the camp about the end of May 1944, caused a special lot of work, I myself went to the Brabag works in Troglitz to sort out the ill and those no longer capable of work. Bad, practically non-existent ventilation resulted in making everything in camp damp, and the overcrowding of which we had complained to the management of the industry resulted in an undue number of diseases due to cold. On the 30 or 31st of January this year, in a must of the whole camp, I myself picked out several hundred men no longer able to work, and a far greater number still of those who were fit to work on armaments as specialists but not fit to work on construction jobs. Other outside work details, which remain in my memory because of the large number of ill returnees, were: Komanndo SCHMAL?? V. in Borga/Elstor, B II in Halberstadt, S III in Ohrdurf. They were all building details. Just as the sick rate of the returnees, so too the number of deaths, was high. The deaths occurred mainly as a result of complications after colds, gastro-enteritis, heart and circulatory weakness, along with generally feeble bodily state. Each death had to be reported to Buchenwald. The death certificates were checked and approved by a medical NCO, if none was present, by the camp director (fuehrer) and the cause of death confirmed by the contract doctor (Vertragsarzt)<br />
<br />
Another of the assigned duties of the camp doctor was the participation in affecting discipline; the doctor had to examine prisoners condemned to the flogging (Pruegelstrafe) as to their ability to bear such punishment. During my stay at Buchenwald, I examined patients for two or three of these floggings, each time 10 to 15 prisoners who were receive, as approved, 5-25 blows according to the gravity of their crimes.<br />
<br />
It was also the camp doctor's duty to attend executions. I was not always able to attend in time and sent other doctors. The doctors who also took part were: SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Dr. Relph ROGGE, SS Untersturmfuehrer Dr. Erich KATHER, SS Untersturmfuehrer Dr, MIRM????GH???. SS Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. August BENDER did not much of this work because he visited patients in the afternoon. During my time, I attended about 120 executions. Only a very small minority of these were executions of war prisoners, the far greater majority were foreign workers especially sent to the camp for this who had been condemned for offences like plundering, sexual crimes, resisting arrest and stealing during blackouts. Furthermore there were several SS and policemen, who had been condemned to death by SS courts among those executed. According to instruction the men were shot or hanged, mostly the latter. The job of the doctor was to confirm the death of the prisoner and to report this fact to the SS man in charge. During my whole time in Buchenwald, I never heard of a Kommando SS in regard to which I was questioned here, and never took part in it it.<br />
In addition, I'd like to report that I also attended three executions at Mauthausen, 2 shootings and one hanging. All condemned were Poles; I remember only the cause of the latter. He had raped a German girl. The executions were carried out by a special squad of SS men, in charge was one SS Hauptsturmfuehrer ZOLLER, then a Judge Advocate officer (Gerichtsoffizier). During my tour of duty at Ravensbrueck, I estimate that about 25 women were executed by shooting. They were exclusively Polish women, who were already prisoners, whose sentences were only approved after a long time by the Governor-General. These executions were carried out by the company commander in the presence of the camp commander, SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Max KOEGEL. Later, the executions were under SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Edmund BRAEUNING. In Natzweiler, about 4 hangings took place; furthermore about 3 or 4 Russians were hanged for planning to break out of camp. Here the camp commander SS Hauptsturmfuehrer KRAMER, was present but I don't know who was in charge.<br />
<br />
Of the number of deaths in Mauthausen, I can only give 5-6 daily as a near estimate. The score in Gusen was higher, about 15-20. During the winter, these figures were supposed to have increased. In Flossenburg, I estimate the number at about 10 daily. In the women's camp Ravensbrueck, there were hardly any deaths in the beginning, perhaps one, sometimes two or three a week. But as the number and overcrowding of prisoners increased, so did the death toll, I guess that at the time there were 16000 to 18000 prisoners there were 10-15-20 deaths a week. When I came to Buchenwald, there were 6-10 deaths daily out of 20,000 prisoners. This only goes for Buchenwald, not the outside details, because especially in the last months of 43 and the first of 44, the Kommandos Dora and Laura increased and on some days Dora had 40-50 deaths and Laura up to 20. Due to the arrival of a transport of 6,000 Frenchmen during the last days January, 1944, a further general decline in health was observed. Obviously these masses of prisoners were brought in without checking each individual man first, so that we found old men, amputation cases, cases of confusion of the brain dating from the first world war and men inflicted with all sorts of maladies; all of which was bound to raise the death and disease rate. Also those prisoners coming in through ordinary channels were not in the best of health, especially prisoners brought in from the Stapo prisons were in a bad state of health when they came to the camp. It was seen that the majority who died, died within a few weeks or even days after they arrived at the camp from diseases they had caught before they came to us. Another increase in the death and sickness rate was brought about by repeatedly dragging in cases contagious diseases, like spotted fever, in spite of warnings to the authorities bringing them to us. The number of unnatural deaths in Buchenwald was very small. During the last year and 1/2 perhaps 10 people hanged themselves, 3-4 were shot while on flight, and 1-2 met death by running into the electrically charged barbed wire. Among the outside details, the number was greater. The number of industrial accidents leading to death can be correctly estimated at 5-6 for buchenwald. Also the air attacks caused heavy losses among prisoners. The following figures on prisoner losses due to air attacks I still remember; counting only prisoners:<br />
Spring 1944: Elawerke in Leipzig, 12 dead.<br />
June/July 1944: Galsenberg AG, over 200 dead (Hungarian Jewesses).<br />
20 July 1944: Wintershall, Lutzendorf, 14 dead, 35 wounded<br />
Fall, 1944: Camp Mauselwitz, 25 dead, 35 wounded (women).<br />
9 February 1945: Gustloffwerke Weimar, 300 dead, 180 wounded.<br />
9 February 1945: Artern, 120 dead, 100 wounded (fighter bomber attack on prisoner transport)<br />
24 February 1945: Weimar, 25 dead.<br />
March, 1945: Fighter bomber attack near Hofgarten on a transport returning with sick prisoners, 16 dead.<br />
<br />
Besides this, several outside details in the Rhineland and the Brabagbetriebe were hit, but I don't remember the casualties. I estimate that about 1500 prisoners altogether died as a result of the air attacks.<br />
<br />
After the invasion, the camps in France and Belgium were evacuated, one almost wants to say, naturally to Buchenwald. New prisoner transports arrived. To make room for them at all, three big tents had to be erected for several thousand Frenchmen, Belgians and Dutchmen. Their physical condition was no better than that of the first big transports from there, and due to the heat, there were cases of heat hyperemia and stroke on the transports and many dead were unloaded each time. The identification of those dead gave a special amount of trouble because no one knew them by name, so we even went as far as to make photos of the dead and showed them around to the rest of the people from the transport for identification. At this time, transports of Warsaw Poles also arrived; they were sent to Buchenwald after the socalled Warsaw revolt. Amongst them were a small number of youths and children with relatives, another unforeseen burden ont he camp. The number of sick, invalids and people unfit to work rose constantly. During that time, it was reported to me by the prisoner doctor Katzenellenbogen that a number of English and North American fliers had come into the camp with a transport from France. I immediately ordered a list of their names prepared and reported of this detail to the Kommandantur. These soldiers were later transferred to a PW camp; I estimate their number at about 80.<br />
<br />
Around September/October 1944, 2 transports with 1600 Danish police members arrived from Denmark, which put a heavy strain on the hospital due to the great amount of illness. They required particular attention and were later transferred to a PW Camp near Torgau. I don't want to close the chapter on the Danes without mentioning that here for the first time, numbers of the Red Cross found their way into the camp and were able to ease the situation of their countrymen.<br />
<br />
About November, 1944, prisoners were transferred from Camp Stufhof near Danzig to Buchenwald. They were meant for a new, urgent building project near Ohrdruf, which carried the name "S III." For this, all available prisoners from all camps were furnished. Of this, first transport, the majority of prisoners could not be used for this work because they were no longer capable of working. There were a number of Estonians, Latvians, Poles and Russians who could not be used for any work whatsoever. It was obvious on first glance that they would never get well again, but over a longer or shorter period of time, would die from general physical weakness. This transport was followed by others which were no better, and the number of deaths rose constantly from that time on. Even though the Kommando S III was not working under Buchenwald, but directly under Amtsgruppe D in Oranienburg, Buchenwald had the assignment to take in these prisoners coming from other camps and to sort them out, that is, to sent out the healthy ones and those capable of work, and to keep the others. As time went by, the first evacuation transports came from Auschwitz; first one from Czenstochau, with about 3000 male Jews who had worked there in the Hasag factories. These were almost exclusively healthy strong men in the age group best suited for industrial work. Contrary to this, there were objections to the flow of prisoners reaching S III, especially since some of the transports went there directly on orders of Amtsgruppe D without first hitting Buchenwald. The steady and varied complaints made about the physical condition and number of the sick by S III were a strain on the camp doctor. In the middle of December 1944, I got orders from SS Standartenfuehrer Dr. Enno LOLLING, head of Amt D III, to visit this Kommando and make a detailed report about conditions found. Here, as was usual with Building Kommandos, there were difficult working conditions, and sometimes, long distances to reach working sites. Also time off was very limited, and there was not sufficient clothing. Buchenwald had to come and lend a helping hand. There were very many sick, the majority suffered from external diseases; there were also many deaths resulting from heart and cirulatory troubles, pneumonia and gastro-enteritis. I had the impression that here conditions, were particularly bad because the other camps had given a bad calibre of men to this project. Hereto was added the order from Amtsgruppe D that only Russians, Poles and Jews were to be sent there. Vermin had already become an acute problem in S III; by being transferred from toher caps, the prisoners were often put to work without having observed the usual quarantine period. In the meantime, Amtsgruppe D ordered a change of doctors; they ordered SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Dr. Heinrich PLAZE to S III in the beginning of December, 1944; he was relieved by SS Untersturmfuehrer Dr. Werner GREUNUS in the beginning of January. Dr. THALER, an Oberarzt (First lieutenant, Med.) of the Luftwaffe was detached for duty with the SS III [sic]. In the beginning, he only took care of the troops, later also part of the prisoners in one of the camps, SS Untersturmfuehrer Dr. GREUNUS periodically picked out prisoners no longer able to work, who were then sent to Bergen-Belsen. As far as I remember, there were 2 or 3 such transports, with 1000 prisoners each, which went directly from S III to Bergen Belsen. In the middle of February, 1945, the alarming news came, that spotted fever had broken out in this Kommando. An immediate visit, together with SS Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. SCHULER, the consultant hygienist, confirmed this. At the end of January, prisoners infected with spotted fever were transferred, during the incubation period, from 2 outside camps of Dachau directly to S III. Every thin was done to confine the disease to its original scape so that work could be continued. The death rate of this disease can only be called relatively high, considerably more prisoners died from other diseases.<br />
For example, in the middle of January of this year, I got the death and sickness records of about 760 prisoners who had died there approximately between the end of November and the beginning of December. The problem of getting rid of the corpses became a big problem for this Kommando. In the beginning, corpses of dead prisoners, about 50 in all, were continually brought to Buchenwald, but this became impossible because of the lack of motor fuel, so that, though only for a short while, they were brought to the crematorium in Gotha until it was bombed out. Then there was no other way but burial. although the Kommando kept urging cremation on funeral pyres. Therefore the chief and consultant hygienists of the project picked out a site where the burials permitted by Amtsgruppe D were carried out, I don't know how many were taken care of in this way. To, find replacements for people in this Kommando was not easy, even though large numbers of prisoners arrived by continual transports at Buchenwald and the remaining camps from Auschwitz and later Gross-Rosen. But these men were in such poor physical condition that only a very small minority could be considered for work. First, they all needed to recover from the strenuous trip. They almost always at first marched great distances during cold weather, walking their feet sore, then they were so closely packed into partly open freight cars that they could only stand up. The results were frozen limbs, inflammations of the wounded feet and complications due to the cold. Food supplies were used up and new ones could not be gotten on the trip. Besides hunger, thirst tortured the prisoners, during the short delay in stations, no warm drink could be gotten so quickly. A large number of prisoners died on the way from exhaustion and weakness; those who arrived alive were so down and out that they could hardly stand on their feet, and were unable to bear even the slightest physical exertion. During the next few hours and days, many of the new arrivals died. There were transports which carried great numbers of dead with them; others had already unloaded them on the way to make room for the living. I remember one transport which had unloaded 400 dead on the road and arrived in Buchenwald with 120 more. I got the order from the camp commander to report the daily deaths of an other transport; there were several hundred but I don't remember the exact number. Difficulties and more difficulties resulted, not alone as regarded the billeting of these messes of people, but also as regarded the medical care of these pitiful figures. The hospital area and dispensary of the small camp were no longer sufficient for this purpose because there was no more room. So to a large extent they had to be housed in the barracks of the small camp. A further job of the camp doctors was to write out death certificates which was very difficult because there were no transports lists, and the dead often had various prisoner numbers on their clothing. there was still an advantage in that most of the prisoners came from Auschwitz and had a number tattooed on the underside of their left arm, which made it possible to identify them. The morgue in the dissecting room was no longer sufficient for such great numbers of corpses, so that the fenced in yard of the pathology building temporarily had to be used to store the dead as they were unloaded. Also determining the cause and time of death could no longer be done exactly. Lists were made of those who arrived dead in so far as they could be named; the cause of death was given as general exhaustion combined with heart and circulatory trouble, unless by inspection other causes of an external nature could be determined, such as advanced frost bite, phlegmon etc. The crematorium was also hard to keep up because a coal shortage existed. There was to come a time when this became altogether impossible. Now the question of a suitable burial ground for the dead raising itself. One site was chosen near the Eismark to or about 400-600 meters beyond the chain of guards. The burials were accomplished by a special detail of prisoners. These burials were not performed from a definite point of time on, but only then when no fuel was available and the number of dead ready for cremation was so high that their lying around could become a health hazard. As far as I remember, the prisoners working in the crematorium, upon my asking about the number of dead thus buried, told me 1860. This, a few days before the occupation of Buchenwald. Without counting those who went directly to outside Kommandos, about 10000 to 12000 prisoners must have been transferred from the Camp Auschwitz and Gross-Rosen between about the end of October 1944 and February 1945. Here it has to be mentioned that those who came from Gross-Rosen were in still poorer shape than those who came from Auschwitz. Since sometimes women transports also came to Buchenwald, which were then sent further on, there was often long delays at the RR[?] station. Here the lack of a greater latrine facilities proved to be of great disadvantage.<br />
The number of sick sent in from the outside Kommandos also rose steadily, so that the number of sick in Buchenwald increased some more; the hospital always had 2200-2400 bed patients in its various housing facilities at this time.<br />
Around this time, February, 1945, the return of outside Kommandos due to the approaching enemy also started. They returned if at all possible to the mother camp, most of them marching, and all had at least to march considerable distance before they could be transported by train. All these brought along their sick and exhausted who needed rest and quiet for the time being.<br />
About February of this year, a transport of 650 prisoners, no longer able to walk, arrived from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. They had been evacuated to save them from the Russians. Then during the month of March, a flood of returnees from outside Kommandos started that increased and reached its height towards the beginning of April when Kommando S III began arriving at Buchenwald in big and small streams of refugees. Thus the camp reached its highest point of 48,000 prisoners. Due to the large number of sick, the patients had to be discharged from the hospital prematurely and were turned over to the care of the block doctors. These block doctors were an old arrangement of the little camps which required them because of having had for a long time a great number of sick and because of the type, turnover and composition of its inmates. They were the ones who picked out those prisoners who, due to weakness and life endangering illness, could not longer live in the overcrowded blocks. They also reported those who had contagious infectious diseases and had to be removed from the blocks. This epidemic control was taken over from the prisoner doctor KATZENELLENBOGEN was caught in the middle of January 1945 smuggling letters out of camp, and the political department asked that he be relieved. Every morning, Dr. KAAS reported the number of infectious diseases, increases, decreases and any other happenings that would be of interest to a physician, that happened in the little camp. These transfers to Block 61 were also supervised by the vice Capo of the hospital, Otto Kipp, whose main job was to supervise sanitation and cleanliness in the little camp. I missed him around the end of January of this year and mentioned this fact, but was told that he was busy in the little camp sorting out all the sick and transferring them to Block 61. One day, it might have been in the beginning of February, SS Hauptscharfuehrer FRIEDRICH Wilhelm reported to me that he caught prisoner sanitation personnal in block 61 giving life shortening injections to patients. The prisoners had explained to him that the number of prisoners near death and dead was increasing, these - mostly dysentery patients - were discharging their pus and blood laden excrement under themselves, and that the danger existed that because of the crowded wards, the disease would spread through the block and the rest of the camp. In order to ease the death of those hopelessly sick, who were beyond hope of recovery, the most extreme measure had been taken and they were given injections. Also the source of infection was thus removed sooner than it would be by natural death, and thus spreading of the disease was being combated. What kind of injections were made and who gave them, I don't know; nor do I know how many prisoners they were given. The developments of the first months of this year: overcrowding, the bad and insufficient housing, their results and impending consequences were known by higher headquarters, especially Amtsgruppe D through continuous reports and messages. Also by the doctors, the continuous large number of sick, invalids, diseased and other occurrences were reported orally and in writing. On the basis of all this, Buchenwald received permission from Amstgruppe D to evacuate 2000 sick who were unfit to work to the camp for the sick, Bergen-Belsen. These were picked in a very short time and sent there about the middle of March. Around 20 March, the head of the Economic and Administrative Main Office (Wirtschaftsverwaltungs-Hauptamt), SS Obergruppenfuehrer OSWALD POHL together with the head of Amt D III, SS Standartenfuehrer Dr. Enno LOLLING and a representative of Amstgruppe D, SS Obersturmbannfuehrer HOESS, came to inspect Buchenwald. They came mainly to settle the problem of housing further prisoners, as well as to determine the number of sick, invalids and others not capable of working and to see about their billeting and possible occupation.<br />
Through the return of thousands of prisoners from the outside Kommandos, the number of the sick and weak rose considerably. On the day Buchenwald was liberated, the following figures were reported to me from the office: 2640 bad patients, around 3000 invalids and convalescents, 5000-6000 prisoners not capable of being transported, the latter figure is only an estimated figure because about 27,000 had been evacuated from the camp several days before. In my estimation, half of the 21,000 remaining behind could not be transported. This evacuation was executed on orders of the highest authorities, because of security and feeding problems of the civilians. The Gauleiter of Thuringen, SAUCKEL, the Reich Defense Commissioner and the competent higher SS and Police Officer for the region, SS Obergruppenfuehrer Erbprinz zu WALDECK and PYRMONT had agreed to this. A telephone or radio message came, I presume from Berlin, on the evening of 6 April, whether from Reichsfuehrer SS<br />
[end of page 17, TBC]shipoffoolshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00107963600647441371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501582598080968484.post-72407649427706280742011-05-28T23:48:00.000-07:002011-05-28T23:48:48.988-07:00NO-2429 Gustav Claussen, affidavit on Hartheim<b>Source: </b>Nuremberg document NO-2429<br />
<br />
<b>Comment: </b>Claussen is wrong to suggest all who allegedly destroyed the Hartheim facilities were killed. At least one person gave testimony<br />
<br />
<b>Text</b><br />
TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENT NO. NO-2429<br />
<b> </b>OFFICE CHIEF OF COUNSEL FOR WAR CRIMES<br />
<br />
I, Gustav Claussen, born in Busum [?], Schleswig, Holstein, on 7 March, 1897, and now residing in Dachau, Germany, duly swear and state:<br />
<br />
That from the end of 1943 till March 1945 I was a prisoner on duty in the Arbeits Einstaz in Mauthausen where the administrative work was accomplished for Mauthausen and sub-camps; that in this office I did clerical work, such as making reports, keeping records, and corresponding with firms who used prisoners in the operation of their business; that in the course of my duties I saw a secret teletype message which to the best of my memory was as follows:<br />
"TO THE CONCENTRATION CAMP MAUTHAUSEN, SS STANDARTENFUHRER ZIEREIS, HARTHEIM MUST BE DESTROYED IMMEDIATELY. EXECUTION MUST BE REPORTED. BY ORDER OF THE FUEHRER,<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
OBERFUEHRER BRACK"<br />
That this teletype message was received at Mauthausen in December 1944:<br />
<br />
That I saw a list of names of inmates of Mauthausen who were assigned to destroy Hartheim Castle; that this detail consisted of about 125 men; that I never saw any of these men again and believe they are all dead; that in the death lists which I saw in connection with my clerical work in the office of Mauthausen I saw about 50 to 60 of the names of the men who had been assigned to destroy Hartheim Castle; that I have heard that all men who had been assigned to destroy Hartheim Castle were put to death to prevent their telling about the Crematorium and the large quantity of ashes which had to be removed from Hartheim Castle so that nothing could be seen of what had been going on there.<br />
<br />
Gustav Claussen<br />
First Prosecutor<br />
Spruchkammer Dachau<br />
<br />
Sworn to an subscribed before me this 4th day of March, 1947 in Dachau, Germany.<br />
Thomas F. Less<br />
1st Lt.. QMC ASN 01591885<br />
Investigating Officer<br />
WCID #10shipoffoolshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00107963600647441371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501582598080968484.post-51852836145621246502011-05-25T05:53:00.000-07:002011-05-28T06:42:22.981-07:00Anton Kaindl, Commandant of Sachsenhausen. July 16 1946<b>Source: </b>Affidavit of 16 July 1946, from which NI 280 was derived. Entered into Nuremberg Documentation Scheide 12 (Defense Exhibit Number).<br />
<br />
<b>Comment:</b><br />
<br />
<b>Text</b><br />
DOCUMENT BOOK II SCHEIDE No. 33<br />
<b> </b><br />
Affidavit Nuernberg, 16 July 1944<br />
<br />
Concerning my person: My name is Anton Kaindl, born on 14 July 1902 in Munich. My last rank was: SS-Standartenfuehrer of the Waffen SS. My last position was: commander of the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, from August 1942 until its dissolution.<br />
Being duly sworn/depose and say:<br />
Ad rem:<br />
Section I: Historical development of the Concentration Camp system<br />
I<br />
Staff commands and SS-Death-Head Units (Totenkopfverbaende) = SS - T - Wachsturmbann (guard unit)<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
A. Development<br />
1. After January 1933 Concentration Camps were erected predominately by the SA, which was acting, in part, by order of the holders of authority (Hoheitstraeger) - Gauleiter.<br />
2. In the course of the years, the number of these concentration camps was reduced more and more until in 1933, at the latest, there were but five. Those were the camps Dachau, Columbia-Berlin, Esterwegen, Sachsenburg and Prettin.<br />
These were financed by the Regional Government competent in each case, as they were regarded as an instrument of the political police. They were never supported at any time by the general SS (Allgemeine-SS).<br />
3. From 1 April 1936 on, a budget was set up for the concentration camps by the Reich in the Budget Section of the Reich Ministry of the Interior, i.o. separated, for commanders and guard detachment.<br />
4. In this budget there were provided approximately 400 men personnel of the Local Headquarters and approximately 3,600 men personnel of the guard detachment = 3. SS-Totenkopfstandarten. At this time, there were concentration camps at Dachau, Sachsenburg, Columbia-Berlin, Esterwegen, and Prettin. All in all, approximately 10,000 to 12,000 prisoners.<br />
5. In 1936 the concentration camps at Esterwegen and Columbia-Berlin were dissolved, and merged with the newly erected concentration camp at Sachsenhausen near Oranienburg.<br />
6. In 1937, the concentration camp at Sachsenburg, henceforth dissolved, was transferred to the newly erected concentration camp at Buchenwald.<br />
7. In 1938, the women's concentration camp in Ravensbruck was created, to which the female prisoners of the former women's concentration camp at Prettin were transferred.<br />
8. New concentration camps were created at Mauthausen and Flossenbuerg in 1938-59. In addition a new one, the 4th SS-Totenkopfstandarte, was approved by the budget control and erected in Linz.<br />
9. At the beginning of the war, 1 September 1939, there existed thus the concentration camps at Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, Mauthausen, Flossenbuerg, and the women's concentration camp at Ravensbruck. The number of the prisoners amounted to about 18,800 male and about 2,500 female prisoners, an approximate total of 21,300 prisoners.<br />
The personnel of the Local Headquarters amounted to approximately 600 persons; that of the SS-Totenkopfstandart including the Inspection Staff, amounting to approximately 7,400 people; a total of approximately 8,000.<br />
10. In the autumn of 1939, the SS-Division Totenkopf was formed in the concentration camp at Dachau, which had been cleared of prisoners at that time. Around the middle of October 1939, this division had a personnel of approximately 20,000 men. Of this number about 6,500 men came from the 4 SS-Totenkopfstandarten, who were transferred in a group to the SS-T-Division. 12,500 men were members of the General-SS (Allgemeine-SS) who, as a result of the Emergency Service Order, were called up for police reinforcements and incorporated into the SS-T-Division. Some 1,000 men came from the SS-Verfuegungstruppe. Of the 20,000 men of the SS-T-Division, approximately 3,000 were transferred to the SS-Police Division as early as October 1939.<br />
Some 3,000 of the SS-members subject to emergency service were called up to serve in the SS-Totenkopfwachsturm ?? to replace the 6,500 active members of the SS-Totenkopf units which had been transferred to the SS-T-Division. This number could be held at this low figure because this service was restricted only to mere guard duties.<br />
11. The commander of the Local Headquarters and guard detachment was: from 1934 to 31 March 1936 - Inspector of Concentration Camps Eicke, from 1 April 1936 to 31 August 1939? Leader (Fuehrer) of the SS-Totenkopfverbaende and Concentration Camps from 1 September 1939 to about the middel of 1940 [Inspector General of the re-inforced SS-Totenkopfstandarte and Concentration Camps.]<br />
From about the middle of 1940, the commandment was changed to "Inspector of the Concentration Camps."<br />
The commander was responsible in each case to Himmler with the transfer of the concentration camps within the sphere of duty of the SS-Economic and Administrative Main Office and of 1 April 1942, the designation of the commander was as follows:<br />
"SS-Economic and Administrative Main Office, Office Group D, Inspector of the Concentration Camps.", and was under the personal command of the Chief of the SS-Economic and Administrative Main Office, Oswald Pohl.<br />
<br />
B. Official spheres of duty.<br />
1. Members of the Local Headquarters Staff under the Command<br />
A = Clerks for all divisions of the Staff<br />
B = Experts for food, accommodation, clothing, personal effects of prisoners, prisoners' possessions<br />
C = Preventative Custody Camp Officers<br />
D = Reporting Officers<br />
E = Blockleaders<br />
F = Labor Allocation Officers<br />
G = Labor Service Officers<br />
H = Mail Censors<br />
I = Heads of Workshops - Shoemaking establishment, tailor shop, laundry, bath, vehicle repair shop.<br />
K = supervisory kitchen personnel<br />
L = medical personnel.<br />
<br />
Permission to enter prison camps was granted only to those members of the Local Headquarters listed under B to G, and I to L; whereas all remaining personnel could enter the prison camps from time to time only in pursuance of their particular official duties in each case.<br />
<br />
2. Members of the SS-Totenkopfstandarte and the SS-T-Wachsturmbanne.<br />
A = General guard and parade duty, infantry training outdoors,<br />
B = Camp guard duty - tower sentries, small and large group of sentries,<br />
C = Escort sentries for labor detachments assigned to labour outside the camp and outside the range of the regular sentries.<br />
D = Guarding of branch labor camps<br />
Entering prison camps was not permitted the above personnel.<br />
<br />
3. The sharp separation of the spheres of duty = B1 and 2 was carried through by 1 April 1936 at the very latest, but may well have already existed before this time.<br />
4. A plan of organization is enclosed as annex.<br />
<br />
C. Subordination<br />
Until the beginning of the war in 1939, only the guard blocks of the SS-Totenkopfstandarten were under the jurisdiction of the competent Camp Commander for the length of the guard time in each case, whereas the other sections of the SS-T-Standarten were responsible to the Commanders of the Standarten in each case. No relation of subordination between the Camp Commanders and Commanders of the SS-T-Standarten, existed for the SS-T-Standarten, for the most part, had other duties in the "order castles" (Party training schools) and the like, i.e. infantry training, parade duty, guard duty.<br />
After the beginning of the war, the conditions were identical, but the commanders of the concentration camps, the commanders of the SS-T-Wachsturmbanne were not used for parade and guard duty in the "order castles" and the like. In addition, the strength of the SS-T-Wachsturmbanne was considerably smaller than that of the SS-Totenkopfstandarten.<br />
After the transfer to the SS-Economic and Administrative Main Office of the concentration camps in April 1942, the SS-T-Wachsturmbanne were subordinated to the commanders of the concentration camps for the purpose of economy in personnel. The sharp separation of the spheres of duties was however, not affected thereby.<br />
<br />
D. Replacement or exchange of the personnel of Local Headquarters.<br />
This took place from the SS-T-Standarten, later from the SS-T-Wachsturmbanne. Already, with regard to the relation of the Local Headquarters Staff to the Guard Detachment, approximately 1 to 10, this change, however, was not a considerable one.<br />
Until the middle of 1942, the Local Headquarters Staff consisted almost entirely of personnel that were present at the beginning of the war. Not until after this period, were members of the Local Headquarters Staffs fit for front service released and replaced by older men no longer fit for front service.<br />
<br />
E. Calling-up for the SS-T-Wachsturmbanne during the war.<br />
Those called up for service in the SS-T-Wachsturmbanne in accordance with the Emergency Service Decree were released, for the most part, to the combat troops according to their ability to serve at the front. They were replaced by those bound to render emergency service from the ranks of the Kyffhaeuserbund, Volksdeutsche (racial Germans) from the Southeast, Landesschuetzen and the like. At the conclusion of the war, only about 6,000 members of the SS served in the guards, whereas their entire strength amounted to approximately 35,000.<br />
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
II. Prisoners.<br />
A. Intent and Purpose of the Concentration Camps.<br />
Here one must differentiate between the various phases.<br />
A: 1933 to 1934, only detention of political enemies to ensure the peace and order absolutely required for the economic construction of Germany.<br />
<br />
B: In the following years, extension of detention to asocial and criminal elements. At the outbreak of war in 1939, these elements were equal in number to the political enemies.<br />
<br />
C: From the beginning of the war until the middle of 1942 the detention of prisoners for security, preventive, or educational reasons stands foremost in importance. The number of prisoners increased simply through the inclusion of such elements that attempted stubbornly to evade military service or labor service.<br />
<br />
D: From the middle of 1942, the scales tipped more and more towards the economic side. Labor allocation for important war duties - armament industry, forms the focal point of all measures.<br />
<br />
E: Accordingly, from this time on, numerous so-called Labor Camps were created in those places where the armament industry could establish a particular need for man-power. In this respect, it concerned a manifold number of places of work ranging in size in the most varied manner - from 50 to 6,000 prisoners.<br />
The number of prisoners increased considerably from the same time on.<br />
At this time, foreign man-power was also sent into the concentration camps, viz. who had left their place employment of their own free will, whereas formerly, in such cases they had been returned to their old civilian occupation. In addition, those people subject to compulsory labor, who attempted to evade the Compulsory Labor Law issued by the authorities in their territory, were transferred from the occupied territories to German concentration camps after their arrest by the police of those territories.<br />
<br />
F: The camp at Auschwitz, created during the war, was outwardly organized, so far as one could observe, exactly like those concentration camps already described. The true character of the camp, as a liquidation cap, became known only to the small circle of persons who were entrusted directly with the mass executions.<br />
The SS-members of the other concentration camps learned just as little about the actual incidents in the concentration camp at Auschwitz, as the masses of the entire SS and the German people.<br />
<br />
G: The camps at Belzek, Treblinka, Wolzek and Maidanek were not, to my knowledge, concentration camps, and therefore, as well, were not a part of the sphere of duty of the Inspector of the Concentration Camps, - SS-Economic and Administrative Main Office, Amtsgruppe D.<br />
<br />
B. Transfers, Classification and Release of Prisoners<br />
1. So far as I know, transfers to concentration camps were made exclusively through offices IV and V of the Reich Main Security Office, or through its subordinate Gestapo or Criminal Investigation Police Departments at all times. Neither the offices of the Waffen-SS nor the General-SS (Allgemeine-SS) ever possessed authority to send people to concentration camps.<br />
2. The classification of prisoners into the various camp grades, i.e.<br />
I. for light and privileged work, II for general work and III. for hard labor, particularly in quarries, was administered by the same offices listed under B 1. Similarly, the manner of treatment for "honor and special prisoners" was determined by the Reich Main Security Office.<br />
3. Releases could be made only be order of the offices IV or V of the Reich Main Security Office.<br />
Camp commanders had a part in this respect only insofar as they could apply for releases in their quarterly conduct reports. I often availed myself of this possibility.<br />
However, orders for release also occurred in many cases without the submission of the aforementioned conduct reports. The length of the imprisonment of a concentration camp was determined in advance only a very rare individual cases. In this respect, it was mostly a matter of short-term imprisonments amounting to three months. In these cases, the releases were carried without further orders after the expiration of the term.<br />
Finally, prisoners were also released for military service based on draft calls of the Wehrmacht if they were not too seriously politically or criminally charged.<br />
4. One should not fail to mention that, especially during the years up to the beginning of the war, before the introduction of the SS's own Penal Jurisdiction, SS-members as well were confined continually by Himmler to a concentration camp for purposes of "education" for a more or less long span of time if they committed violations which, without being punishable by penal law seriously injured the reputation of the SS.<br />
<br />
C. Accommodation, Food and Clothing.<br />
Prisoners were lodged in the base camps in wooden barracks and in some instances in the massive stone barracks. Lodgings were divided into dayrooms and bedrooms. In each barrack latrines and bathrooms, with washrooms and broom closets, were provided. Many rooms were provided with electric light and furnished with stoves, in some instances with central heating. There were cabinets, tables and benches in the dayroom. The bedroom contained only bunks, in peace-time they had two tiers, later three tiers, provided with straw mattresses. Each prisoner received two blankets and complete bed linen: blanket cover, pillow case, and sheets, which were changed every four weeks for fresh bed linen. Not until after the end of 1942, with the increased number of prisoners in the camp, the providing of bedlinen was partly abolished because of the lack of supplies. The straw mattresses were freshly filled at least every three months.<br />
In addition, each prisoner received necessary eating utensils, towel and wiping cloth.<br />
The same applied, according to local and other conditions to the labor camps of Sachsenhausen camp. In many cases, the lodging was even better than in the Base Camp.<br />
2. Food<br />
Up till the beginning of the war in 1939, each prisoner was entitled to a daily allowance of 60 Reichspfennig, according to the budget set up, for food supply. If this amount did not suffice, an amount up to 80 Pfennig was allowed.<br />
After the beginning of the war up to the time of the collapse, providing of food was administered according to the amounts of rations fixed by the Reich Ministry of Food. In some cases, these were higher than those fixed for the normal civilian consumer. Even shortly before the collapse in 1945 prisoners were receiving daily approximately:<br />
Breakfast: approximately 3/4 to 1 litre of prepared soup made from oatmeal, grits, peaflour, or potatoes.<br />
Lunch: 1 1/2 to 2 litres of stew consisting of peas, beans or other vegetables, potatoes and meat.<br />
Evening meal: about 350 grammes of bread, coffee or tea and by turns marmalade, margarine, sausage, cheese, curd, fish, artificial honey.<br />
In addition the prisoners received daily allowances for heavy work or long hours of work of approximately 100 grammes of bread, 20 grammes of margarine and 40 grammes of sausage.<br />
Special and distinguished prisoners received SS troop rations which were higher than the rations for civilians.<br />
There was diet food for sick prisoners.<br />
<br />
3. Clothes<br />
Every prisoner was provided with clothing , footwear and underwear from Reich stocks. The prisoners' own clothing which they had with them when brought in was kept in specially prepared barracks in clothing sacks after being disinfected.<br />
There was a change of linen every week, clothing and footwear was changed whenever required.<br />
In winter coats gloves and woollen pullovers were distributed in addition.<br />
Distinguished and special prisoners wore their own clothing. Repairs were done in the camp work-shops.<br />
<br />
D. Allocation of labor<br />
1. Until the middle of 1942 the prisoners were used chiefly in the construction of camps, in the camp work-shops, in tailoring, shoe-making in the laundry etc., in kitchens, gardening, storage rooms, offices etc.<br />
2. After the establishment of labor-camps with the industrial firms, from about the middle of 1942, the skilled workers were allocated chiefly to the most urgent war tasks; the armaments industry. The shortage of skilled workers caused the training of unskilled workers which went so far that such workers could even pass examinations. It is significant that not only Germans, but to an outstanding extent foreign prisoners made suggestions for labor improvements which were almost always of use and were rewarded with cash bonuses of 10 RM and upwards.<br />
3. All the prisoners engaged in plants etc. worked willingly and industriously without<br />
having to be driven at all. This was always confirmed without exception by the plant managers, the civilian bosses and foremen.<br />
Acts of sabotage, which were discussed and feared, scarcely ever took place.<br />
Working prisoners, both in the camps and private plants received in accordance with their allocation and work output, from, perhaps, the spring of 1943 on bonuses to the amount of 50 Pfennigs to 3 Reichsmarks especially well qualified workers up to 20 RM a week. The bonuses were not paid out in cash, but in so-called bonus certificates. With these bonus certificates the prisoners could either make purchases in the prisoners' canteen or have the equivalent put to their prisoners' cash accounts.<br />
5. Over and above this the prisoners in most cases received additional food free of cost from the plant-kitchens at the expense of the firms.<br />
<br />
E. Camp hygiene and health matters.<br />
1. Every prisoner's of war camp and every labor camp had model hygienic installations, such as prisoners' sickquarters delousing institution and baths.<br />
2. The sick quarters were provided with the most up to date equipment. In addition to the dispensary, the prisoner of war camps contained operating theatres, an X-ray department, a dental surgery with a dental laboratory, a dispensary, sol and mineral baths and massage rooms. The sick-rooms were bright and airy.<br />
The sick-beds were provided with complete sets of bed-linen until the collapse.<br />
3. The medical services was provided by prisoner doctors and nursing staff under the supervision of SS doctors.<br />
4. The dispensaries were plentifully supplied with remedies.<br />
5. Every prisoner on his arrival at a concentration camp was deloused and was then held in the quarantine department for a fortnight to four weeks before being transferred to the general camp. This served to prevent epidemics and infections diseases from being brought in.<br />
6. Every prisoner had to have a warm shower-bath at least once a week.<br />
7. It must not be left unmentioned that from about the middle of 1943 the body linen was impregnated with "Lausseto", so that there could be no question at all of lousiness in the camps.<br />
<br />
F. Welfare arrangements and spare time recreation.<br />
1. Among welfare installations in the concentration camps there were:<br />
A.: Prisoners' canteen in which additional food, right up to the collapse in 1945, drinks, beer, coffee, lemonade, tobacco goods, toilet articles and other small necessaries of lief could be procured. For this purpose every prisoner could spend up to 15 RM a week provided that he had at his disposal an equivalent cash amount or bonus certificates.<br />
B.: Legal advice.<br />
For advice in legal matters with civil courts and for other legal business appropriate legal advisers from their own ranks were at the disposal of the prisoners.<br />
<br />
C. Red Cross Parcels<br />
The prisoners from the Northern and Western countries received Red Cross parcels continually in such large numbers that they voluntarily passed on some of the contents of these parcels to others, especially to such prisoners as could not receive any parcels at all.<br />
<br />
2. Recreation<br />
A.: For sporting activities there were a horse and parallel bars, bowls, hand and footballs.<br />
B. A large camp library provided the prisoners with entertaining, instructive and even specialised literature.<br />
C.: The prisoners were allowed to take in all the German newspapers and magazines.<br />
D.: A wireless loud-speaker installation brought wireless broadcasts of all kinds.<br />
E.: Most of the prisoner of war camps and even many of the labor camps possessed their own bands.<br />
F.: In the base camps and in the larger labor camps the prisoners could produce plays and variety shows<br />
G.: In several base camps there were also cinema shows.<br />
<br />
G. Receipt of letters and parcels<br />
1. Postal communications<br />
The prisoners were allowed to write and receive one letter a fortnight each.<br />
2. Receipt of parcels<br />
Until October 1942 the receipt of parcels was restricted to exceptional cases but from October 1942 at Himmler's order the unrestricted receipt of parcels was allowed. The prisoners could thus from this time on have as many parcels sent tot hem as they wished. In the larger base camps the number of parcels that arrived daily often ran into thousands.<br />
<br />
H. Alleviations of imprisonment<br />
1. Leave<br />
In cases where there was a special reason, in particular in the case of domestic emergency, of a death in the family etc. leave for 1 day to 3 months was granted by the Main Office for the Security of the Reich. It even happend that one and the same prisoner had rather often leave in the course of the years.<br />
2. Permission to receive visitors<br />
Visits from relations were permitted by the Main Office for the Security of the Reich or by the Office Group D SS Economic and Administrative Main Office in cases where the matter in question could not be settled in writing. Only front-line fighters who wished to visit relatives domiciled in a concentration camp before the end of their leave, or who were leaving their replacement unit for a unit at the front could receive a visiting permit from the camp commandant. The minimum time usually allowed for the visit was an hour.<br />
3. As further alleviations of imprisonment prisoners who worked especially well or behaved especially well were allowed on the application of the camp commandant to make privileged purchases at the canteen, employment in a suitable allocation of labor and increased correspondence by post with his people.<br />
<br />
I. Camp Punishments<br />
In virtue of the camp regulations for the concentration camps, valid since 1940, and issued by Himmler, the following punishments of misdemeanours were laid down for prisoners:<br />
A.: Reprimand<br />
B.: Reprimand with the threat of punishment<br />
C.: Deprivation of food up to 3 days (deprivation of one meal a day). This punishment was rarely made use of, because the man so punished would be provided with food by his comrades just the same.<br />
D.: Simple arrest, up to 14 days as far as I know.<br />
E.: Close confinement: confinement in the dark up to 42 days, these punishments could be inflicted by the camp commandant. Such punishments took place comparatively rarely.<br />
F.: Corporal punishment: 5 to 25 blows with a stick on the buttocks. This punishment had in every case to be proposed to the Inspector of concentration camps, later to the Office Group Chief D of the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office and be sanction by him. The carrying-out of the corporal punishment had to be supervised by the camp commandant or his deputy, usually the director of the camp for persons in protective custody, and by an SS doctor and certified with their signature on the leaflet of punishment inflicted. Until August 1942 the blows with the stick were administered by members of the local headquarters: Blockfuehrer from the end of August 1942 by prisoners. A beating was only ordered in the concentration camp of Sachsenhausen for serious thefts of property.<br />
<br />
K. Executions<br />
Before 1939 executions were only known in the case of the murder of SS Rottenfuehrer Kalweit in Buchenwald by 2 prisoners. Here there was a question of the execution of two death sentences passed by the general judicial authorities, which, by reason of a special agreement between the Reich Minister of Justice and Himmler was, for purpose of intimidation carried out in the presence of all the prisoners in the camp. After 1939 death sentences passed by the general courts may also, occasionally have been carried out in the concentration camps.<br />
In particular this is the explanation for the case in the concentration camp of Flossenburg that has been brought up. See affidavit of the witness Voelkner Karl P. 3, Section 2 of 22 June 1946. Furthermore executions were certainly carried out during the course of the war in all concentration camps on the orders of the chief of the Security Police signed by his deputy Mueller. Here it is a question above all of prisoners who have tried to escape, who became guilty of very serious criminal offences during their escape. The executions were carried out according to the order either by shooting or hanging. for deterring purposes, in some cases all prisoners had to attend the executions. The reason for the execution was always read aloud prior to the execution.<br />
<br />
L. Maltreatment<br />
Every member of the guard unit and of the local headquarters staff had to sing a declaration on entering the service and at regular periods of about 4 weeks that he had received instructions on the following points:<br />
A.: Intercourse with prisoners in general, no conversation no presents to be given or accepted etc.<br />
B.: Just and correct treatment of the prisoners.<br />
C.: Strictest prohibition against beating, even against touching the prisoners<br />
E.: Driving to work prohibited [presumably of prisoners]<br />
These were standing orders.<br />
Moreover, from about the middle of 1942, another declaration had to be singed which stated that only the Fuehrer decided concerning the life or death of a prisoner and that the death penalty alone would come into the question, should this command be violated. These declaration were countersigned by the instructing SS Fuehrer and added to the personal files. The observance of these rules of conduct was strictly supervised. In the case of infringements there was immediate intervention and the guilty man was called to account. According to the gravity of the offence he was either officially reprimanded or a summary of evidence sent to the competent SS and police courts. I know of quite a number of disciplinary and criminal punishments of this kind. The prisoners knew that if they were mal-treated they had the right to report it.<br />
<br />
M Inspections and conducted tours of the concentration camp.<br />
Until the beginning of the war in 1939 inspections of all the concentration camps took place repeatedly by the most varied groups of Germany and foreigners. They often came as a complete surprise for the camp commandant, as he was only informed of Himmler's consent at the last minute.<br />
In the case of these visits it was a question of high officials of the Reich and of the Laender, high leaders of the Party, representatives of the press and distinguished foreign personalities. Even after the outbreak of the war in 1939 until 1944 inspections and conducted tours still took place by representatives of the Reich and Laender governments and distinguished representatives of friendly or national states.<br />
The management of the conducted tour devolved on either the inspector of the concentration camp or on the camp commandant.<br />
In principle the visitors could inspect all parts and buildings in the camp, hold conversations with the prisoners and sample the prisoner's food.<br />
<br />
Section II<br />
Details of the Concentration Camp at Sachsenhausen.<br />
On 22 August 1942 I was appointed by Himmler camp commandant of the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen on application of the former SS Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl, although I was not in agreement with this appointment as I wished to rejoin the front troops.<br />
It was explained to me that in future only leaders in the administrative service with appropriate military qualifications would be appointed as commandants of the concentration camps, so that a uniform, proper and just treatment would be guaranteed in the concentration camps. I wish to insert that I had been active with the Waffen SS from as far back as 1 April 1936 in different places as a supply officer.<br />
When I took over the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen a large number of the local headquarters staff were active a long time and who had become autocratic in consequence of the lack of supervision on the part of the former camp commandant, Loritz.<br />
These men then allowed the block leaders and the prisoner's foremen to do what they liked in the camp. In this way it was quite possible that mal-treatments, beatings, and perhaps even killings took place among the prisoners, without any adequate measures being taken on the part of the camp commandant of that time. When I entered upon my duties I ordered the removal of the block leaders who appeared to me to be unsuitable and of other ranks in the prisoners' camp and replaced them by older, mature members, partly old soldiers of the first World War, from the SS Death's head (Totenkopf) Waschsturmbann Sachsenhausen. These men were thoroughly initiated into the tasks to which they were to give their attention, and instructed to perform this duty correctly and justly. Both in oral and written orders was always made clear that the slightest violation of the orders issued concerning intercourse with and the treatment of prisoners would being [sic] with it most severe punishment. The members of the local headquarters staff and of the SS-T-Wachtbann of Sachsenhausen had to endorse in a monthly signed statement that they were instructed in detail. The declarations concerning instructions received were attached to the personal files.<br />
<br />
In the year 1943 I issued "ten commandments for the block leader" and a "game of questions and answers" for the instruction of the guards at the concentration camp of Sachsenhausen, in which their sphere of duty was minutely limited. Both leaflets were then, in the year 1944, put into force for all concentration camps by the Office Group D of the Economic and Administrative Main Office. Moreover it was made clear to the prisoners that they had the right to complain of unjust treatment to the camp commandant. During my activity as camp commandant no such complaint was brought to me although I constantly made my control rounds in the protective custody camp unaccompanied and every prisoner could address me immediately. It is true that the prisoners often applied to me full of confidence with then wishes and would certainly have brought to me serious troubles and complaints if they had had any. That the prisoners really had confidence in me is proved by the following incident. At the beginning of February 1945 about 2000 German prisoners and about 18 000 Poles asked me to be employed for the good of the Reich, and wished for a task at the front under my personal command.<br />
The prisoners block leaders were picked out according to their suitability of character and changed every three months in order to counteract most vigorously encroachments of this circle of persons. Through frequent controls of all the camp arrangements I assured myself of the execution and observance of the orders I issued. The prisoners foremen for work-shops and plants were also appointed above all from the standpoint of suitability of character alongside technical qualifications. In the case of encroachments upon their fellow-prisoners such foremen were immediately removed and put into another plant as auxiliary workers and if occasion arose, disciplinary action was taken. Civilian foremen, who treated prisoners badly, were, if this were reported, reprimanded by the competent state police office or punished with a fine, in special cases they were themselves put into the concentration camp as prisoners under protective custody for varying periods.<br />
The juvenile prisoners (Russians and Ukrainians) aged 14 to 18 I caused to be housed together in so-called youth blocks. The block seniors for them were chosen according to quite specially strict standards with respect to their suitability of character and morals. They were also required to be masters of the Russian language, since they had to teach the juveniles German; the juveniles themselves could of their own free choice learn a profession in the SS or in the private plants, in which prisoners were employed. They received additional food and were always in a well-nourished condition. They were all content with their lot. From the surplus in the prisoners' canteen I allowed from time to time at Christmas, Easter and Whitsun 1 litre of beer and 5 to 10 cigarettes to be distributed to each prisoner free of charge. I made the canteen prices which were revised from time to time by the state control offices, so low that only small surpluses were obtained. For instance a litre of beer - the wholesale price of which was 48 Reich pfennig and the official consumer price 70 pfennig. I allowed to be sold in the prisoners' canteen for 50 pfennig. I thus knowingly avoided aiming at the more profits from the prisoners than were necessary for turnover and trade tax.<br />
<br />
At the instigation of the camp physician I ordered that four barracks for the accommodation of prisoners be added to the prison sick bay, thus providing comfortable and healthy accommodation for the sick. In addition a new barrack was erected for the prisoner physicians and the prisoner staff, thus providing this staff with good accommodation within easy reach.<br />
The grounds of the prison hospital had garden plots, flower beds and lawns. The horticultural products (vegetables) were given to the sick in addition to their basic rations.<br />
The prison hospital employed prisoners, who were medical students and who were thus given the opportunity to further their studies so that, after their release from the concentration camp they were able to take up their studies where they had been interrupted and to pass the necessary scientific examinations.<br />
<br />
The fact that I frequent received food parcels and letters of thanks from grateful relatives of prisoners as well as from released prisoners - even Germans, French and Poles - might serve as proof that everything possible was done for the well being of the prisoners at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. I had the contents of the parcels distributed against receipt among sick prisoners who never received any parcels themselves. I acknowledged the receipt of the parcels to the senders, informed them that I had distributed the contents and enclosed the receipt. A further proof that the prisoners were well treated and that they by no means considered themselves as suppressed and treated in an inhuman manner, might be found in the fact that during the many air attacks on Berlin and surroundings the prisoners always behaved perfectly and started rescue and salvage work without orders from the SS even before the attack was over. They worked in an outstanding manner and side by side with SS men and civilians. Whenever they had left the camp or their place of work in the general confusion, they voluntarily returned to the camp within the next few hours; often prisoners and SS members greeted each other in the most cordial manner. I do not know of a single case of escape during air attacks.<br />
In several cases prisoners who had behaved outstandingly during rescue work were released due to my efforts on their behalf. Among others the former prisoners THEIRHOFF, WILLI, now residing in Dredsberg, Kreis Meschede, and WULLE, first name and address unknown - can most probably be learned from THIERHOFF - were released at my instigation in 1943.<br />
<br />
In August 1944 former Communists and Social Democrats were brought to the concentration camps by virtue of the so-called "fence action" ("Gitter-Aktion") of the Reich Security Main Office. Since the majority of those men brought to Sachsenhausen had not been politically active since 1933, I approached SS-Gruppenfuehrer MUELLER, office chief IV of the Reich Security Main Office and succeeded in obtaining the release of most of these prisoners.<br />
In the last phase of the war, at the beginning of February 1945, I also verbally suggested to MUELLER that the German prisoners should be enlisted in the Wehrmacht, while the foreign prisoners should be assigned to the labor service. This unfortunately was refused.<br />
<br />
On 4 April 1945 I suggested to HIMMLER in Rheinsberg that at the enemy's approach the Sachsenhausen concentration camp should be handed over to the International Red Cross. This suggestion was also turned down.<br />
On 18 April 1945 I received the verbal order from the Chief of the Office Group D (Economic Administrative Main Office) Gluecks to requisition the ships, lying in the West Harbor of Berlin, to take them to the Lohnits Lake via the Hohenzollern Canal and to ship the Sachsenhausen prisoners through the canals to the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. I refused to carry out this order and suggest once more that the camp should be handed over to the International Red Cross, Gluecke was furious about my refusal and threatened to report me to HIMMLER. I did not carry out the requisition of the ships, thus this mad scheme was not carried out. In conclusion I wish to state that three members of the staff of the headquarters Sachsenhausen were shot in Sachsenhausen on 22 December 1944 in the presence of the assembled troop, after having been sentenced by an SS and Police Court for the theft of prisoner's property and Reich property.<br />
<br />
Section III<br />
Treatment of various question pertaining to concentration camps.<br />
1. The circular of the SS Army Economic and Administrative Main Office, dated 30 April 1942, addressed to all camp commanders probably referred to the rule that working hours, are not limited and according which all circumstances which might shorten working hours are therefore to be limited to an absolute minimum. This rule was carried out in such a way as to eliminate the marches from and to the places of work situated outside the camp, which until then had taken up a great deal of time. For this purpose the midday meal was brought to the place of work by truck or by horse cart and was then distributed to the prisoners. Moreover the noon and evening roll-call was also discontinued. Working hours in private or SS installations were never longer than those of the ordinary workers or SS members employed there, since the prisoners had to work with them. On the contrary, the prisoners were at an advantage insofar, as they were mostly accommodated near the place of work, thus they did not have to walk to and from work which sometimes took hours, as had the civilian workers. For instance, employees of the Heinkelwerke Oranienburg, who lived in Berlin had to reckon at least 3- sometimes even 6 hours for their daily travel to and from work, whereas the prisoners were billeted only a few hundred yards from their place of work.<br />
2. To my knowledge the 3 to 5 per cent of the work products in question are merely a preferential delivery of the Waffen SS with weapons and armaments.<br />
3. The SS Death Head Formations were only trained in a general infantry service, without combat training. Until the outbreak of war members of the SS Death Head Formations, unless they had already done so, had to server their compulsory military term with the Wehrmacht.<br />
4. I never heard that the concentration camp inmates were labelled the "scum of the earth" or "slaves" and that the SS was trained to commit outrages against the prisoners. They were always merely spoken of as "enemies of the state" or professional criminals, who should be educated in the concentration camps to become "useful members of the community". Moreover, the members of headquarters and the guards were regularly instructed to treat the prisoners in a correct and just manner.<br />
5. It is however correct that orders were given that even bedridden prisoners had to be forced to work. However, just as people who were ill, but not bedridden, were not made to work, so have I never come across a case where a bedridden person was given work; nor have I ever heard of cases where asocial people were worked to death. I, at least, considered this kind of order an exaggeration which could not have been meant seriously.<br />
6. I personally have never learned anything about biological experiments. If such were carried out, they were probably treated as a secret Reich matter or a military top secret, if only for the reason not to reveal the scientific results.<br />
7. I do not know whether the camp rules Eickes for Dachau existed in accordance with Eickes order of 1 October 1933. I never heard of it. During my activities as camp commander of the Sachsenhausen camp, from August 1942 until the time of the collapse, all concentration camps were bound by the directives issued by Himmler in 1940.<br />
8. The testimony of the witness Blaha, according to which numerous prisoners in Dachau were beaten to death or shot during work must be considered refuted by the evidence of the witness Tunger.<br />
9. The correctness of the accusation that prisoners in Mauthausen were pushed against the barbed wire fence by SS members and then shot dead by the guards according to their instructions is somewhat doubtful for the mere reason that the SS member or members who pushed the prisoner or the prisoners against the barbed wire fence would himself run the risk of being shot at.<br />
I consider this accusation improbable, I have never heard of such cases.<br />
10. In my opinion there were rumors afoot among the population near the concentration camps which in most cases did in no way correspond to the actual facts and which therefore probably were not taken seriously by most people. It is also possible that rumors sprang up as a result of the smoke of the crematory. The crematory of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp for instance was situated only 200 yards away from the rag and salvage utilization installation of the SS, where shreds of leather and material were burnt in the central heating plant. The chimney of this headting plant was not more than approx. 5 meters high, therefore, when the weather was bad or when there was a north easterly wind the smoke drifted in dense clouds over the concentration camp as far as the northern part of the city of Oranienburg. As a result the rumor probably sprang up among the population that this was smoke from the crematory.<br />
Since I myself disliked this smoke from the rag and salvage utilization and since a chemist who lived near the camp made representations to me on the subject i had this chimney built a few meters higher by the SS building office. However, this remedy was not completely successful.<br />
11. Since the prisoners were guarded when they had visitors, it was impossible for them to tell their visitors about happenings in the camp. At his release the prisoner had to sign a statement that he would not disclose anything about camp life. The population as a whole could not have been informed about transports of prisoners, since they could not possibly have had any insight into the complicated transport during the war.<br />
12. The Reich Main Security Office granted leave to the prisoners of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp if the family of a prisoner were in a state of economic distress or when there was a death in the family. Leave was by no means a reward for good behaviour, long internment in a concentration camp or a reward for a prisoner holding important positions in the camp. Moreover it is most unlikely that just such prisoners, who had knowledge of biological experiments, were granted leave.<br />
<br />
Section IV<br />
Issuing of orders by the office group D of the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office<br />
The office group D "Inspectorate for Matters Pertaining to Concentration Camps" had the following tasks:<br />
Office I = Collaboration with offices IV and V of the Reich Security Main Office,with regard to new prisoners, transfer of prisoners to other concentration camps, release of prisoners in special camps, forwarding of orders for execution, issued by the Reich Security Main Office.<br />
Office II: Organization of the labor commitment of the prisoners, negotiations with the Reich offices and firms in question.<br />
Office III: Execution of all medical and hygienic measures in the concentration camps.<br />
Office IV: Administrative matters, pertaining to concentration camps, finance, accommodation, clothing, food.<br />
<br />
(signed) Anton KAINDL<br />
Subscribed and sworn to before me this 16 day of July 1946<br />
Nuernberg, Germany<br />
(signed) W. LAWRENSE<br />
I, E.A.SCHADER, being thoroughly conversant with both the English and German languages certify that I have acted as interpreter for the swearing of the affidavit<br />
(Signed) A.E SCHRADER Jr. Lt.Comdr.U.S.N.R.<br />
Certified as correct and complete copy:<br />
Nuernberg, 17 June 1947<br />
Karl HOFFMAN<br />
Attorney at Law<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b> </b>shipoffoolshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00107963600647441371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501582598080968484.post-70277481483185662192011-05-24T04:25:00.000-07:002011-05-24T04:25:36.218-07:00Richard Baer's Five interrogations<b>Source: </b>Frankfurt trial DVD<br />
<br />
<b>Comment: </b>Provided to assist my more misguided friends. Five interrogations in which Baer provides no details about homicidal gassings with a rather weak exception of the day after his arrest. The last interrogation was October 1961, there are no further records released until his premature death in June 1963.<br />
<br />
<b>Text</b><br />
Richterliche Vernehmung des Angeklagten Richard Baer vom 22.12.1960<br />
<br />
<br />
Amtsgericht, Abteilung 931<br />
<br />
Frankfurt am Main, den 22.12.1960<br />
<br />
931 Gs 7908/60<br />
<br />
Gegenwärtig:<br />
Amtsgerichtsrat Opper<br />
als Richter,<br />
<br />
Justizangestellte<br />
Riedmüller<br />
als Urkundsbeamtin der<br />
Geschäftsstelle<br />
<br />
Vorgeführt aus der Untersuchungshaftanstalt Frankfurt am Main-Hammelsgasse, erscheint der Beschuldigte Richard Baer.<br />
<br />
Der Haftbefehl des Amtgerichts Frankfurt am Main – 931 Gs. 6320/60 – vom 21.10.1960, der dem Beschuldigten durch das Amtsgericht Schwarzenbek am 20.12.1960 bereits verkündet worden ist, wurde dem Beschuldigten erneut mit Beschwerderecht bekanntgegeben.<br />
<br />
Dem Beschuldigten wurde außerdem der Beschluß des Amtsgerichts Frankfurt am Main – 931 Gs. 7862/60 verkündet.<br />
<br />
Der Beschuldigte wurde gefragt, ob er auf die Beschuldigungen im Haftbefehl etwas erwidern wolle.<br />
<br />
Er erklärt, daß er sich nicht im Sinne der Beschuldigungen im Haftbefehl strafbar gemacht habe.<br />
<br />
Er erklärt:<br />
<br />
Ich bin nur Lagerkommandant im Lager Auschwitz I gewesen. Mit den Teillagern, in denen Vergasungen stattfanden, hatte ich nichts zu tun. Ich habe auch keinen Einfluß auf die Vergasungen selbst gehabt. Die Vergasungen fanden im Lager II statt. Dieses Lager unterstand nicht mir, sondern dem Hauptsturmführer Kramer. Er war zu meiner Zeit Kommandant des Lagers II. Der Evakuierungsmarsch wurde vom Reichssicherheitshauptamt in Berlin angeordnet und unter meiner Leitung, allerdings nur, soweit es sich um das Lager I handelt, durchgeführt. Ich selbst habe nach einigen Stunden des Marsches gesehen, daß das so nicht ging. Es lag viel Schnee, und die Häftlinge waren nicht in der Lage, die vorgesehenen sechs Tage bis ins KL Groß-Rosen zu marschieren. Ich bin dann im Auto vorausgefahren und habe in Ratibor nach mühsamen Verhandlungen mit Beamten der Reichsbahn erreicht, daß ich offene Waggons bekam, mit denen dann die Verlegung zum Bestimmungsort durchgeführt worden ist.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
Vorhalt:<br />
<br />
Ich habe nicht den Befehl gegeben, daß Häftlinge, die nicht mehr marschieren konnten, zu erschießen seien. Ich habe vielmehr angeordnet, daß diese Leute auf Lastkraftwagen und Sanitätskraftwagen zu verladen seien. Vor dem Abmarsch aus dem Lager habe ich dem Schutzhaftlagerführer befohlen, nur solche Häftlinge auf den Marsch zu schicken, die körperlich in der Lage waren, ihn durchzustehen. Ich habe befohlen, daß die nicht marschfähigen Häftlinge im Lager zurückbleiben.<br />
<br />
Vorhalt:<br />
<br />
In den wenigen Stunden, in denen ich beim Marsch dabei war, ist niemand erschossen worden.<br />
<br />
Der Beschuldigte erklärt, nachdem er belehrt worden ist, daß er jederzeit das Recht habe, Beschwerde einzulegen:<br />
<br />
Ich nehme meine zu Protokoll des Amtsgerichts Schwarzenbek am 20.12.1960 eingelegte Beschwerde vorerst zurück, weil dadurch die Ermittlungen zur Zeit verzögert werden.<br />
<br />
(Richard Baer) (Opper) (Riedmüller)<br />
<br />
Staatsanwaltschaftliche Vernehmung des Angeklagten Richard Baer vom 29.12.1960<br />
<br />
<br />
Frankfurt (Main), den 29.12.1960<br />
<br />
Der Oberstaatsanwalt<br />
beim Landgericht<br />
<br />
4 Js 444/59<br />
<br />
Gegenwärtig:<br />
<br />
Staatsanwalt Kügler,<br />
Staatsanwalt Vogel<br />
als Vernehmende,<br />
Justizangestellte Bovet<br />
als Protokollführerin.<br />
<br />
In der Untersuchungshaftanstalt Frankfurt (Main), Hammelsgasse, vorgeführt erscheint<br />
<br />
der Beschuldigte Richard Baer,<br />
geboren am 9.9.1911 in Floß/Opf.<br />
<br />
und erklärt, mit dem Gegenstand der Vernehmung vertraut gemacht, was folgt:<br />
Zur Person<br />
<br />
Ich wurde am 9.9.1911 in Floß/Opf. geboren. Mein Vater, Karl Baer, betrieb ein Kolonialwarengeschäft und eine Landwirtschaft. Diese Landwirtschaft war meiner Erinnerung nach etwa 8 Hektar groß. Meine Mutter Anna, geborene Meierhöfer, hat in dem Geschäft und in der Landwirtschaft mitgearbeitet. Mein Vater war zum dritten Mal verheiratet. Aus zweiter Ehe habe ich noch zwei Halbgeschwister, Karl und Lina Baer. Mein Vater verstarb 1932, meine Mutter verstarb 1941. Beide starben an natürlichen Todesursachen. Von irgendwelchen besonderen Krankheiten in meiner Familie, insbesondere Geisteskrankheit, ist mir nichts bekannt.<br />
<br />
In Floß habe ich 7 Jahre lang die Volksschule besucht. Nach meiner Erinnerung war dies von 1917 bis 1924. Schwierigkeiten hatte ich auf der Schule nicht. Meine Leistungen waren mittelmäßig. Während der Schulzeit war ich Mitglied des örtlichen Turnvereins. Während meiner Schulzeit habe ich in der Landwirtschaft meiner Eltern gearbeitet. Das Kolonialwarengeschäft hatte mein Vater etwa im Jahre 1920, nachdem meine älteste Schwester Berta, die aus der ersten Ehe meines Vaters stammte, verstorben war, aufgegeben. In der Zeit von 1925 bis 1928 habe ich in Weiden das Konditorhandwerk bei dem Konditorei- und Caféhausbesitzer Fritz Stark erlernt. Während dieser Zeit bin ich in Weiden in die Berufschule gegangen. Die Lehre habe ich 1928 mit der Gesellenprüfung, die ich mit ›gut‹ bestand, abgeschlossen. Während dieser Zeit habe ich in Weiden gewohnt.<br />
<br />
Nach Beendigung der Lehrzeit war ich etwa 1/2 Jahr in Pirkensee (zwischen Schwandorf und Regensburg) als Konditor in der Lebkuchenfabrik Feldmeier tätig. Dann holte mich der Konditoreibesitzer Stark wieder nach Weiden zurück. Ich arbeitete bis 1931 in seiner Konditorei als Konditor. Anschließend war ich eine Zeitlang arbeitslos. Während dieser Zeit war ich zu Hause in Floß und habe dort mit ausgeholfen. Anschließend gelang es mir, mit einer Unterstützung des Arbeitsamtes zu einer privaten Konditoreifachschule, Adolf Heckmann in Köln, zur weiteren Ausbildung zu kommen. Dort absolvierte ich einen einmonatigen Lehrgang. Anschließend ging ich wieder zur Konditorei Stark nach Weiden zurück. Dort habe ich dann die erworbenen Kenntnisse (Herstellung von Zuckerfiguren) verwerten können. Etwa 1932 verließ ich wegen schlechten Geschäftsganges die Firma Stark und ging zu der Konditorei Hermann Müller in Bayreuth. Dort blieb ich 1/2 Jahr. Es war jedoch keine Stellung, die mir besonders gefiel. Ich nahm daher wieder ein Angebot des Herrn Stark an und ging nach Weiden zurück. Das war Ende 1932. Bei Herrn Stark verblieb ich bis etwa März 1933.<br />
<br />
Anfang 1931 starb der Vater meines Schulkameraden Münchmeier, der in Floß eine Gastwirtschaft und eine Schlächterei hatte. Er war Mitglied der NSDAP. Auf der Beerdigung, an der ich teilnahm, sah ich die anderen NSDAP-Mitglieder des Ortes, die mit Fahnen an- und abmarschierten. Dies hat damals auf mich Eindruck gemacht, und ich trat zusammen mit meinem Schulkameraden Münchmeier der NSDAP bei. Wenn mir vorgehalten wird, daß ich nach den Angaben in meinem Lebenslauf am 18.12.1930 in die NSDAP eingetreten bin, so kann das Datum zutreffen. Da ich in Weiden beschäftigt war, habe ich mit den anderen NSDAP-Mitgliedern in Floß keinen näheren Kontakt mehr gehabt. Ich habe mich in der NSDAP nie besonders betätigt und auch keinen Posten innerhalb der Partei gehabt. In Weiden haben mir dann die Gebrüder Liebwein zugeredet, der Allgemeinen SS beizutreten, weil die Gebrüder Liebwein auch der Allgemeinen SS beitreten wollten. Das habe ich dann meiner Erinnerung nach im Juli 1932 auch getan.<br />
<br />
Wenn ich nach dem Grund meines Eintritts zur Allgemeinen SS gefragt werde, so möchte ich darauf antworten, daß ich keine besonderen politischen Gründe gehabt habe. Ich kann heute eigentlich gar nicht mehr sagen, was mich dort hingezogen hat. Besonders gefallen hat mir die soldatische Disziplin. Ich hatte Freude am Soldatspielen. Auch war die Allgemeine SS in Weiden kein großer Haufen, sondern damals nur eine Abteilung von 11 oder 12 Mann.<br />
<br />
Wir trafen uns jeden Montag oder Dienstag im evangelischen Vereinshaus. Dort war ein Saal, wo wir exerziert und Sport getrieben haben. Mitglied dieser Gruppe war auch der nachmalige Kommandant der Konzentrationslager Neuengamme und Dachau, Martin Weiß. Ich kann mich erinnern, daß er einmal zu einem Schulungslehrgang nach Amberg abkommandiert wurde. Als er zurückkam, hat er uns dann den Parademarsch und ähnliche Dinge beigebracht. Das hat mir damals Spaß gemacht.<br />
<br />
Nach einiger Zeit hatten wir dann auch alle eine SS-Uniform. Es traf sich dann, daß wir am Sonnabend und Sonntagen mit dem NSKK auf die Dörfer fuhren und den sogenannten »Rednerschutz« bei politischen Versammlungen stellten. Die politische Lage verschärfte sich damals zusehends.<br />
<br />
Damals hatte Herr Stark auch jüdische Kundschaft. Um ihm keine Schwierigkeiten zu bereiten, habe ich beispielsweise die SS-Uniform nie im Geschäft, sondern im Vereinslokal an- und ausgezogen. Ich habe damals und auch später nie persönliche Zusammenstöße mit Juden gehabt. Wenn ich heute gefragt werde, ob ich damals antisemitisch eingestellt war, so möchte ich antworten, daß mir meine Gefühle in der damaligen Zeit heute nicht mehr erinnerlich sind. Geliebt haben werde ich die Juden nicht, denn es ist uns ja schon damals eingebleut worden, daß die Juden unser Unglück sind. Im März 1933 habe ich dann die Arbeit bei Herrn Stark aufgegeben. Es sah so aus, als ob Herr Stark auf eine Kündigung durch mich hinarbeitete. Ich möchte sagen, daß er kein einfacher Chef war. Auch die beiden anderen Konditoren, die er beschäftigte, haben dann beide mit mir gekündigt. Auch ist es so gewesen, daß sich mein Dienst bei der Allgemeinen SS nicht mehr mit meiner Arbeit bei Herrn Stark in Einklang bringen ließ.<br />
<br />
Nach meiner Kündigung fuhr ich nach Floß, um mir von dort aus eine neue Arbeit zu suchen. Einige Tage später wurde ich davon benachrichtigt, daß Herr Harbauer in Weiden als Ortsgruppenleiter das Amt des Oberbürgermeisters übernommen habe und daß die Mitglieder der Allgemeinen SS als Hilfspolizisten eingesetzt werden sollten. Daraufhin fuhr ich nach Weiden und habe mich dort bei der Polizeiwache gemeldet. Ich wurde zusammen mit acht anderen Mitgliedern der Allgemeinen SS als Hilfspolizist eingestellt. Wir erhielten weiße Armbinden und begleiteten die Polizeibeamten auf Patrouillengängen. Ich mietete dann in Weiden ein Zimmer und machte bis zum 19.4.1933 Dienst als Hilfspolizist. Dann kam der Befehl, daß ich und noch drei oder vier andere ledige Hilfspolizisten zum Konzentrationslager Dachau abzustellen sind. Am 20.4.1933 kam ich in Dachau an und wurde dort der Wachtruppe zugeteilt.<br />
<br />
In Dachau wurde ich dem 3. SS-Wachsturm zugeteilt. Es lagen dort damals 4 Wachstürme. Chef war ein Oberstleutnant der Landespolizei aus München. Die einzelnen Kompanien wurden von Oberwachtmeistern der Landespolizei geführt. Jeder Sturm hatte 14 Tage bis 3 Wochen militärische Ausbildung und wurde dann 8 Tage zum Wachdienst eingesetzt. Bei diesem Wachdienst sind wir vor dem Stacheldraht des Lagers auf und ab gegangen, haben auf Postentürmen gestanden oder Häftlingskommandos zu Außenarbeiten begleitet. In dem KL Dachau selbst war ich niemals, auch später nicht. Der Dienst war sehr streng. Wir wurden von der Landespolizei mächtig geschliffen. Je mehr wir geschliffen wurden, je stolzer waren wir darauf. Bei dem Wachsturm in Dachau war ich etwa 1 bis 11/2 Jahre. Während dieser Zeit wurde ich zum SS-Rottenführer ernannt. Dann wurde ich zusammen mit vier anderen Männern zur Aufstellung des Wachsturmbannes Brandenburg in Oranienburg (Schloß) abgestellt. Ich wurde zum Unterscharführer befördert und in Oranienburg gleich als Zugführer eingesetzt. Die Wachtruppe Brandenburg führte der SS-Obersturmbannführer Lippert, ein ehemaliger Polizeioffizier.<br />
<br />
Wir wurden kompanieweise für jeweils 8 Tage als Wachpersonal im Columbia-Haus in Berlin-Tempelhof eingesetzt. Das Columbia-Haus war ein Militärgefängnis, in dem damals die Gestapo ihre Häftlinge untergebracht hatten. Etwa im Jahr 1937 kam ich als Zugführer zur Wachtruppe Brandenburg, die inzwischen nach Sachsenhausen verlegt worden war. Mit dem Konzentrationslager dort hatte ich nichts zu tun gehabt.<br />
<br />
1938 kam ich zum 3. SS-Totenkopfsturmbann »Thüringen« nach Buchenwald als Zugführer. Dort habe ich wieder ausgebildet und Leute meines Zuges als Wachposten für das KL Buchenwald gestellt. Es wurde dann ein 3. Bataillon in Buchenwald aufgestellt. Dort wurde ich Kompanieführer und erhielt die 4. sogenannte Polizeiverstärkungskompanie. Es wurden damals schon Reservisten eingezogen, und ich kann mich noch daran erinnern, daß ich in meiner Kompanie viele Akademiker hatte. Diese Leute habe ich ausgebildet. Wir kamen dann auch auf den Truppenübungsplatz in Wildflecken. Im September 1938 wurde ich zum SS-Untersturmführer ernannt. Nach Beendigung der Ausbildungszeit in Wildflecken kam ich nach Buchenwald zurück. Von dort aus mußte turnusmäßig ein Zug zur Bewachung von 100 Häftlingen, die von Sachsenhausen zu einer Ziegelei in Neuengamme abgestellt waren, eingesetzt werden. Ich war mit einem Zug zu diesem Dienst eingeteilt, als gerade der Polenfeldzug ausbrach. Durch den Kriegsausbruch wurde ich in Neuengamme nach Ablauf der üblichen vier Wochen nicht mehr abgelöst.<br />
<br />
Ich mußte dann wegen des Kriegsausbruchs bis Mai 1940 in Neuengamme als Chef der Wacheinheit, die zum KL Neuengamme gehörte, bleiben. Man kann nicht sagen, daß es damals in Neuengamme schon ein richtiges KL gab. Es war ein aus Sachsenhausen abgestelltes Arbeitskommando. Während dieser Zeit ist von den Häftlingen, die ich zu bewachen hatte, lediglich ein älterer Häftling gestorben. Wir haben damals den in Neuengamme praktizierenden Arzt Dr. Müller zur Behandlung des Häftlings herangezogen. Der etwa 70 Jahre alte Häftling ist nicht infolge eines Unfalls verstorben. Im Mai 1940 kam ich endlich, nach wiederholten Gesuchen um Abstellung zur Truppe, zur SS-Totenkopfdivision nach Korbach. Die Division war in Dachau aufgestellt worden. Ich wurde dann Zugführer bei dem 9./TJR 2. Ich habe denn den ganzen Westfeldzug mitgemacht und war am Canal Albert, Béthune, Calais und am Canal de La Bassée eingesetzt. Ich gelangte dann an die Westküste Frankreichs bis zur spanischen Grenze. Während dieses Einsatzes zog ich mir bei der Bergung eines Motorrades einen Bruch zu, der dann später operiert wurde. Am 9.11.40 wurde ich zum Obersturmführer befördert.<br />
<br />
Nach dem Westfeldzug verblieb ich 1 Jahr bei der Besatzungstruppe in Frankreich. Wir lagen in Biarritz und Dax. Einmal war ich auch für etwa 1/4 Jahr Standortkommandant von Mont-de-Marsan.<br />
<br />
Anfang Juni 1941 wurde unsere Division von Frankreich nach Ostpreußen verlegt. Ich machte dann den Rußlandfeldzug bis Oktober/November 1941 mit. Damals wurde ich in der Nähe von Demjansk als Kompaniechef durch einen Oberschenkeldurchschuß verwundet.<br />
<br />
Mir wurde der Inhalt des an die Staatsanwaltschaft gerichteten Schreibens des Friedrich Bass vom 21.12.60 vorgelesen. Ich kann mich noch an den Mann erinnern und weiß, daß ich ihn damals geborgen habe. Wegen dieses Verhaltens wurde ich noch von dem Kommandeur gerügt, weil ich hierbei mich und meine Leute gefährdet hatte.<br />
<br />
Nach meiner Verwundung kam ich in das Feldlazarett Demjansk. Von hier aus wurde ich nach Hamburg entlassen, wo ich bei meiner zukünftigen Frau wohnte. Am 6.1.42 habe ich geheiratet. Zur Ausheilung meiner Verwundung mußte ich mich einem SS-Arzt unterstellen. Ich habe mich von dem Dr. Wirths, der damals Standortarzt in Neuengamme war, behandeln lassen. Es ist derselbe Mann, der später Standortarzt in Auschwitz war. Ich mußte dann auch auf Anordnung eines anderen SS-Arztes meinen Bruch operieren lassen, den ich mir im Frankreichfeldzug zugezogen hatte. Dies geschah in Hamburg-Bergedorf. Zu dieser Zeit gehörte ich zum Kommandanturstab Neuengamme. Damals war der Weiß, den ich schon von Weiden her kannte, Kommandant. Er wollte mir wegen meiner Teilnahme im Krieg und meiner Verwundung etwas gönnen, und ich gehörte eigentlich nicht zu dem Stab Neuengamme. So habe ich meiner Erinnerung nach nur gelegentlich etwas getan. Insbesondere kann ich mich daran erinnern, daß ich bei der Feuerwehr an der neuen Motorspritze ausgebildet habe. Ich glaube nicht, daß ich dort irgendwelche Arbeit gemacht habe, die von einem Adjutanten des Kommandanten zu erledigen gewesen wäre. Wenn ich mich recht erinnere, war damals Frommhagen Adjutant, der später auch in Auschwitz war, genau weiß ich das aber auch nicht mehr. Nach dem Weggang von Weiß kam der SS-Sturmbannführer Pauly als Kommandant nach Neuengamme. Wenn ich es jetzt nochmals überlege, so scheint es doch so gewesen zu sein, daß Frommhagen damals nicht mehr in Neuengamme war und daß ich die Adjutantengeschäfte für Weiß erledigte und ihn während seiner Abwesenheit vertrat. Andererseits möchte ich aber sagen, daß der Adjutant den Kommandanten nicht vertreten konnte, das war Aufgabe des Schutzhaftlagerführers. Weiß mußte öfters nach Fallersleben, wo er ein neues KL aufbauen sollte. Ich selbst hatte damals auch viel wegen meiner Heirat und wegen der Einrichtung meiner Wohnung in Bergedorf zu tun. Ich wohnte in Bergedorf, Otto-Blöcker-Str. 7 (?). [sic]<br />
<br />
Es kann möglich sein, daß ich im November 1942 zum Wirtschaftsverwaltungshauptamt in Berlin versetzt wurde. Ursprünglich sollte ich Adjutant von Höß in Auschwitz werden. Ich fuhr auch nach Auschwitz, wo ich im Hotel der Waffen-SS wohnte. Ich blieb jedoch nur 2-3 Tage dort, da ich von Glücks nach Berlin zurückbeordert wurde, der mir sagte, ich solle Adjutant von SS-Obergruppenführer Pohl werden. Diese Stelle habe ich dann auch angetreten.<br />
<br />
Vorgelesen, genehmigt und unterschrieben:<br />
(Richard Baer)<br />
<br />
Geschlossen:<br />
(Kügler)<br />
Staatsanwalt Kügler<br />
<br />
(Bovet)<br />
Justizangestellte Bovet<br />
<br />
(Vogel)<br />
Staatsanwalt Vogel<br />
<br />
Staatsanwaltschaftliche Vernehmung des Angeklagten Richard Baer vom 30.12.1960<br />
<br />
<br />
Frankfurt (Main), den 30.12.1960<br />
<br />
Gegenwärtig:<br />
<br />
Staatsanwalt Kügler,<br />
Staatsanwalt Vogel<br />
als Vernehmende,<br />
Justizangestellte Bovet<br />
als Protokollführerin.<br />
<br />
In der Untersuchungshaftanstalt Frankfurt (Main), Hammelsgasse,<br />
vorgeführt erscheint<br />
<br />
der Beschuldigte Richard Baer,<br />
geboren am 9.9.1911 in Floß/Opf.,<br />
<br />
und erklärt in Fortsetzung seiner gestrigen Vernehmung:<br />
<br />
Wie ich geschildert habe, ist während meiner Anwesenheit in Neuengamme ein älterer Häftling gestorben. Dies wurde nach Oranienburg gemeldet. Darauf hin erschien am nächsten Tag in meinem Dienstzimmer ein SS-Führer, der die mit dem Tod des Häftlings zusammenhängenden Formalitäten erledigte. Dieser SS-Führer war Höß, den ich damals zum ersten Male sah.<br />
<br />
Meine gestrige Vernehmung möchte ich noch wie folgt ergänzen. Nachdem ich von der Front zurückgekommen war, bin ich von Hamburg, und zwar an Weihnachten 1941, nach Floß gefahren. Da inzwischen auch meine Mutter verstorben war, hatte ich dort familiäre Angelegenheiten zu erledigen. Einen Teil des weiter entfernt liegenden Grundbesitzes habe ich damals verkauft und den Kauferlös bei der Bayrischen Vereinsbank in Weiden auf ein Konto eingezahlt. Das Geld liegt heute noch dort.<br />
<br />
Als ich einmal besuchsweise in Flossenbürg war, stand dieses KL unter dem Kommando des SS-Sturmbannführers Künstler. Dort sprach ich dann auch mit dem Verwaltungsführer des KL. Auf seine Anregung hin habe ich einen Teil der in Floß liegenden restlichen Ländereien an die Verwaltung des KL Flossenbürg verpachtet. Ich kann mich noch daran erinnern, daß dort u.a. ein Karpfenteich angelegt wurde.<br />
<br />
Auf Grund meines in der vorherigen Vernehmung geschilderten Fronteinsatzes habe ich das EK 1, EK 2, das Infanteriesturmabzeichen, die Ostmedaille, Demjanskschild und Verwundetenabzeichen in Schwarz erhalten. Als ich vom Gruppenführer Glücks in Auschwitz angerufen wurde und er mir mitteilte, ich soll mich als Adjutant bei Obergruppenführer Pohl melden, wandte ich ein, ich sei doch Truppier und habe keine ausreichenden Kenntnisse als Verwaltungsführer. Glücks erwiderte, ich sei doch an der Front gewesen und habe die vorgenannten Auszeichnungen erhalten, Pohl suche gerade einen Frontoffizier als Adjutant. So bin ich zu Pohl als Adjutant gekommen. Ich kann mich heute nicht mehr genau daran erinnern, wann ich nach Auschwitz kam. Meiner Erinnerung nach war es im Mai oder Juni 1944. Wenn mir aus den Eintragungen der Führerkartei vorgehalten wird, daß ich vom 13.11.1942 ab als Adjutant bei Pohl war und am 15.5.1944 nach Auschwitz kam, so kann das richtig sein. Ehe ich nach Auschwitz kam, hatte ich einen Urlaub nach Floß angetreten. Dort hielt ich mich auf und erwartete einen Anruf von Höß aus Auschwitz. Dieser Anruf kam auch, und Höß teilte mir mit, daß ich nunmehr nach Auschwitz kommen sollte. In Auschwitz war ich Kommandant des Lagers I und Standortältester.<br />
<br />
Zum SS-Hauptsturmführer wurde ich im November 1942 und auf Grund meiner Verdienste bei Pohl zum SS-Sturmbannführer im Juni 1944 befördert.<br />
<br />
Auschwitz habe ich nach Beginn der Evakuierung Mitte Januar 1945 verlassen. Ich fuhr dann von Auschwitz im Kraftwagen weg und habe zunächst an verschiedenen Stellen, z.B. in Oppeln und Ratibor versucht, Waggons für den Häftlingsabtransport zu bekommen. Die ersten eintreffenden Häftlingstransporte aus Auschwitz habe ich in dem KL Groß-Rosen erwartet. In Groß-Rosen lag für mich ein Befehl, daß ich mich sofort bei Pohl in Berlin melden sollte. Das habe ich dann getan. Von Pohl erhielt ich dann den Befehl, mich sofort zu dem KL Mittelbau zu begeben. Ende Januar oder Februar, genau weiß ich das nicht mehr, kam ich in Mittelbau an. Dort übernahm ich das Lager als Kommandant. Nachdem sich die militärische Lage immer weiter verschlechterte, kam aus Berlin der Befehl, die Häftlinge des KL Mittelbau nach Oranienburg verbringen zu lassen. Um dieses vorzubereiten, begab ich mich mit dem Schutzhaftlagerführer Hössler im Kraftwagen nach Nordhausen, um dort mit der zuständigen Stelle bei der Reichsbahn zu verhandeln. Als wir gerade in Nordhausen angekommen waren, begann ein Luftangriff auf die Stadt. Ich lief in ein Haus und wurde durch den Explosionsdruck einer Bombe die Treppe hinuntergerissen, so daß ich mir einen Fußknöchel brach. Der Bruch war sehr schmerzhaft. Ich meldete den Unfall sofort nach Berlin. Noch in derselben Nacht kam ein Fernschreiben von Glücks, der mir befahl, mich nach Flossenbürg zu begeben und das Lager Mittelbau an den Schutzhaftlagerführer Hössler zu übergeben. Von Nordhausen wurde ich mit dem Wagen nach Flossenbürg gebracht, dort wurde der Knöchelbruch behandelt und das Bein in Gips gelegt. Anschließend wurde ich mit dem Wagen nach Floß gebracht. Ich wohnte dann bei meinen Schwiegereltern, die wegen der Luftangriffe von Hamburg nach Floß gezogen waren. Meine Frau war damals auch in Floß. Ich erhielt dann Mitte April 1945 den Befehl, mich zum KL Dachau zu begeben. Diesem Befehl habe ich Folge geleistet. Meine Frau begleitete mich zur Pflege, da ich das Bein noch in Gips hatte. Auf Anraten von Pohl begab ich mich nach St. Lambrecht in der Steiermark, wo das Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt ein Gut hatte. Dies wurde von dem SS-Standartenführer Ehrhardt geleitet. Dort sollte ich mich auskurieren. In St. Lambrecht erlebte ich dann das Kriegsende. Meine Frau befand sich noch bei mir. Beim Einmarsch der Amerikaner besorgte ich mir Zivilkleidung und humpelte mit meiner Ehefrau durch Österreich in Richtung Floß. Teils gelang es uns, per Anhalter weiterzukommen. Vor Hallein wurde ich das erste Mal von den Amerikanern aufgehalten. Die herumlaufenden Zivilisten wurden alle auf einer Wiese gesammelt, denn wir sollten in Kraftwagen abtransportiert werden. Ich habe mich dann jedoch mit meiner Frau allein wieder auf den Weg gemacht. In der Nähe von Salzburg wurden wir wieder von Amerikanern angehalten. Ich mußte meinen Oberkörper frei machen, und sie haben nach meiner SS-Tätowierung gesucht. Sie konnten die Tätowierung jedoch nicht finden, weil die entsprechende Körperstelle durch die Reibungen des Rucksackriemens verunstaltet war. Wir gelangten dann bis nach Weiden, wo wir bei verschiedenen Leuten, die uns nicht kannten, Unterkunft fanden. Von dort aus ließ ich meine Schwiegereltern in Floß verständigen. Ich habe dann bei verschiedenen Bauern gearbeitet, so auch in der Nähe der österreichischen Grenze, in Niederbayern und in der Nähe von Schwandorf. Meine Frau war immer bei mir. Im Dezember 1945 bin ich mit meiner Frau von Nabburg mit dem Zug über Gießen nach Hamburg gefahren. Meine Frau ging dann nach Hause zu ihrem Vater. Während dieser ganzen Zeit wurde ich unter meinen richtigen Personalien geführt. Bei Nabburg wurde ich von den Amerikanern auch registriert, ebenfalls unter meinem richtigen Namen. Von Hamburg ging ich nach Hohenhorn, wo ich Arbeit bei einem Bauern fand.<br />
Als ich mich in Nabburg abgemeldet hatte, bekam ich von dem Fräulein, die den Abmeldungszettel ausfüllte, die Abmeldungsquittung unter meinem richtigen Namen, jedoch nur mit Bleistift ausgefüllt. Auf der Reise nach Hamburg habe ich dann die in mir schon lange wache Idee, meinen Namen zu ändern, wie folgt ausgeführt:<br />
<br />
Ich habe die Bleistifteintragung auf der mir ausgehändigten Quittung über die Abmeldung ausradiert und den Namen »Karl Neumann, geboren am 11.11.09 in Niederau bei Düren« eingetragen. Ich hatte mir schon vorher überlegt, welche Personalien ich annehmen sollte. Ich dachte mir dabei, daß es nicht günstig sei, einen im Osten liegenden Geburtsort anzugeben; ich befürchtete damals, daß die im Osten geborenen Personen nach dorthin wieder zurück müßten. Auch befürchtete ich, als Ostflüchtling alle möglichen Aussagen machen und Erklärungen abgeben zu müssen. Ich wollte auch keine Entschädigung annehmen. Bei einem Bauern hatte ich mir einmal die nähere Umgebung von Köln auf dem Atlas betrachtet. Dabei ist mir ganz zufällig die Ortschaft Niederau bei Düren ins Auge gefallen. Diesen Ort habe ich dann als meinen falschen Geburtsort gewählt. Ich dachte dabei auch daran, daß dort Kämpfe stattgefunden hatten und möglicherweise die standesamtlichen Unterlagen zerstört worden waren.<br />
<br />
So habe ich mich bei dem Bauern in Hohenhorn schon unter dem falschen Namen Karl Neumann angemeldet, das war im Januar 1946. Dort habe ich im Lager gewohnt. Als ich meine Arbeit bei diesem Bauern aufnahm, hatte ich mir zuvor auch in Hamburg auf dem »Schwarzen Markt« einen Entlassungsschein aus englischer Kriegsgefangenschaft auf den Namen Karl Neumann gekauft. Bei diesem Bauern arbeitete ich sechs Monate lang und nahm dann eine Stelle bei der Fürstlich-Bismarckschen Forstverwaltung an, die ich bis zu meiner Verhaftung innehatte. Ich war zunächst Waldarbeiter. In den Jahren 1950/51 habe ich etwa ein halbes Jahr bei der Verwaltung bei der Aufarbeitung von Abrechnungen ausgeholfen. Eine Zeitlang war ich auch im Holzverkauf tätig. Zuvor war ich auch schon eine Zeitlang Haumeister. Als Haumeister verdiente ich jedoch weniger als Waldarbeiter, der im Akkord arbeiten konnte. Ich bin daher später wieder und bis zu meiner Verhaftung als Waldarbeiter (Akkordarbeiter) tätig gewesen.<br />
<br />
Im November 1950 bin ich dann in ein einstöckiges Wochenendhaus in Dassendorf, Berottskamp 1, gezogen, das ein schwedischer Kaufmann gepachtet hatte. Ich habe das Grundstück, auf dem das Haus steht, zunächst gepachtet. Im vorigen Jahr hat mein Schwiegervater das Grundstück erworben. Das Haus habe ich auf meinen Namen gekauft, das Geld hierfür bekam ich von meinem Schwiegervater. Als mein Schwiegervater das Grundstück kaufte, hat er auch das Haus von mir gekauft.<br />
<br />
Den Personalausweis bekam ich auf Grund der von mir gefälschten Abmeldung aus Nabburg. Den Flüchtlingsausweis bekam ich, weil ich angab, früher in Berlin gewohnt zu haben, was ja auch zutrifft. Irgendeinen Lastenausgleich oder Renten habe ich nie bezogen. Auch Kriegsgefangenenentschädigung habe ich nicht erhalten.<br />
<br />
Wenn ich gefragt werde, ob ich in der Zeit von 1945 bis zu meiner Verhaftung mit Leuten, insbesondere ehemaligen Mitgliedern der Waffen-SS, die mich kannten, zusammengekommen bin, so möchte ich auf diese Frage die Aussage verweigern.<br />
<br />
Zur Sache möchte ich erst dann Angaben machen, nachdem ich mit einem Verteidiger gesprochen habe. Ich habe noch keinen Rechtsanwalt meines Vertrauens gefunden, hoffe aber, daß mir dies in absehbarer Zeit möglich sein wird.<br />
<br />
Vorgelesen, genehmigt und unterschrieben:<br />
(Richard Baer)<br />
<br />
Geschlossen:<br />
(Kügler)<br />
Staatsanwalt Kügler,<br />
<br />
(Bovet)<br />
Justizangestellte Bovet,<br />
<br />
(Vogel)<br />
Staatsanwalt Vogel<br />
<br />
Richterliche Vernehmung des Angeklagten Richard Baer vom 6.6.1961<br />
<br />
<br />
Frankfurt (Main), 6. Juni 1961<br />
<br />
Amtsgericht<br />
<br />
– 932 Gs 1701/61 –<br />
<br />
Gegenwärtig:<br />
<br />
Amtsgerichtsrat Rieber<br />
als Richter,<br />
<br />
Justizangestellter Schweidler<br />
als Urkundsbeamter der Geschäftsstelle.<br />
<br />
In der Strafsache<br />
gegen Adolf Eichmann<br />
<br />
erschien<br />
<br />
1. Herr Erwin S. Shimron als Vertreter des Generalstaatsanwaltes des Staates Israel,<br />
<br />
2. Herr Rechtsanwalt Dieter Wechtenbruch, München, als Verteidiger des Angeklagten,<br />
<br />
3. Herr Rechtsanwalt Dr. Hermann Stolting II als Verteidiger des nachbenannten Zeugen in seinem eigenen Strafverfahren. Ihm wurde die Anwesenheit in der Zeugenvernehmung gestattet, um bei Erforderlichwerden von Beratungen mit seinem Mandanten informiert zu sein,<br />
<br />
4. nachbenannter Zeuge.<br />
<br />
Der Zeuge wurde über die Strafbarkeit und Folgen einer vorsätzlichen oder fahrlässigen falschen oder unvollständigen eidlichen und einer vorsätzlichen falschen oder unvollständigen uneidlichen Aussage sowie über die Bedeutung des Eides und darüber, daß er die Auskunft über solche Fragen verweigern könne, die ihn oder Angehörige der Gefahr strafrechtlicher Verfolgung aussetzen können, belehrt und zur Wahrheit ermahnt.<br />
<br />
Er erklärte sodann zur Person:<br />
<br />
Ich heiße Richard Baer,<br />
bin 49 Jahre alt, erlernter Konditor,<br />
zuletzt tätig als Waldarbeiter,<br />
wohnhaft in Dassendorf, Kreis Herzogtum<br />
Lauenburg, zur Zeit in Untersuchungshaft in der<br />
Haftanstalt Frankfurt (Main),<br />
Hammelsgasse,<br />
<br />
mit dem Angeklagten nicht verwandt und<br />
nicht verschwägert.<br />
<br />
Zur Sache:<br />
<br />
Von etwa Mitte Mai 1944 bis zur Räumung und Auflösung etwa Mitte Januar 1945 war ich Kommandant des Konzentrationslagers Auschwitz I. Auschwitz I umfaßte nur das Lager, das bei der Stadt Auschwitz selbst lag. Ich war also nicht Kommandant sämtlicher zu dem Komplex Auschwitz gehörender Lager, sondern nur Kommandant dieses einen Lagers. Daneben bestanden selbständig zu meiner Zeit die Lager Auschwitz II (Birkenau) unter dem Kommandanten Hauptsturmführer Kramer und Auschwitz III (Monowitz) unter dem Kommandanten Hauptsturmführer Schwarz. Diese Regelung, daß nämlich die genannten drei Lager unter je einem Kommandanten selbständig nebeneinander bestanden, war meines Wissens erst um die Zeit eingeführt worden, in der ich in Auschwitz I Kommandant wurde, jedenfalls nicht erst nach dem Zeitpunkt. Die vor meiner Zeit amtierenden Kommandanten Höß und Liebehenschel hatten meines Wissens noch den Gesamtkomplex unter sich gehabt, jedoch weiß ich das nicht so genau. Mein Rang war SS-Sturmbannführer der Waffen-SS, jedoch war ich erst Hauptsturmführer, als ich die Kommandogeschäfte übernahm. An den jeweiligen Dienstgrad von Höß und Liebehenschel kann ich mich nicht erinnern. Sie waren entweder Sturmbannführer oder Obersturmbannführer. Die von mir genannten Dienstränge von Kramer und Schwarz sind meines Erachtens Waffen- SS-Ränge. Ob die beiden in der Allgemeinen SS einen Dienstrang bekleideten, weiß ich nicht. Ich selbst bekleidete keinen.<br />
<br />
Als ich die Kommandogeschäfte übernahm, war Höß da. Höß war aber zu dieser Zeit Amtschef im Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt, Amtsgruppe D. Er war nicht mehr Kommandant. Bevor ich gekommen war, war ja Höß nicht mehr Kommandant gewesen, sondern diese Stelle, die Höß früher hatte, hatte dann Liebehenschel angetreten. Liebehenschel war aber bei meinem Amtsantritt nicht zugegen und hat mir die Geschäfte auch nicht übergeben.<br />
<br />
Den Angeklagten Eichmann kenne ich nicht. Ich habe mit ihm auch nichts zu tun gehabt. Er war mir auch nicht bekannt als eine Person im Reichssicherheitshauptamt. Weitere Fragen möchte ich nicht beantworten.<br />
Diese Auskunftsverweigerung deckt auch die Beantwortung zu Punkt 3 der mir aus dem Rechtshilfeersuchen vorgelegten Beweisthemen.<br />
<br />
Mir sind sämtliche in dem Rechtshilfeersuchen enthaltenen Fragen vorgelesen worden, und über das, was ich bisher gesagt habe, hinaus möchte ich auf die mir vorgelegten Fragen keine Auskunft mehr geben.<br />
<br />
Mir ist die Frage vorgelegt worden, ob ich bei meinem Amtsantritt in Auschwitz Lagerhäuser mit Waren und Wertgegenständen vorgefunden habe. Ich wiederhole, daß ich über das von mir bisher Gesagte hinaus keine Auskunft mehr geben möchte.<br />
<br />
Vorgelesen, genehmigt und unterschrieben.<br />
(Richard Baer)<br />
<br />
Der Zeuge bleibt gemäß § 60 Nr. 3 StPO wegen Beteiligungsverdacht unbeeidigt.<br />
<br />
(Schweidler)<br />
Schweidler<br />
Justizangestellter<br />
<br />
(Rieber)<br />
Rieber<br />
Amtsgerichtsrat<br />
<br />
Richterliche Vernehmung des Angeklagten Richard Baer vom 10.10.1961<br />
<br />
<br />
Frankfurt/Main, 10.10.61<br />
<br />
Landgericht Frankfurt/Main<br />
Untersuchungsrichter IV<br />
<br />
– 4 Js 444/59 –<br />
<br />
Gegenwärtig:<br />
<br />
Landgerichtsrat Dr. Düx<br />
als Untersuchungsrichter,<br />
<br />
Justizangestellter Saam<br />
als UdG.<br />
<br />
In der Voruntersuchungssache Baer u.a.<br />
erscheint vorgeführt der Angeschuldigte<br />
<br />
Richard Baer.<br />
<br />
Der Angeschuldigte erklärte, daß er den Beschluß über die Eröffnung der gerichtlichen Voruntersuchung vom 9.8.61 erhalten habe und mit dem Inhalt sich so vertraut gemacht habe, daß eine nochmalige Verlesung nicht mehr notwendig sei.<br />
<br />
Der Angeschuldigte wurde befragt, ob er auf die ihm vorgeworfenen Beschuldigungen nach Maßgabe des Eröffnungsbeschlusses etwas erwidern wolle (§ 136 StPO).<br />
<br />
Er erklärte:<br />
<br />
Ich werde vorerst keine Erklärung zur Sache abgeben. Unter anderem hat mich zu dieser Haltung bewogen, daß einer der sachbearbeitenden Herren der Staatsanwaltschaft meiner Frau gegenüber erklärt hat, ob ihr bekannt sei, daß ich ein Mörder sei.<br />
<br />
Ich habe das inzwischen erfahren. Wenn ich befragt werde, von wem ich das erfahren habe, erwidere ich: erst nach genauer Informationseinholung werde ich mich über diesen Punkt äußern.<br />
<br />
Dem Angeschuldigten wurde nun noch einmal vorgehalten, daß eine Reihe von Zeugenaussagen vorliegen, mit denen er, wenn er sich zur Sache einlassen wolle, vertraut gemacht werden könne. Er wiederholte:<br />
<br />
Ich bleibe dabei, einstweilen keine Erklärungen abzugeben. In bezug auf seine persönlichen Verhältnisse erklärte der Angeschuldigte, daß er hierzu eingehend durch die Staatsanwaltschaft am 29.12. und 30.12.1960 vernommen worden sei.<br />
<br />
Er erklärte weiter:<br />
<br />
Die damals von mir gemachten Angaben sind zutreffend.<br />
<br />
Dem Angeschuldigten wurden daraufhin seine Einlassungen Blatt 7454-7465 vorgelesen.<br />
<br />
Er erklärte:<br />
<br />
Die dort von mir gemachten Angaben sind im wesentlichen zutreffend. Ich ergänze bzw. berichtige sie aber wie folgt.<br />
<br />
Ich habe in der damaligen Vernehmung zwar wörtlich erklärt:<br />
<br />
»Geliebt haben werde ich die Juden nicht.«<br />
<br />
Zu dieser Erklärung kam es aus folgenden Gründen: Der Staatsanwalt Kügler fragte mich:<br />
<br />
Waren Sie Antisemit?<br />
<br />
Ich erwiderte:<br />
Nein, ich war kein Antisemit. Die Juden waren mir gleichgültig. Ich habe in der damaligen Zeit sogar ein jüdisches Kino besucht und in jüdischen Geschäften eingekauft. Bei den Geschäftsinhabern handelte es sich um solche Personen, die bei meinem Arbeitgeber Stark Kunden waren.<br />
<br />
Sinngemäß habe ich das Herrn Staatsanwalt Kügler damals erklärt. Es wurde aber nicht in das Protokoll aufgenommen, weil es ihm nicht wichtig erschien; das nehme ich jedenfalls an.<br />
<br />
Als ich Staatsanwalt Kügler erklärte, daß mir die Juden gleichgültig gewesen seien, sagte er zu mir, daß man mir das nicht gut glauben könne. Er hielt mir das mehrfach vor. Schließlich sagte ich, um Ruhe zu schaffen:<br />
<br />
»Geliebt haben werde ich die Juden nicht.«<br />
<br />
Als ich das gesagt hatte, war Staatsanwalt Kügler auch zufrieden.<br />
<br />
Wenn ich Bl. 7458 erklärt habe, der etwa 70 Jahre alte Häftling sei nicht infolge eines Unfalls verstorben, so erkläre ich ergänzend noch:<br />
<br />
Todesursache war eine Krankheit. Welche Krankheit der Häftling hatte, weiß ich nicht mehr.<br />
<br />
Aus meiner Ehe sind keine Kinder hervorgegangen.<br />
<br />
Auf Vorhalt der unveröffentlichten Aufzeichnungen von Höß, Anlageband 5:<br />
<br />
Meines Erachtens ist aus den Ausführungen zu entnehmen, daß mir Höß unsachlich gegenüberstand.<br />
<br />
Ich möchte annehmen, daß er den Eindruck hatte, meine Person hätte ihm seine Rückkehr nach Auschwitz verbaut. Seine Familie wohnte in dem Zeitpunkt, als ich in Auschwitz I Kommandant wurde, immer noch in dem großen Kommandantenhaus.<br />
<br />
Im übrigen ist es nicht zutreffend, daß ich mir bei dem Luftangriff auf das KL Mittelbau nur den Fuß verstaucht habe. Ich habe damals bei dem Luftangriff, wie ich es in meiner Vernehmung vom 29./30. Dezember 1960 geschildert, einen Knöchelbruch am Fuß davongetragen. Vor ca. einem Vierteljahr bin ich von einem Staatsanwalt aus Essen, in einem dort anhängigen Verfahren gehört worden. Der vernehmende Staatsanwalt – es handelt sich um Staatsanwalt Steffen – brachte mir anläßlich dieser Vernehmung die Aussage des damaligen Truppenarztes zur Kenntnis, in der dieser bestätigte, daß ich einen Knöchelbruch hatte.<br />
<br />
Ich bestreite, mich bei meinem Dienstantritt dem scheidenden Kommandanten Liebehenschel und dessen Ehefrau gegenüber taktlos benommen zu haben. Als ich den Dienst antrat, bin ich den Eheleuten Liebehenschel gar nicht begegnet. Etwa ein 1/2 oder 3/4 Jahr vor meinem Dienstantritt in Auschwitz hatte ich allerdings von Pohl den Auftrag erhalten, Liebehenschel einen persönlichen Brief zu überbringen. Dieser Brief bezog sich auf die beabsichtigte Heirat Liebehenschels. In dem Brief waren Bedenken gegen die Person der Ehefrau geäußert worden. Die Bedenken bestanden darin, daß die spätere Frau Liebehenschel ein Verhältnis mit einem Juden gehabt haben sollte. Bei der Briefüberbringung habe ich mich mit Liebehenschel zusammengesetzt und habe ihm in kameradschaftlicher Form den Inhalt des Briefes erläutert, d.h. ich habe ihn auf den Inhalt des Briefes vorbereitet. Pohl hatte mich beauftragt, dieses kameradschaftliche Gespräch mit Liebehenschel zu führen.<br />
v.g.u.<br />
<br />
(Dr. Düx) (Richard Baer) (Saam)<br />
<b> </b>shipoffoolshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00107963600647441371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501582598080968484.post-86439333692420865692011-05-21T19:28:00.000-07:002011-05-21T19:28:40.255-07:00NO-2368. Friedrich Entress on Auschwitz<b>Source: </b>NO-2368. Only the English translation seems available.<br />
<br />
<b>Comment: </b>Entress was a camp doctor. He was convicted and sentenced to death in the Mauthausen trial in 1946. This affidavit was given about 1 month before he was hung while seeking clemency.<br />
<br />
<b>Text:</b><br />
I, Friedrich ENTRESS, swear, depose and state as follows:<br />
<b> </b><br />
1. I, Friedrich ENTRESS, was born on 8 December 1914 in Posen. There I attended the elementary school, the high school and the university.<br />
<br />
2. I passed my state examination in June 1939, and in the middle of 1942 was given by decree the doctor's title by the Ministry of culture.<br />
<br />
3. I was never a member of the NSDAP. In 1939 I enlisted in the self defense (Selbstschutz) in Posen voluntarily and was drafted into the Waffen-SS in October 1939.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
4. Until the end of March 1940 I was trained in a medical training course in Freimann near Munich and subsequently until 10 December 1940 I was assistant physician at the SS signal replacement battalion (SS Nachrichten Ersatz Abteilung). There I started my service as Hauptscharfuehrer and on 20 April 1940 I was promoted to Untersturmfuehrer.<br />
<br />
5. On 3 January 1941 I was assigned as camp physician in the concentration camp Gross-Rosen and remained there until 10 December 1941.<br />
<br />
6. On 11 December 1941 I was transferred as camp physician to the main camp Auschwitz and remained there until 20 October 1943. During this time I was promoted to Obersturmfuehrer.<br />
<br />
7. On 21 October 1943 I was transferred to the concentration cap Mauthausen and was active there as garrison physician and first camp physician until 25 July 1944. During this time I was promoted to Hauptsturmfuehrer<br />
<br />
8. From 3 August 1944 until the beginning of February 1945 I was first camp physician at the concentration camp Gross-Rosen.<br />
<br />
9. On 10 February 1945 I became assistant physician in surgery at the medical company of the 9th SS Armoured Division "Hohenstaufen". On 18 May 1945, near Steyr, Austria, I became Prisoner of War, and on 13 July 1945 was transferred to the prison in Gmunden.<br />
<br />
10. On 29 March 1946 I was accused in the Mauthausen trial in Dachua and was sentenced to death on 13 May 1946. In November 1946 I filed a clemency petition to the War Crimes Branch in Wiesbaden.<br />
<br />
Gross Rosen:<br />
<br />
11. Because of my service as camp physician in the concentration camp Gross Rosen I know, that this camp was established in order to utilize the there located stone quarries for the Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke GmbH. At the office of the stone quarry was a sign with the name of that firm.<br />
<br />
12. Living conditions for the prisoners in Gross Rosen were worse than in the other camps, because the prisoners were mainly employed in the stone quarries. Having been camp physician I know that the hardest labour was performed in the stone quarries, and that in all the camps the punishment detachments were located there.<br />
<br />
13. On 3 January 1941, when I came to Gross Rosen, there were about 200 prisoners in the camp. The beginning of February 1945, when I left Gross Rosen, there were about 7000 prisoners in the main camp. About 40 000 additional prisoners were in the 80 branch camps.<br />
<br />
AUSCHWITZ<br />
<br />
14. Approximately in May 1942 I was first acquainted with the order concerning Euthanasia. This order eminated from Dr. LOLLING, chief physician of all CC's and went to the CC Auschwitz. The contents of this order was to apply Euthanasia by injections to uncurable tubercular, uncurable insane patients and to those who were permanently incapable of work. This order was extended in autumn 1942 to sick patients, who's [sic] and reconvalescence was unlikely within four weeks and to who also Euthanasia was to be applied. The injections were carried out in Auschwitz with liquid Cyancali. The garrison physician (Standortarzt) had to cite separately in his monthly report to D III the number of CC inmates who were given Euthanasia.<br />
<br />
15. In the summer of 1942 the first gassings began in Auschwitz-Birkenau. They concerned in this case the gassings of Jews from Poland and Russia. The selection of the CC prisoners who were to be gassed took place in the following manner: The prisoners arrived in Auschwitz tightly packed in closed goods waggons. The doors were opened and the prisoners with insults and beatings driven from the cars; they had to line up in lines of four at the loading ramp. The families were torn apart and the women and children had to line up separately from the men. The prisoners were taken over by the chief of the political section and the officer in charge of the protective custody camp (Schutzhaftlagerfuehrer) or his deputy, a camp doctor and the officer in charge of labor allocation, carried out the selection right there.<br />
<br />
16. All youngsters under sixteen years of age, all mothers who had children with them, all those who were sick or weak were loaded on trucks and brought to the gas chambers. The remainder of the prisoners were taken over by the Arbeitseinsatzfuehrer and brought to the camp.<br />
<br />
17. Two old farm buildings were used as the first gas chambers, these buildings had been specially reconstructed for the gassings. This reconstruction was carried out by the SS Construction Office. The windows were bricked up, the partitioning walls taken out and a special door put in, which shut the chamber airtight. The space was made to hold three hundred persons. The prisoners had to undress in a barrack situated next to the gas chamber was were then taken into the gas chamber. After the doors were closed the gas (Zyclon B) was thrown by three SS men through slits which could be shut, in the gas chambers. These SS men wore gas masks and were trained in the use of poison gas. A camp physician had to be present at each gassing, this being necessary because an army regulation prescribed his presence during the use of poison gas, as a safeguard for the SS personnel.<br />
<br />
18. After five minutes the initial loud clamor and groaning had stopped. After a further 25 minutes the doors were opened and the corpses of the dead taken by a detail of CC inmates wearing gas masks to the open. The dental gold was removed under the supervision of a Unterscharfuehrer who had been assigned specially to this job by Dr. LOLLING, then the corpses were loaded on lorries and taken to graves which had been dug by a prisoners detail. After the corpses had been buried the gas chambers were cleaned and were then ready again for the next transport. The clothing was collected brought to the camp and taken over by the Sturmbannfuehre BURGER. In the meantime luggage and other personal effects were taken from the loading ramp to the camp and by order of BURGER sorted out by a prisoner detail.<br />
<br />
19. At the end of 1942 I learned that the construction of four new crematoria with modern gas chambers had begun. At the beginning of 1943 Obergruppenfuehrer POHL came to Auschwitz for an inspection. The at that time Sturmbannfuehrer BISCHOFF informed in the barracks of the building office and in my presence POHL of the plans for the enlargement of the camp. The drawings were hanging on the wall, the crematoria in the process of construction being recognisable.<br />
<br />
20. The reason for the new construction of gas chambers and crematoria was the increasing number of transports. The new crematoria were built in such a manner that the complete process of liquidation could take place in one building. The prisoners were first taken to the dressing rooms and then to the gas chambers. The new gas chambers had properly constructed chutes through which gas was let in and a modern ventilation system. Adjacent to the gas chambers the crematoria were situated, so that the crematoria could carry out the liquidation of the prisoners in an assembly line manner (Laufendes Band).<br />
<br />
21. In September 1944 I was ordered by Dr. LOLLING together with the camp doctors from other camps to Auschwitz. The reason for this meeting was the opening of the new SS hospital on Auschwitz. Subsequently to this meeting an inspection of this camp took place, during which Dr LOLLING also inspected the crematoria.<br />
<br />
22. I conclude based on my experiences and my activity in Auschwitz that the facilities of the CC Auschwitz which was subordinated to the SS Main Economics and Administration Office were used for the execution of the extermination policy of the Reichs Main Security Office.<br />
<br />
23. The following departments of the camp Auschwitz knew of the gassings carried out and participated in them.<br />
a) The camp commander or his deputy knew about the gassings and participated in them, because he was present at the selection of the prisoners at the gassings. He was subordinated to Amtsgruppe D within the T.O (Befehlsmaessig).<br />
b) The officer for labor allocation knew about the gassings and participated in them, because he was present at the selection of the prisoners to be gassed. He was subordinated to Amt II D within the T.O<br />
c) The camp physician knew about the gassings and participated in them, because he had to carry out the selection of the prisoners who were to be gassed and had to be on duty at the gas chambers during the gassings. He was subordinate to Amt D III within the T.O.<br />
d) The chief of the administration knew about the gassings and participated in them, because he had to occupy himself with the supply of the gas and furthermore was responsible for the collection of the personal effects which the gassed prisoners had brought with them and the further utilization. He was subordinated to Amt D IV within the T.O.<br />
e) The construction chief knew about the gassings, because he was in charge of the construction of the gas chambers and crematories. He was subordinated to Amtsgruppe C within the T.O.<br />
f) Obergruppenfuehrer POHL knew about the gassings, because the instruction [sic] plans of the camp Auschwitz had been submitted to him by the construction chief.<br />
<br />
MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS ON PRISONERS<br />
<br />
24. In the summer of 1942 medical experiments on prisoners began in the camp Auschwitz. This were typhus and tuberculosis experiments, experiments on sterilization and research on twins. The prisoners had to be requested from the officer for labor allocation, as long as they were not sick prisoners who were already in the prisoner's hospital.<br />
<br />
25. From October 1943 till February 1944 medical experiments were carried out on CC prisoners in the CC Mauthausen. This concerned the food experiments of Professor Dr. SCHENK. Professor SCHENK was inspector of the nutrition of the Waffen SS.<br />
<br />
26. The garrison physicians in the concentration camps had to report monthly on the progress of the experiments to Dr. LOLLING Amt D III. I cited the number of prisoners who had died of the food experiments in my monthly reports concerning these experiments to Dr. LOLLING. Dr. VETTER who was in charge of the experiments with IG drugs in Auschwitz told me, that he had discussed them (food experiments) with Dr. LOLLING. All scientific dissertations which were written on experiments in concentration camps had to be sent to Dr. LOLLING for his appraisal.<br />
<br />
27. I am of the opinion that those participating in the gassings became a willing too, under the pressure of the system prevalent in CCs and the impression made on them during the gassings, by which one can explain that such actions were possible at all. The divisions and offices of the SS Man Economics and Administration Office are responsible for this.<br />
<br />
I have read the above statement consisting of (7) seven pages in the German language and declare that this is the full truth according to the best of my knowledge and belief. I was given the opportunity to effect changes and corrections in the above declaration. Those statements I have made voluntarily and without promise of reward whatsoever and was not subjected to any force or threat.<br />
Landsberg, Germany, 14 April 1947<br />
signed Friedrich ENTRESS<br />
<br />
Before me, Curt L. Ponger, US Civilian AGE No A444466, Interrogator, Evidence Division, Office of Chief of Counsel for War Crimes, appeared Friedrich Entress, to me known, who in my presence signed the foregoing statement (Eidesstattliche Erklaerung) consisting of 7 pages in the German language and aware that the same was true on the 14th day of April in Nurnberg, Germany.<br />
signed: Curt L Ponger<br />
<br />
I Margit Solgo, US Civlian AGO ETO 20105 hereby certify that I am thoroughly conversant with the English and German languages and that the above is a true and correct translation of Document NO-2368. MARGIT SALGO<br />
<b> </b>shipoffoolshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00107963600647441371noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501582598080968484.post-10797333804507088142011-05-21T04:25:00.000-07:002011-05-22T03:55:17.748-07:00Jan Karski: Story of a Secret State<b>Source: </b>Story of a Secret State by Jan Karski<br />
<br />
<b>Comment: </b>Items of interest<br />
<br />
<b>Text</b><br />
[page 7 - mobilisation and German attack]<br />
<b> </b>There were, too, the remarks my brother had made during the hours immediately after the mobilization. My brother, who was my senior by nearly a score of years, held an important government position and had belonged, as far back as I could remember, to the 'well-informed circles.' The citations which Pietrzak made from his father, who had even more authoritative channels of information, amplified and confirmed the analysis given by my brother. Others joined in with gleanings from relatives, friends and their personal deductions. The entire compilation, when sifted down, tended to leave us with the conclusion that our mobilization was simply the Polish riposte to the Nazi war of nerves. Germany was weak and Hitler was bluffing. When he saw that Poland was strong, united, prepared, he would back down quickly and we should all go home, If not, the farcical little fanatic would be taught a severe lession by Poland and, if necessary, by England and France.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
One evening our major said:<br />
'England and France are not needed this time. We can finish this alone.;<br />
Pietrzak remarked dryly:<br />
'Yes sir, we are strong, but...well, but....it is always nice to be in good company.'<br />
On the night of September 1, around 5:00 am, while the soldiers of our Mounted Artillery Division tranquilly slept, the Luftwaffe roared through the short distance to Oswiecim undetected and, perched above our camp, proceeded to rain a blazing shower of incendiaries on the entire region. At the same hour, hundreds of the powerful and modern German tanks crossed the frontier and hurled a tremendous barrage of shells into the flaming ruins,<br />
The extent of the death and destruction and disorganization this combined fire caused in three short hours was incredible. By the time our wits were sufficiently collected even to survey the situation, it was apparent that we were in no position to offer any serious resistance. Nevertheless, a few batteries, by some miracle, managed to hold together long enough to hurl some shots in the direction of the tanks. By noon, two batteries of our artillery had ceased to exist.<br />
<br />
The barracks were almost completely in ruins and the railroad station had been leveled. When it became apparent that we were incapable of any serious resistance, the retreat, it such it could be called began. Our reserve battery received orders to leave Oswiecim in formation and to take our guns, supplies and ammunition in the direction of Cracow. As we marched through the streets of Oswiecim toward the railroad, to our complete astonishment and dismay, the inhabitants began firing at us from the windows, They were Polish citizens of German descent, the Nazi Fifth Column, who were, in this fashion, announcing their new allegiance. Most of our men instantly wanted to attack and set fire to every suspect house but were restrained by the superior officers.<br />
<br />
[page 256 - 258 Retribution ]<br />
The Germans issued an order forbidding all marriages unless permission was granted by the authorities. In nearly all cases, permission was withheld on the grounds that the couple were not suited to the program of 'raising the racial standard of the Polish people.' Complementary to this unprecedented edict, another order was issued to the effect that all illegal babies could be 'confiscated' by the authorities and deported to orphanages in the Reich.<br />
When, as a consequence of the first decree, the villagers began to contract secret marriages, the second order was brought into play. The children arriving to these unfortunates were invariably snatched from their parents' arms. Often the mothers attempted to take their infants to another village where they could be hidden. This was rarely successful. The Gestapo employed their resources to track down the mother and tear away the baby as though it had been a puppy. Thousands of Polish children have been irretrievably lost to their parents in this way. No one is sure even of exactly what did happen to them.<br />
...<br />
The rural branches of the Underground displayed a special brand of ferocity and ingenuity all their own. Indeed, in our desperation and outrage against the barbaric methods of the Germans and outrage against the barbaric methods of the Germans we used devices of which we were almost ashamed, but which we developed as purely rational answers to the appalling German process of exterminating our citizenry. In several cases, for instances, we employed procurers to arrange encounters between German officers and prostitutes whom we knew to have veneral infections. We allowed a great number of criminals to be liberated from penitentiaries in 1939 and encouraging them to resume their former professions of thieving and murdering, with the proviso that they confine their activities to the Germans. Our authorities kept the names, records, and data of every one of them, in order to be able to regain control of them after the war. Of course, they were promised that their sentences would be reduced in proportion to the success of their operations against the Germans.<br />
<br />
It is significant of the intensity of the collective hatred against the Germans that not one of these criminals committed a single act against a Pole and that many of them could be trusted to perform one or two of the more bloody requirements of underground action.<br />
<br />
The people who did not live under German domination will never be able to gauge the strength of this hatred and will find it difficult to understand that every moral law, convention, or restriction on impulses simply disappeared. Nothing remained but the desperation of an animal caught in a trap. We fought back by every conceivable means in a naked struggle to survive against an enemy determined to destroy us. Poland snarled and clawed back at its oppressors like a wounded cat. I doubt if such a state has existed in large collectivities since the time of Christ.<br />
<br />
We developed some real experts in revenge. I remember a man called Jan, who came from the province of Poznan and spoke German fluently. Before the war he traded in pigs. During and after the war, the region from which he came endured the most atrocious sufferings under the domination of the Germans. In Warsaw, Jan became one of the many specialists in paying back the Germans with their own coin.<br />
<br />
To spread contagious diseases was Jan's favorite activity. He carried on his person an astounding collection of every type of lethal agent. He had an attractive, specially constructed little box in which was housed lice that bore microbes, typhoid-bearing germs and others. I was so repelled at the notion that I forebore to gather more specific information. His methods, however, were well-known among us.<br />
<br />
He would frequent bars, enter into conversation with German soldiers, and drink with them. Drinking was one of Jan's pleasures but he never let it interfere with his main objective. At the proper moment he would drop a louse bearing typhoid germs behind the collar of his German friend. He would drop germs into the drinks. He, too, would introduced them to girls who had venereal disease. He was known to have a number of different methods, which he would utilize according to his convenience or fancy. Not one of the Germans ever escaped lightly with whom the 'walking germ,' as he was known, became acquainted.<br />
<br />
[page 267 -268 Underground Press]<br />
<br />
By and large, the views and tendencies of the secret press were those of the Underground. The Government Delegate had his own official organ, Rzeczpospolita Polska (The Polish Republic). In it were published his commands and advice, the speeches of prominent members of the government and the statesmen of the United Nations, and editorials which expressed the official viewpoint of the Underground. It had a wide ciruclation and was very influential in molding opinion and conduct. The Government Delegate also published provincial organs from the same viewpoint and serving a similar purpose. Among the most popular were two entitled Our Eastern Provinces and Our Western Provinces which were especially noteworthy in their treatment of matters of local interest.<br />
<br />
Wiadmosci Polskie (Polish News) was the official organ of the Commander of the Home Army. It contained articles devoted to social and military problems. The army also issued the semi-official Information Bulletin which stressed current news. The staff of this paper was composed of highly skilled, experienced journalists. Its news, editorial and make-up departments were all of the highest quality, and it was undoubtedly the most popular secret paper in Poland. The military command also issued Zolnierz Polski (The Poland Soldier), a large part of which was devoted to reminiscence and analysis of the military defeat. It published, too, news of the activities of the Polish army at home and abroad. Insurrection was a special military paper, largely transmitting information for the benefit of army officers on such subjects as street fighting, insurrectionary tactics and 'diversion.'<br />
The journals of the political parties were in a different class. They expressed the rich multiplicity of political life in the Underground and, taken as a whole, performed immense services in heightening the awareness of the populace and educating them to an understanding of the divergent political trends in the modern world. All shades of opinion could be found, from the extreme right to the extreme left.<br />
The publications of the Socialist Party contained a high level of reporting and a vigorous editorial policy. The chief organ of the party was the WRN, a title formed from the initials of the Polish equivalents of the words 'liberty,' 'equality' and 'independence.' The Wies i Miasto (Country and City) fostered the collaboration and rapproachement of factory and rural workers. Wolnosc (Freedom) circulated among the intelligentsia. It had numerous organs worked out to fit their program for different section of the population and different regions. Many of them were of a local and restricted character, their circulations being according less wide.<br />
The chief organ of the Peasant Party was called Through Fight to Victory. They also published a paper for the urban intelligentsia called Orka and others.<br />
<br />
The Christian Labor Party, which had suffered the greatest casualties in the underground struggle, frequently changed the names of its newspaper for conspirational reasons. Its chief organ during the first period of my underground work was called Glos Warszawy (The Voice of Warsaw). When I was leaving Poland, their two main papers were called Zryo and Narod (The Nation).<br />
The chief organ of the National Democratic Party was Walka (The Fight). The party also issued a periodical of military and political character called Narod i Wojsko (The Nation and the Army).<br />
These were, on the whole, the most influential and well-known papers of the country. There were many others, some of them the publications of these same parties but less widely known, and others from the smaller centers.<br />
<br />
[page 281 - 282 Liaison Women ]<br />
A message, smuggled out of the jail after her first and only examination, described her condition. The Gestapo beasts stripped her to the skin and put her on the floor. They tied her legs and hands to hooks and then struck at her sex organs with rubber blackjacks. The message from the prison read: " <i>When they carried her away, the lower half of her body was in shreds."</i><br />
<br />
[page 313 Parliament in Poland ]<br />
When I left for England I would carry more than one thousand pages of printed matter for the government on Contax films the size of two or three American matchsticks. This material would be concealed in the handle of a razor, so perfectly soldered that its concealment would be well-nigh undetectable.<br />
<br />
[page 319 shortwave radio]<br />
A coded message was sent by short-wave to the Government in London to our organisation in France:<br />
"Karski leaving soon. Goes through Germany, Belgium, France, Spain. Two week stay in France; two weeks in Spain. Inform all 'transfer cells' in France, also all Allied representatives in Spain. Password: 'Coming to see Aunt Sophie.' Announce him as Karski"<br />
<br />
[page 357-58 Rudolph Strauch, pre-war liberal friend in Berlin]<br />
<br />
For dinner they asked me to a beerhouse on a side street just off Unter den Linden. It was a 'standardized' meal but ample and fairly cheap, about fifteen marks for the three of us. Discussion at the table centered on the Jews. Rudolph and his sister gave vent to all the common Nazi remarks on the subject. I made an effort to pierce their thick skins by describing in an off-hand, neutral fashion the most abominable and revolting of the practices I had witnessed, the death train, the quicklime and chlorine. Their reactions were cool and detached, betraying not the slightest trace of physical, let alone moral, repulsion. Rudolph commented:<br />
'Very efficient. The Jewish corpses will not be allowed to spread disease as they did in life.'<br />
'They must have been warm,' was the response of Berta at the conclusion of my description of the quicklime episode.<br />
During the course of the meal, I detected a note of hostility in Berta's behavior toward me, an odd shade of suspicion and fear. I began to worry and fret. Perhaps I had been exaggeratedly pro-German, or somewhat implausible in my narrative. I might have made a slip somewhere in my facts or contradicted myself. Perhaps the feeling of superiority to a mere Pole was beginning to assert itself. I felt downright alarm when Berta got up from her chair and beckoned Rudolph to follow her.<br />
'Please excuse us," she said to me with cold formality, 'I have something to discuss in private with my brother.'<br />
<br />
They retreated into an alcove a few tables away. The cigarette I was smoking suddenly developed a bitter flavor. What a fool I had been to come, I thought. A glance around the restaurant made it plain to me that if they had gone to inform the police, I did not have a chance to escape. They returned in a few minutes, Rudolph strained, nervous, and a trifle embarrassed, his sister stubbornly calm and determined.<br />
'They are going to denounce me,' I thought in panic and struggled to control myself and remain outwardly cool and genial.<br />
Rudolph spoke to me in a tense, hoarse whisper.<br />
'Jan,' he said, almost apologetically, 'I hate to say this to you. Personally, I am very fond of you, but we have to part. All the Poles are the enemies of the Fuehrer and the Third Reich. They try to harm Germany wherever they can and they server Jewish and British interests. They even help the Russian barbarians. I know that you are different, but what can I do? This is wartime. I will have to break off relations with you.'<br />
My fear subsided, although my anger mounted at this stupid speech, particularly at the silly, official tone of the concluding remark.<br />
'Besides,' Rudolph added, drops of sweat forming on his worried brow as he gazed around the room, 'It is dangerous to be seen talking to foreigners.'<br />
<br />
[page 251 Assignment in Lublin ]<br />
One of my first tasks in Warsaw was an order to take some material to a political leader hiding in Lublin. I stepped on the train loaded with a mass of radio bulletins, reports, and secret journals wrapped in a piece of paper to look like a loaf of bread or some other food-package. I carried it ostentatiously on the theory that it aroused less suspicion and could be more easily disposed of in case of emergency.<br />
<br />
The trip to Lublin takes about six hours - slightly longer on the dilapidated trains the Germans had allowed to remain in Poland. This one was old, dingy, and noisy. It was unbelievably overcrowded and nearly every passenger on it was engaged in smuggling food. Each seat was taken, the aisles were crammed with people, and the lavatories, the doors of which I had been opened wide, were also thronged. I was in the center of a car, surrounded by other standees, bumping into them and the fortunate seated passengers at every lurch and turn.<br />
<br />
After three hours of this jolting, stifling journey, the train came to a sudden halt in the middle of an open field. Through the window I saw squads of German gendarmes clustering around the train. It was one of the common routine investigations the Gestapo made at unpredictable intervals to check illegal practices.<br />
<br />
[page 253 Assignment in Lublin ]<br />
But at the station before Lublin I learned a thing or two about these unsophisticated and candid-looking peasants. The Gestapo had investigated the train with methodical, ruthless efficiency. Every parcel that contained a morsel of food had been confiscated. They had searched everywhere, poking under the benches, standing on tiptoe to peer at the shelves, yanking bags of flour from under the billowing skirts of the peasant women, and even taking slabs of bacon from their brassieres. They had cleaned the food from the train as thoroughly as a horde of locusts.<br />
Yet at the tiny station before Lublin, as if by magic, a swarm of men, women, boys and girls climbed down from the train, loaded with every variety of bulky, heavy package. I could easily detect loaves of bread, sacks of flour, hames and sides of bacon. Like a flock of birds, they flew from the train and disappeared quickly into the forest while I rubbed my eyes in amazement and delight. I have never yet understood where and how they concealed those sizeable bundles.<br />
<br />
[page 145 Torture - Gestapo in Preszow?]<br />
I was taken to a small office, thick with cigarette smoke, in the Preszow police station.<br />
<br />
[page 150 - more Torture Inspector Pick]<br />
There were only four men in the room besides myself. Behind the larger table a padded swivel chair in shiny leather was occupied by a new official. He was the type that one saw in Germany not too infrequently, but that was scarce in the Polish division of the Gestapo. He was an extraordinary fat man, but his flesh seemed to have been smoothly molded from a single, uniformly rich substance....The other three were the usual, nondescript Gestapo guards.<br />
<br />
[page 95 - 98 Belzec to Lwow ]<br />
<br />
He had been notified of my impending arrival and accepted me readily. I was to be included in a party of Jews which he would guide across the border within three days. He had completed dozens of such expeditions without a mishap and was very cool and unruffled for a young man engaged in so hazardous an enterprise. While I talked he slipped into a short heavy coat and, taking me by the arm, piloted me out-of-doors.<br />
'Come,' he said, 'we have no time to lose. You will have to find a place to stay in the village. I must show you the spot where we are to meet.'<br />
He shambled along, still sleepy, pausing occasionally to stretch and yawn. It was about two and a half miles to the rendezvous for the border crossings. He took little notice of me. To make conversation I asked him why he was so sleepy. He answered good-naturedly enough, telling me that he had been up all night conducting a party through, and had already had his sleep interrupted several times during the day to show members of the next group the appointed spot. I intimated that there ought to be a better system than for him to march back and forth all day. He grunted in agreement, but added that nobody had thought of any other.<br />
At length we passed a stream and came to a clearing near a mill.<br />
<br />
'This is it,' he said wearily, as though he had made the exact remark on an endless number of occasions. 'You are to be here three days from now at six o'clock punctually. We don't wait for anybody.'<br />
'I'll be on time,' I answered. 'Where do you suggest I stay in the meanwhile?'<br />
'There is a quiet little inn at the far end of the village. You can't miss it. It is the only one. Take a good look around before you go, there won't be anyone to guide you back here.'<br />
Obediently I glanced at the trees, the road, the mill, and the little stream. He waited for my eyes to complete a full circle, and then we set off, walking with long, heavy strides toward his hut. At one time, he seemed to be lurching about and I noticed that his eyes were almost shut. I nudged him. He responded with surprising alacrity.<br />
'Is anything wrong?' he asked.<br />
'No, but you were asleep and staggering. I thought you might stumble and hurt yourself.'<br />
'Hurt myself? Here?' he glanced contemptuously at the inoffensive dirt road. 'Not if I were drunk and blindfolded.<br />
...<br />
The inn was easy to find and the lodging surprising comfortable. The innkeeper, a little, wrinkled old peasant, asked no questions and quietly raised his charges in proportion to his suspicions. I passed the three days doing my best to appear inconspicuous, feigning illness and staying in my room. I arrived at the appointed clearing slightly ahead of schedule but many of hte others were already there.<br />
<br />
It was almost dark. The moon was luminous and full, exposing everyone in the clearing to my view. I could see that there were many of all ages, old men and women, two women with babies in their arms and a few young men and girls. They were all escaping Jews. It seemed as if they sense what the future held in store for them, that soon the pitiless extermination of the Jews would start.<br />
They carried a variety of bundles, bags and suitcases, and some even held pillows and blankets in their arms. They were divided into groups and some formed family units. One old couple had come with four daughters, two of whom had brought their husbands with them, and these eight individuals seemed to form a little detachment of their own. Since it would be necessary to walk about thirteen miles through forest and field, the guide, although it was not really an arduous journey, was supposed to refuse to include babies and any debilitated people.<br />
<br />
Apparently this rule was not stringently observed, for when the guide arrived, he contended himself with delivering a formal reprimand to the mothers and demanding that they quiet their offspring immediately since the children both had begun to cry loudly enough to be heard for miles. The two mothers were standing close together, and a number of the older women approached them to offer advice. The two mothers held the babies in their arms and rocked them to and fro, whispering gently to them. At last the babies fell asleep and we set out.<br />
The guide walked on ahead with large, rapid strides, glancing neither to right nor left and occasionally whirling around to hush the party when the conversation became loud. It was, however, hard to imagine the presence of any eavesdroppers. It was cold and the dark silhouettes of the leafless trees made the whole scene lonely and desolate.<br />
Our path wound through forests, fields, paths, patches of mud, and little streams in rapid succession. Often it seemed as though the guide must surely have lost his way, but his steady, unhesitating tread deterred all questioning. When a cloud passed across the moon, it plunged us into pitch darkness and we stumbled forward, clinging to each other desperately, holding on to coattails, falling, bruising hands and knees, scratching our faces and getting well-splattered with mud.<br />
<br />
When the moon came out again I saw the two mothers clearly. Emaciated, their hair dishevelled by the wind and the low branches, their faces bruised by the sharp twigs, they were holding on with one hand to the coattails of two men who preceded them while they hugged the babies tightly to their breasts with their free hands. We had one hand free to part branches and keep our balance by clutching for support. They had no protection against the large rocks with which the path was strewn, the thorns, the tree roots onw hich they frequently stumbled.<br />
<br />
We always knew when they stumbled. Alarmed, we would hear the babies begin to whimper, and everyone would become tense with fear and anticipation. Each time the mothers would find some new resource of tenderness by which to still them. The guide would stop frequently and make us wait while he reconnoitered the path ahead. He would return gesturing for us to hurry and follow him. The path he followed was tortuous and inaccessible to Soviet and German guards who were unfamiliar with the terrain.<br />
In any case, his prudence was beneficial and the precautions did no harm. We emerged from the forest and found ourselves in the middle of the road. The guide called back to us softly, in a voice that expressed great relief and joy:<br />
'People, we are on the other side of the border. You can rest easy, now.'<br />
We wearily flung ourselves down on the wet ground under the trees by the side of the road. Our guide divided us into three groups and took each group separately into the village.<br />
<br />
...<br />
In the village we separated. I was left at a Jewish hostle with four other men and a woman from our group.<br />
...<br />
We spent half a day in this hostel, mostly listening to our loquacious host. In the afternoon we left, walking one by one to the railroad station to which the innkeeper's daughter directed us. It was a distance of about three miles and on the way we frequently Soviet patrols. We passed them in silence and hailed the militia by stretching out our arms, clenching our fists in the communists salute in order to avoid suspicion.<br />
The station was besieged by hundreds of anxious, noisy, and gesticulating people. No more tickets could be obtained at the window, but the black market was doing a flourishing business. Within a few minutes the innkeeper's daughter bought six tickets to Lwow.shipoffoolshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00107963600647441371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501582598080968484.post-90339601494196648202011-05-20T19:55:00.000-07:002011-05-20T20:02:34.475-07:00Jan Malinowski: Early Escapee from Auschwitz<b>Source: </b>The Miami News - October 25, 1942 - North American Newspaper Alliance<br />
<br />
<b>Comment: </b>Jan Malinowski escaped in June 1942, but was not aware of gas chambers and has only a garbled account of what might be phenol lethal injections.<br />
<br />
<b>Text</b><br />
PRISONERS USED FOR GUINEA PIGS BY NAZIS, SAYS DOCTOR WHO FLED<br />
<b> </b>[Editor's Note: This is the story of a Polish physician, who since March, 1940, edited an underground newspaper in Warsaw and was arrested in December, 1941 and has just succeeded in escaping to England. Dr. Malinowski was deported to the ill-famed concentration camp in Oswiecim, southern Poland. Last June he and a companion made a break for freedom. His friend was caught and shot, but the doctor managed to reach the Hungarin border, and with the help of the Polish underground, arrived in the Middle East and now London.]<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
By Dr. Jan Malinowski<br />
(North American Newspaper Alliance)<br />
LONDON, Oct. 24 - (By Cable)<br />
I was removed to Oswiecim together with a large group of prisoners. We traveled in several freight cars filled to capacity. They were filthy and oily, without any seating accommodations and were sealed during the entire journey. The only food was bread doled out on leaving the Pawiak prison in Warsaw.<br />
Near Skierniewice the train made a long stop and three prisoners who tried to escape were shot in the fields. At Oswiecim the train stopped some miles before the station, against a high bank a few yards long. When the doors were opened, we were ordered to get out, with the help of kicks to make us move fast.<br />
One end of the ramp sloped sharply downward, and in the winter time was very slippery, covered with ice and frozen snow. Dazzling arc lamps were switched on. Blinded, numbed with cold, hungry, and dizzy with the sudden fresh air, we were unable to step out immediately. The older men fell and slid down.<br />
Having been assembled at the foot of the high bank we were made to form in threes and were marched to the camp more than two miles away. On our arrival we were forced to take shower baths, where the icy water (without soap) was to cleanse us for our future stay in the camp. The number of lice in the camp was appalling. After the showers we were given thin drill suits to put on our wet bodies, for of course there were no towels.<br />
Live in Barracks<br />
The prisoners live in barracks - eighty to one hundred in each - under the supervision of German criminals who have been appointed prison wardens. The barracks are unheated, and there are innumerable chinks in the walls.<br />
The area covered by the camp was considerable and surrounded by seven barbed wire fences. Between the third and fifth fences wer electrified wires. In addition to this the camp was encircled by machine gun posts. Escape seemed impossible and yet, from time to time, prisoners did succeed in getting out.<br />
<br />
The degree of brutality shown by the "kapos" - as the Germans call these wardens - cannot be described in words. Floggins, torture, bestial ill-treatment are part of their duty, from whcih they obviously derive pleasure. A favorite form of torture in Osweicim is to seize the victim by the arms and legs and swing him against a post until his back is broken. But the "scientific" method of killing off prisoners is by injections which work slowly on the internal organs, especially the heart. It is universally believed that the prisoners are used for large scale experiments in testing out new drugs which the Germans are preparing for unknown ends.<br />
<br />
Throat Trouble<br />
There was the case of a young and healthy man who was arrested and brought to our camp. After a couple of months his physical condition suddenly became so bad that we all knew his days were numbered. One night the dying man managed to tell a fellow prisoner that a band of material had been sewn into his clothing around the neck, which he was not allowed to remove. After wearing the band for some days his neck had become red and inflamed. This soon passed off, but troat trouble developed and quickly progressed (the informant called it "throat consumption"). He died a few days later. Afterwards, I learned of many similar cases, all ending in death.<br />
<br />
The food is totally inadequate. Hunger forces prisoners to eat raw turnip peelings, which they sometimes find near the kitchens. This leads to a particular kind of stomach trouble. Those suffering from it cannot retain any food for more than 15 minutes. The prisoners' clothing consists of a jacket and trousers of thin drill. While I was there, boots were not used. Apart from economy motives, this was made to serve as a means of torture the ground in the camp being strewn with sharp flinty gravel causing painful injuries to the feet.<br />
One of the tasks assigned, as part of the heaviest work intended to finish people off, is to pull and push heavy iron rollers to fhe type used for roads, over this gravel to level it. Priests are usually made to do this work. The fresh gravel is generally very sharp so that after even one day's work the prisoner's feet are one great wound.<br />
<br />
Kicked to Death<br />
I witnessed the death of Capt. Stanislaw Goysztor, superintendent of the Warsaw fire brigade. This fine big man was worn to a shadow by starvation and over-exertion. He collapsed during the prolonged gymnastic exercises which are used as one of the worst forms of torture. Lying on the ground, he was kicked to death by the wardens. Freedom usually comes only with death.<br />
<br />
Every night the conditions of existence cause the death of several prisoners in each barrack. Every monring the first question of the "kapos" to the room overseer is, "How many dead?" In my barracks seldom a night went by without at least eight deaths.<br />
<br />
Besides the "normal" contingent of bodies, a great number of deaths take place during the penal roll call. While an ordinary roll call usually lasts about one hour, a penal roll call may go on for eight hours. When the roll call continues for some hours men begin to collapse and next day many of them die. On one occasion out of 86 who collapsed, 46 died before the roll call the next day.<br />
<br />
<b>Source: </b>The Calgary Herald. Oct. 24 1942 [As above with a few extra paragraphs]<br />
At one time a man was hanged over the door of one of the barracks, and his body was left hanging for some time. He was one of a group who planned to organize a hunger strike in proteest against prisoners being driven out to work dressed only in wet overalls during frosts.<br />
....<br />
One of the tasks assinged, as part of the heaviest work intended to finish people off, is to pull and push heavy iron rollers of the type used for roads, over this gravel to level it. Priests are usually made to do this work. The fresh gravel is generally sharp, so that after even one day's work the prisoners' feet are one great wound. After a few days, pieces of flesh hang loose and prisoners die like flies from blood posioning, from gangrene or from complete exhaustion. In this way Kather [sic] Morawski, a Jesuit from Cracow, died. To the last he set an example of heroism bearing his sufferings.shipoffoolshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00107963600647441371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4501582598080968484.post-39288443277781299372011-05-17T06:03:00.000-07:002011-05-18T05:50:28.434-07:00Jan Karski's visit to Belzec<b>Source: </b>Story of a Secret State by Jan Karski, pp339 - 353, pub. 1944 Riverside Press<br />
<br />
<b>Comment: </b>Another version of his visit<br />
<br />
<b>Text:</b><br />
To Die in Agony<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b> </b>A few days after my second visit to the Warsaw ghetto, the Bund leader was to arrange an opportunity for me to see the Jewish death camp.<br />
The camp was located near the town of Belzec about one hundred miles east of Warsaw and was well-known all over Poland from the tales of horror that were circulated about it. The common report was that every Jew who reached it, without exception, was doomed to death. The Bund leader had never been in it but had the most detailed information in its operation.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
I was to go on a day when executions were scheduled. The information was easy to obtain because many of the Estonian, Latvian and Ukrainian attendants who worked there under Gestapo supervision were in the service of Jewish organizations. Not from any humane or political consideration, but for money. I was to wear the uniform of one of the Estonians who would stay home while I went in with his papers. I was assured that chaos, corruption, and panic prevailed in the camp to such an extent that there was no chance of my disguise being penetrated. Moreover, the whole expedition was perfectly organized in advance. I would go through a door habitually guarded only by Germans and Ukrainians, for an Estonian might sense a stranger in me. The Estonian uniform, itself, constituted a pass, so that my papers would probably not be inspected. to make the camouflage more foolproof, still another bribed Estonian militia man would accompany me. Since I knew German, I could talk with the German guards if it became necessary and they, too, could be bribed.<br />
The plan seemed simple and flawless. I agreed without any hesitation and without the slightest fear of being caught.<br />
<br />
Early in the morning of the day we had selected, I left Warsaw in the company of a Jew who worked outside the ghetto in the Jewish underground movement. We arrived in Belzec shortly after midday and went directly to the place where the Estonian was supposed to be waiting to give me his uniform. It was a little grovery store that had once belonged to a Jew. The Jew had been killed and since then it was being run, with the permission of the Gestapo, by a local farmer, who was, of course, a member of the Underground.<br />
<br />
My Estonian uniform was there waiting for me but the man to whom it belonged had evidently decided it was prudent to remain away. Knowing what was in the air, he had decided it was safer not to have his face seen by me since, for all he knew, I might take it into my head to betray him later. However, he had left me in good order a complete outfit: trousers, long boots, a belt, a tie and a cap. The idea of letting his personal papers be used had apparently given him qualms, too. Instead he had left me the papers of one of his colleagues who had probably returned to his native Estonia a long time ago and had taken the opportunity to sell his papers. I was not surprised. Selling papers was an established business in Poland, not at all frowned upon. The uniform and the shoes fitted me remarkably well but the cap came down to my ears. I stuffed it with papers and squeezed it about till it fitted. Then I asked my companion how I looked. He said I looked like a model Estonian militia man.<br />
<br />
An hour or two later the Estonian who was to accompnay me arrived. He spoke German so we had no difficulty in understanding each other. My program had not been changed. We would enter through the eastern gate, as planned. After we entered, my guide would take me for a place suited for observation. He confirmed the Bund leader's assurance that the camp was so disorganized, chaotic, and indifferently managed that I could stroll about in perfect freedom. I was to stick to the place assinged me throughout the executions and in that way I would miss nothing.<br />
<br />
After the executions all the guards would be leaving the camp. I was to join them, mingling with the mob of mixed attendants but avoiding the Estonians. He reiterated the latter precaution solemnly, warning me that if I had any close contact with them, it would be easy for them to recognise me as not 'their man.'<br />
<br />
He gave me a brief, dissatisfied, critical scrutiny and then began to order me about like a martinet. I was told to polish my boots my boots, fix my tie, and tighted my belt. He even informed me that my posture was too relaxed and undignified. I said nothing and id as I was told but with a slightly grudging air, striking a pose of exaggerated military stiffness. He relented a little and excused himself on the grounds that the Germans were very sever about such matters and did not like to see 'their Latvians, Estonians, and Ukrainians negligently dressed.'<br />
<br />
The camp was about a mile and a half from the store. We started walking rapidly, taking a side lane to avoid meeting people and possibly having to endure an inspection. It took about twenty minutes to get to the camp but we became aware of its presence in less than half that time. About a mile away from the camp we began to hear shouts, shots, and screams. The noise increased steadily as we approached.<br />
<br />
'What's happening?' I asked. 'What's the meaning of all that noise?'<br />
'The Jews are hot,' he said, grinning as though he had said something witty.<br />
<br />
I must have glared at him for he changed his tone abruptly.<br />
'What could it be?' He shrugged. 'They are bringing in a "batch" today.'<br />
<br />
I knew what he meant and did not inquire further. We walked on while the noise increase alarmingly. From time to time a series of long screams or a particularly inhuman groan would get the hair on my scalp bristling.<br />
'What are the chances of anyone's escaping?' I asked my companion, hoping to hear an optimistic answer.<br />
'None at all, sir,' he answered, dashing my hopes to the ground, 'Once they get this far, their goose is cooked.'<br />
'You mean there isn't a single chance of anybody's escaping from the camp, even with the way things are there?' I hated to believe it.<br />
<br />
'Well, from the camp itself, maybe. But not alone. With a guard like me helping, it can be done. but it's a terrible risk,' he said, wagging his head solemnly. 'The Jew and I could both get killed.'<br />
We trudged on, the Estonian watching me out of the corner of his eye, while I pretended to me more or less indifferent to his presence.<br />
'Of course,' he said craftily, 'if a Jew pays well - very well - it can be done. but it is very risky, it has got to be handled right....'<br />
'How can they pay? They don't have any money on them, do they?'<br />
'Say, we don't try to get money out of them. We ain't so dumb. We get paid in advance. It's strictly a cash proposition. We don't evn deal with those in the camp' - he gestured contemptously in the direction of the noise. 'We do business with people on the outside, like you. If somebody comes to me and tells me that such-and-such a Jew is going to arrive and that he wants him "cheated out," well, if he is willing to fork out plenty of hard cash, in advance, then I do what I can.'<br />
<br />
'Have you saved many Jews so far?'<br />
'Not as many a I'd like, but a few, anyhow.'<br />
'Are there many more good men like you there who are so willing to save the Jews?'<br />
'Save them? Say, who wants to save them?' He looked at me in bewilderment as though I was talking unheard-of nonsense. 'But if they pay, that's a different story. We can all use some money.'<br />
<br />
I did not venture to disagree. It would have been hopeless to try to persuade him of anything different. I looked at his heavy, rather good-natured face and wondered how the war had come to develop such cruel habits in him. From what I had seen he seemed to be a simple, average man, not particularly good or bad. His hands were calloused but supple hands of a good farmer. In normal times that was what he probably had been, and a good father, a family man, and a church-goer. Now, under the pressure of the Gestapo and the cajoleries of the Nazis, with everyone about him engaged in a greedy competition that knew no limits, he had been changed into a professional butcher of human beings. He had caught on to his trade well and discussed its niceties, used its professional jargon as coolly as a carpenter discussing his craft.<br />
'And what are you here for?' The question was at once shrewd and innocent.<br />
'Well, you see, it's this way. I'd like to "save" some Jews, too,' I said with an air of sly conspiracy, 'with your help, of course. that's why I've come to the camp to see how everything works.'<br />
'Well, don't you go trying to do anything without us,' he warned me. The prospect of competition seemed to upset him. I hastened to reassure him.<br />
'Don't be silly. Why should I work without you? We both want to make money and we can both help each other. We would be foolish to work against each other.'<br />
He was now highly interested.<br />
'How will your people pay you - a flat rate or for each Jew separately?'<br />
'Now, that's just what I've been wondering about. Which do you think I ought to ask for, which pays more in the long run?'<br />
He paused to deliberate and give me the full benefit of his professional experience.<br />
'If I were you, he said, 'I'd make my rates per Jew. You lose too many opportunities of making a haul if you work on a flat rate. You see, each Jew is different. If you get hold of someone who is very anxious to get someone out and if he looks as though he can pay well, you can get a lot out of him if you use your head.'<br />
'You are perfectly right. I guess that's the way I'll work.'<br />
'You'll be better off,' he said. 'But remember - fifty-fifty. Don't try any tricks.'<br />
I hastened to reassure him, telling that it would be foolish and harmful to my work for me to attempt cheating him. Besides, weren't we both honest men, was it likely that we should try to cheat each other?<br />
<br />
<br />
This satisfied him completely. I now had the status of a younger colleague. He wondered if I was going to stay permanently in the business of 'Jew dealing.' I told him I probably would if it remained lucrative. He expressed considerable envy at the idea of working directly from the ghetto; after all, it must be much easier to 'save' Jews from there. That was quite true, I admitted, but on the other hand, you got much less per Jew in the ghetto. He acknowledged the justice of my point by a sympathetic nod. Everything had its drawbacks nowadays. Was I doing at all well? No, I barely managed to make a living. He cursed, 'zum hundert Teufel,' if the Verdammte war would only end. When did I think the Germans would win? I proceeded to doubt if the Germans would win at all. This struct him as utterly ridiculous. There was no room for doubt. Look at what had happened so far. Hitler was a fiend, a demon, a magician. Nobody had a chance against him.<br />
<br />
As we approached to within a few hundred yards of the camp, the shouts, cries, and shots cut off further conversation. I noticed, or thought I noticed, an unpleasant stench that seemed to have come from decomposing bodies mixed with horse manure. This may have been an illusion. The Estonian was, in any case, completely impervious to it. He even began to hum some sort of folk-tune to himself. We passed through a small grove of decrepit-looking trees and emerged directly in front of the loud, sobbing, reeking camp of death.<br />
<br />
It was on a large, flat plain and occupied about a square mile. It was surrounded on all sides by a formidable barbed-wire fence, nearly two yards in height and in good repair. Inside the fence, at intervals of about fitteen yards, guards were standing, holding rifles with fixed bayonets ready for use. Around the outside of the fence militia men circulated on constant patrol. The camp itself contained a few small sheds or barracks. The rest of the area was completely covered by a dense, pulsating, throbbing, noisy human mass. Starved, stinking, gesticulating, insane human beings in constant, agitated motion. Through them, forcing paths if necessary with their rifle butts, walked the German police and the militia men. The looked like shepherds brining a flock to the market or pig-dealers among their pigs. they had the tired, vaguely disgusted appearance of men doing a routine, tedious job.<br />
<br />
Inot the fence, a few pasages had been cut, and gates made of poles tied together with barbed-wire swung back, allowing entrance. Each gate was guarded by two men who slouched about carelessly. We stopped for a moment to collect ourselves. To my left I noticed the railroad tracks which passed about a hundred yards from the camp. From the camp to the track a sort of raised passage had been built from old boards. On the track a dusty freight train waited, motionless.<br />
<br />
The Estonian followed by gaze with the itnerest of a person seeing what kind of an impression his home made on a visitor. He proceeded eagerly to enlighten me.<br />
'That's the train they'll load them on. You'll see it all.'<br />
We came to a gate. Two German non-coms were standing there talking. I could hear snatches of their conversation. They seemed to be talking about a night they had spent in a near-by town. I hung back a bit. The Estonian seemed to think I was losing my nerve.<br />
<br />
'Go ahead,' he whispered impatiently into my ear. 'Don't be afraid. They won't even inspect your papers. They don't care about the likes of you.'<br />
We walked up to the gate and saluted the non-coms vigorously. They returned the salute indifferently and we passed through, entering the camp, and mingled unnoticed with the crowd.<br />
'Follow me,' he said quite loudly. 'I'll take you to a good spot.'<br />
We passed an old Jew, a man of about sixty, sitting on the ground without a stitch of clothing on him. I was ot sure whether his clothes had been torn off or whether he, himself, had thrown them away in a fit of madness. Silent, motionless, he sat on the ground, no one paying him the slightest attention. Not a muscle or fibre in his whole body moved. He might have been dead or petrified except for his preternaturally animated eyes, which blinked rapidly and incessantly. Not far from him a small child, clad in a few rags, was lying on the ground. He was all alone and crouched quivering on the ground, staring up with the large, frightened eyes of a rabbit. No one paid any attention to him, either.<br />
<br />
The Jewish mass vibrated, trembled, and moved to and from as if united in a single, insane, rhythmic trance. They waved their hands, shouted, quarreled, cursed, and spat at each other. Hunger, thirst, fear, and exhaustion had driven them all insane. I had been told that they were usually left in the camp for three or four days without a drop of water or food.<br />
<br />
They were all former inhabitants of the Warsaw ghetto. When they had been rounded up they were given permission to take about 10 pound of baggage. Most of them took food, clothes, bedding, and, if they had any, money and jewelry. On the train, the Germans who accompanied them stripped them of everything that had the slightest value, even snatching away any article of clothing to which they took a fancy. They were left a few rags for apparel, bedding, and a few scraps of food. Those who left the train without any food starved continuously from the moment they set foot in the camp.<br />
<br />
There was no organisation or order of any kind. None of them could possibly help or share with each other and they soon lost any self-control or any sense whatsoever except the barest instinct of self-preservation. They had become, at this stage, completely dehumanized. It was, moreover, typical autumn weather. cold, raw, and rainy. The sheds could not accommodate more than two to three thousand people and every 'batch' included more than five thousand. This meant that there were always two to three thousand men, women, and children scattered about in the open, suffering exposure as well as everything else.<br />
<br />
The chaos, the squalor, the hideousness of it all was simply indescribable. There was a suffocating stench of sweat, filth, decay, damp straw and excrement. To get to my post we had to squeeze our way through this mob. It was a ghastly ordeal. I had to push foot by foot through the crowd and step over the limbs of those who were lying prone. It was like forcing my way through a mass of sheer death and decomposition made even more horrible by its agonized pulsations. My companion had the skill of long practice, evading the bodies on the ground and winding his way through the mass with ease of a contortionist. Distracted and clumsy I would brush against people or step on a figure that reacted like an animal, quickly, often with a moan or a yelp. Each time this occurred I would be seized by a fit of nausea and come to a stop. But my guide kept urging and hustling me along.<br />
<br />
In this way we crossed the entire camp and finally stopped about twenty yards from the gate which opened on the passage leading to the train. I was a comparatively uncrowded spot. I flet immeasurably relieved at having finish my stumbling, sweating journey. The guide was standing at my side, saying something, giving me advice. I hardly heard him, my thoughts were elsewhere. He tapped me on the shoulder. I turned toward him mechanically, seeing him with difficulty. He raised his voice.<br />
<br />
'Look here. You are going to stay here. I'll walk on a little further. You know what you are supposed to do. Remember to keep away from Estonians. Don't forget, if there's any trouble, you don't know me and I don't know you.'<br />
I nodded vaguely at him. He shook his head and walked off. <br />
<br />
I remained there perhaps half an hour, watching this spectacle of human misery. At each moment I felt the impulse to run and flee. I had to force myself to remain indifferent, practice stratagems on myself to convince myself that I was not one of the condemned, throbbing multitude, forcing myself to relax as my body seemed to tie itself into knots, or turning away at intervals to gaze into the distance at a line of trees near the horizon. I had to remain on the alert, too, for an Estonian uniform, ducking toward the crowd or behind a near-by shed every time one approached me. The crowd continued to writhe in agony, the guards circulated about, bored and indifferent, occasionally distracting themselves by firing a shot or dealing out a blow. Finally I noticed a change in the motion of the guards. They walked less and they all seemed to be glancing in the same direction - at the passage to the track which was quite close to me.<br />
<br />
I turned toward it myself. Two German policemen came to the gate with a tall, bulky, SS man. He barked out an order and they began to open the gate with some difficulty. It was very heavy. He shouted at them impatiently. They worked at it frantically and finally whipped it open. They worked at it frantically and finally whipped it open. They dashed down the passage as though they were afraid the SS men might come after them and took up their positions where the passage ended. The whole system had been worked out with crude effectiveness. The outlet of the passage was blocked off by two cars of the freight train, so that any attempt on the part of one of the Jews to break out of the mob, or to escape if they had had so much presence of mind left, would have been completely impossible. Moreover, it faciliated the job of loading them onto the trains.<br />
<br />
The SS man turned to the crowd, planted himself with his feet wide apart and his hands on his hips and loosed a roar that must have actually hurt his ribs. It could be heard far above the hellish babble that came from the crowd.<br />
'Ruhe, ruhe! Quiet, quiet! All Jews will board this train to be taken to a place where work awaits them. Keep order. Do not push. Anyone who attempts to resist or create a panic will be shot.'<br />
He stopped speaking and looked challengingly at the helpless mob that hardly seemed to know what was happening. Suddenly, accompanying the movement with a loud, heartly laugh, he yanked out his gun and fired three random shots into the crowd. A single, stricken groan answered him. He replaced the gun in his holster, smiled, and set himself for another roar:<br />
'Alle Juedin, 'raus - 'raus!'<br />
For a moment the crowd was silent. Those nearest the SS man recoiled from the shots and tried to dodge, panic-stricken, toward the rear. But this was resisted by the mob as a volley of shots from the rear sent the whole mass surging forward madly, screaming in pain and fear. The shots continued without let-up from the rear and now from the sides, too, narrowing the mob down and driving it in a savage sramble onto the passageway. In utter panic, groaning in despare and agony, they rushed down the passageway, trampling it so furious that it threatened to fall apart.<br />
<br />
Here new shots were heard. The two policemen at the entrance to the train were now firing into the oncoming throng corralled in the passageway, in order to slow them down and prevent them from demolishing the flimsy structure. The SS man now added his roar to the deafening bedlam.<br />
'Ordnung, ordnung!' he bellowed like a madman.<br />
'Order, order!' The two policemen echoed him hoarsely, firing straight into the faces of the Jews running to the trains. Impelled and controlled by this ring of fire, they filled the two cars quickly.<br />
<br />
And now came the most horrible episode of them all. The Bund leader had warned me that if I lived to be a hundred I would never forget some of the things I saw. He did not exaggerate.<br />
<br />
The military rule stipulates that a freight car may carry eight horses or forty soldiers. Without any baggage at all, a maxium of a hundred passengers standing close together and pressing against each other could be crowded into a car. The Germans had simply issued orders to the effect that 120 to 130 Jews had to enter each car. These orders were now being carried out. Alternately swinging and firing with their rifles, the policemen were forcing still more people into the two cars which were already over-full. The shots continued to ring out in the rear and the driven mob surged forward, exerting an irresistible pressure against those nearest the train. These unfortunates, crazed by what they had been through, scourged by the policemen, and shoved forward by the milling mob, then began to climb on the heads and shoulders of those in the trains.<br />
<br />
Therese were helpless since they had the weight of the entire advancing throng against them and responded only with howls of anguish to those who, clutching at their hair and clothes for support, trampling on necks, faces and shoulders, breaking bones and shouting with insensate furty, attempting to clamber over them. After the cars had laready been filled beyond normal capacity, more than another score of human beings, men, women and children gained admittance in this fashion. Then the policemen slammed the doors across the hastily withdrawn limbs that still protruded and pushed the iron bars in place.<br />
<br />
The two cars were now crammed to bursting with tightly pakced human flesh, completely, hermetically filled. All this while the entire camp had reverberated with a tremendous volume of sound in which the hideous groans and screams mingled with shots, curses and bellowed commands.<br />
<br />
Nor was this all. I know that many people will not believe me, will not be able to believe me, will think I exaggerate or invent. But I saw it and it is not exaggerated or invented. I have no other proofs, no photographs. All I can say is that I saw it and that it is the truth.<br />
<br />
The floors of the car had been covered with a thick, white powder. It was quicklime. Quicklime is simply unslaked lime or calcium oxice that has been dehydrated. Anyone who has seen cement being mixed knows what occurs when water is poured on lime. The mixture bubbles and steams as the powdeer combines with the water, generating a large amount of heat.<br />
<br />
Here the lime served a double purpose in the Nazi economy of brutality. The moist flesh coming in ocntact with the lime is rapidly dehydrated and burned. The occupants of the cars would be literally burned to death before long, the flesh eaten from their bones. Thus the Jews would "die in agony" fulfilling the promise Himmler had issued "in accord with the will of the Fuehrer," in Warsaw, in 1942. Secondly, the lime would prevent decomposing bodies from spreading disease. It was efficient and inexpensive -- a perfectly chosen agent for their purposes.<br />
<br />
<div align="justify">It took three hours to fill up the entire train by repititions of this procedure. It was twilight when the forty-six (I counted them) cars were packed. From one end to the other, the train, with its quivering cargo of flesh, seemed to throb, vibrate, rock and jump as if bewitched. There would be a strangely uniform momentary lull and then, again, the train would begin to moan and sob, wail and howl. Inside the camp a few score dead bodies remained and a few in the final throes of death. German policemen walked around at leisure with smoking guns, pumping bullets into anything, that by a moan or motion betrayed an excess of vitality. Soon, not a single one was left alive. In the now quiet camp the only sounds were the inhuman screams that were echoes from the moving train. Then these, too, ceased. All that was now left was the stench of excrement and rotting straw and a queer, sickening, acidulous odor which, I thought, may have come from the quantities of blood that had been let, and with which the ground was stained. </div><div align="justify">As I listened to the dwindling outcries from the train, I thought of the destination toward which it was speeding. My informants had minutely described the entire journey. The train would travel about eighty miles and finally come to a halt in an empty, barren field. Then nothing at all would happen. The train would stand stock-still, patiently waiting while death penetrated into every corner of its interior. This would take from two to four days. </div><div align="justify">When quicklime, asphyxiation, and injuries had silenced every outcry, a group of men would appear. They would be young, strong Jews, assigned to the task of cleaning out these cars until their own turn to be in them should arrive. Under a strong guard they would unseal the cars and expel the heaps of decomposing bodies. The mounds of flesh that they piled up would then be burned and the remnants buried in a single huge hole . The cleaning, burning and burial would consume one or two full days. </div>The entire process of disposal would take, then, from three to six days. During this period the camp would have recruited new victims. The train would return and the whole cycle would be repeated from the beginning.<br />
<br />
I was standing near the gate, gazing after the no longer visible train, when I felt a rough hand on my shoulder. The Estonian was back again. He was frantically trying to rouse my attention and to keep his voice lowered at the same time.<br />
'Wake up, wake up,' he was scolding me hoarsely. 'Don't stand there with your mouth open. Come on, hurry, or we'll both get caught. Follow me and be quick about it.'<br />
<br />
I followed him at a distance, feeling completely benumbed. When we reached the gate he reported to a German officer and pointed at me. I heard the officer say, 'Sehr gut, gehen Sie,' and then we passed through the gate. The Estonian and I walked awhile together and then separated. Then I walked to the store as quickly as I could, running when there was no one about to see me. I reached the grocery store so breathless that the owner became alarmed. I reassured him while I threw off my uniform, boots, stockings and underwear. I ran into the kitchen and locked the door. In a little while my bewildered and worried host called out to me.<br />
'Hey, what are you doing in there?'<br />
'Don't worry. I'll be right out.'<br />
When I came out, he promptly entered the kitchen and called out in despair.<br />
'What the devil have you been doing? The whole kitchen is flooded!'<br />
'I washed myself,' I replied, 'That is all. I was very dirty.'<br />
'You certainly must have been,' was his vexed answer.<br />
<br />
I did my best to soothe him and then applied for permission to rest for a while in the garden. He hesitated for a minute as though he were afraid I might flood his garden, too, and then granted it. I wrapped my coat around me and went out into a tiny vegetable garden. I lay down under a tree and with the promptness of exhaustion, fell asleep. I awoke with a start, from some nightmare, I think. It was dark, except for a large brilliant moon. I was stiff with cold and for a moment I could not remember where I was and how I had got there. When I did, I dashed inside the house and found an empty bed. My host was asleep. It was not long before I was, too.<br />
<br />
I awoke in the morning. The sunlight, though not strong, was giving me a painful headache. My host stood over me asking if I was ill. I had been talking and twisting restlessly in my sleep. As soon as I got out of bed I was seized with a violent fit of nausea. I rushed outside and began to vomit. Throughout that day and during the next night I continued to vomit at intervals. When all the food had been emptied from my stomach, I threw up a red liquid. My host was terrified and asked me if the disease I had was contagious. I finally succeeded in convincing him that I did not have a disease.<br />
<br />
I did not dare get into bed till long after midnight. Before doing so I asked the grocer who now displayed the utmost solicitude to try to get me some whisky, a lot of whisky. A few hours later he was back with a bottle. I drank two large glassfuls and fell asleep immediately. I slept brokenly for the balance of the day and throughout the following night.<br />
<br />
When I awoke again, the sunlight was strong but did not hurt my eyes as must as it had the previous day. The grocer was standing over my bed with a bowl of warm milk in one hand a piece of bread in the other. I ate the bread and drank the milk, still lying in bed, and then I crawled out carefully, afraid I would fall or stumble and bring on a recurrence of the nausea. I had, however, recovered, but I was still very weak. I managed, with the help of the grocer, to get on the train to Warsaw and arrived there without any further mishap.<br />
<br />
The images of what I saw in the death camp are, I am afraid, my permanent possessions. I would like nothing better than to purge my mind of thse memories. For one thing, the recollection of those events invariably brings on a recurrence of the nausea. But more than that, I would like simply to be free of them, to obliterate the very thought that such things ever occurred.shipoffoolshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00107963600647441371noreply@blogger.com0