Chapter XVIII: Front Matter (18)

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: We wish to request the Tribunal to allow us to put to the defendant a few questions, which will not take very long but which are quite indispensable for further questioning.

THE PRESIDENT: In the opinion of the Tribunal, I think you know counsel ought to settle beforehand what questions are indispensable and then have them put by the counsel who cross-examines. That is the whole object of the scheme.

Sir David, when we saw you on this subject, did you not tell us that all the prosecutors had agreed that so far as this defendant was concerned he should only be cross-examined by one?

SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My Lord, that was the position. I understand that the Soviet Delegation have some special points, and they were going to ask, as a matter of grace of the Tribunal, whether they could put them. That is what my Soviet colleagues have informed me.

THE PRESIDENT: M. Dubost?

M. CHARLES DUBOST (Deputy Chief Prosecutor for the French Republic): My explanation will be very brief, Mr. President. In principle, the Prosecution entrusts one man to ask all these questions. It is impossible, however, for the entire investigation and examination to be carried out by one member of the Prosecution only because we do represent four different nations which have not divergent but certainly individual interests. The only person qualified to speak in the interests of a nation is the representative of that nation. I think, therefore, that the Tribunal should permit us to ask questions from time to time when we ask to be allowed to do so.

THE PRESIDENT: M. Dubost, you are not applying now, are you, for leave to have a third cross-examination; you are just speaking on general principles?

M. DUBOST: Mr. President, it is a question of principle. The Prosecution has limited itself in order to economize on time, but it requests the Tribunal for authorization to intercede when it is necessary to do so in order to represent the interests of a country.

I will not ask any questions which might have occurred to me following the interrogation by my colleague of the United States; I do not wish to retard the proceedings. I think, however, that the Tribunal could tell us that in principle we remain free to ask questions which concern our countries, especially since we alone are competent to represent the interests of our countries and cannot transfer this competency to one of our colleagues.

THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Smirnov, could you inform the Tribunal upon what questions, what points you want to cross-examine?

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Yesterday, when the defendant was replying to Colonel Amen’s questions and denying his participation in the extermination of the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, he stressed that the Chief of Police in occupied Poland, Krüger, was allegedly directly subordinated to Himmler and had no connection with Kaltenbrunner at all. In the Polish documents which have just reached me, and in connection with which the Soviet Delegation has changed the order which it has primarily intended to observe, in these Polish documents there is...

THE PRESIDENT: I understand that point. Are there any other points?

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: The second point refers to another document already submitted by the Soviet Delegation, and this point has not been covered by the preceding question; but it is of intense interest from the viewpoint of the documents previously presented. It is in regard to these two questions that I wish to examine the defendant.

THE PRESIDENT: You are aware that we are going to adjourn at half past 12 for the purpose of dealing with the documents of the Defendant Rosenberg, but you may certainly cross-examine upon these points if you will do it as shortly as you can.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I believe, Mr. President, that we shall be able to finish the cross-examination in 15 minutes.

THE PRESIDENT: Very well.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Witness, Colonel Amen yesterday submitted to the Tribunal a document which disclosed your active participation in the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto. Perhaps you can tell us under whose orders the police were. Rebutting this document you dwelt at great length on the fact that the Police Chiefs in the occupied territories were directly subordinated to Reichsführer SS Himmler and had nothing to do with you.

Do you stick to this statement?

KALTENBRUNNER: Yes, but it should be supplemented. I also said yesterday that the Higher SS and Police Chief in the Government General was subordinate to Himmler and that, in turn, the SS and Police Leaders of the smaller districts were subordinate to him.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Perhaps you can tell us to whom the police officials were subordinate?

KALTENBRUNNER: The commanders of the Security Police, the Order Police, and the Waffen-SS were subordinate to the Higher SS and to the Chief of Police. They were also subordinated to the Chiefs of Police and SS in the smaller districts.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Perhaps you can remember your second statement as well, when you declared yourself opposed to Krüger’s extreme tendencies towards the Polish Jews, and that you had even attempted to restrain him?

KALTENBRUNNER: I have stated that I agreed with Frank in favoring the release of Krüger—that is, his transfer from the Government General.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I would like to hand Frank’s diary to the defendant.

[_The document was submitted to the defendant._]

Let him turn to Page 13, where Krüger is mentioned, and then to Page 16. From this Page 16, I shall read three paragraphs. Read and follow if it has been carefully translated, “There is no doubt”—says Krüger—“that the removal of the Jews has had a favorable effect on pacification...”

KALTENBRUNNER: That passage has not been submitted to me here. I have Page 13 of the document in my hand.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Well then, we shall show you Page 16, beginning with the words “There is no doubt...” I begin again:

“There is no doubt but that the removal of the Jews has also had
a favorable effect on pacification. It was for the police one of
their gravest and most unpleasant tasks; but it had to be
carried out by order of the Führer, since it was necessary in
the interests of Europe.”

I omit one paragraph and would ask you to do the same:

“One was forced to remove the Jews from the armament industries
and from all industries and factories of military and economic
interest unless they are exclusively employed on important war
work. In such cases the Jews were collected in the large camps
and from there sent by day to the munition factories. The
Reichsführer SS, however, desires that the employment of these
Jews stop, too. He had a long conversation on this subject with
Lieutenant General Schindler and is of opinion that this wish of
the Reichsführer SS cannot be carried out in full. There are
among the Jewish workers specialists, skilled mechanics, and
other qualified artisans who cannot at present be replaced by
Poles.”

I draw your attention to the next sentence:

“He therefore requests the SS Obergruppenführer, Dr.
Kaltenbrunner, to describe the situation to the Reichsführer SS
and to request him to refrain from removing these skilled Jewish
workers. The physically best-conditioned of the Jews had been
retrained by the industries, the so-called ‘Maccabeans,’ who
worked magnificently, as well as female workers who had proved
physically stronger than the male Jews. We experienced the same
conditions in the clearing of the Warsaw Ghetto. By the way,
this task had been very difficult.”

I omit a sentence and quote the following:

“It has been proved that here, too, the Jewesses, arms in hand,
had fought the men of the Waffen-SS and the police to the end.”

Do these passages not prove that Krüger considered you as his commanding officer, and that when the majority of Jews had already been murdered in Poland and only a very small number of good specialists were left, Krüger appealed to Himmler—through you, as his chief—to allow these Jews to live? Does this not bear witness to the fact that Krüger considered you as his chief and acted through you?

KALTENBRUNNER: No, Mr. Prosecutor. This document, on the contrary, proves something quite different. In the first place, he himself says here that the evacuation of the Warsaw Ghetto had previously taken place; in the second place, he says that he begs me to go to Himmler and to remonstrate with him. What I said to Himmler is not contained in the document; and the fact that, on that occasion, I told Himmler for the first time, “Now I know what is going on,” and protested against it, does not appear in this document. But surely I must be given the opportunity to declare and prove here that I took steps against this action; and if you cross-examine Frank or the witnesses...

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: One moment, you have already mentioned this, Defendant.

KALTENBRUNNER: I have not finished. I have not yet finished this point. If you question the witnesses on the subject of “Government General,” you will discover exactly how, on that occasion, I paid my first and only visit to the Government General, and that what I experienced and learned there became the subject of a discussion with Himmler. You cannot accuse me, on the one hand, of knowing of all these things without giving me, on the other hand, the opportunity to describe what were my reactions. In the last 2 years of the war, circumstances placed me in a position where I was able to see what was happening in the Reich and later on, near the end, in the Government General as well. But you are not giving me an opportunity to explain how I reacted, I the man who had the misfortune to get such a position at the end of the war.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: One little moment. But why did Krüger act through you?

KALTENBRUNNER: And further, this document does not indicate in any way in what capacity I was there; not once does he mention that I was there as his police superior. He knows only that naturally, as Chief of the Intelligence Service, I had to report very often to Himmler. So he asked me on this occasion to make these reports. But Krüger was—as it surely appears in the document—State Secretary for the security system in the Government General. He was State Secretary there, and as State Secretary he was subordinate to the Governor General, and as State Secretary...

THE PRESIDENT: You are going too fast, and you are making far too much of a speech.

KALTENBRUNNER: ...and as State Secretary for police matters in the Government General, he was, of course, immediately subordinate to Himmler. That must be...

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I beg you to answer briefly: Did Krüger ask you to report to Himmler on this subject or not? That is the only thing I am asking you.

KALTENBRUNNER: As far as I know, this meeting was a large meeting of administrative officials and everyone asked all those who were closest to the Führer or Himmler...

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Tell me, “yes” or “no”: Did he ask you to report, or not?

KALTENBRUNNER: I do not know that.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: So you do not know. Then I will ask you a second question.

KALTENBRUNNER: From the wording I can only take...

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: One moment.

KALTENBRUNNER: You are not allowing me to finish.

THE PRESIDENT: What did you say to the last question? Was not the question, “Did you go there?” Colonel Smirnov?

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I had another question to put, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: I am asking you what your last question was.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I asked the following question, Mr. President: Did Krüger report to Himmler through Kaltenbrunner? I was asking the defendant to answer “yes” or “no” and to abstain from making speeches.

THE PRESIDENT: What was your last question?

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Did Krüger ask Kaltenbrunner to report to Himmler on this subject. My second question—Mr. President, are you asking about my second question?

THE PRESIDENT: I wanted him to answer your question. Will you tell him what question you want him to answer. Don’t ask him two; ask him one question. Can’t you hear what I said?

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Yes, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Ask him one question, and see whether you can try and get him to answer it.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Did Krüger ask for this to be reported to Himmler, and what did he say?

KALTENBRUNNER: It is possible that he did ask me but not as a superior. You must realize what type of assembly it was; that must also become apparent from the diary. I did not go there as the Chief of the Security Police, or as Krüger’s superior; but Krüger, like dozens of other people, reported on the food situation, the administrative system...

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I would ask you to refrain from further explanations. You answered my question, and it is not worth continuing on the subject.

THE PRESIDENT: What is the matter, Dr. Seidl?

DR. SEIDL: Mr. President, a quotation from Frank’s diary has been read to the Defendant Kaltenbrunner. Frank’s diary consists of 42 volumes and I should like to suggest that the prosecutor give the place and the volume and the date of the entry, so that one can determine in what connection that occurred.

THE PRESIDENT: Certainly, yes.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Here we have a precise indication: This is a conference of 31 May 1943 in Kraków. There it is headed “Technical Conference...” The document is registered as Exhibit Number USA-613, Document 2233(aa)-PS.

THE PRESIDENT: This diary presumably got a date.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: That is correct. This conference took place on 31 May 1943; there is the date.

THE PRESIDENT: That is what Dr. Seidl wants to know.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I have a second question to put to the defendant.

THE PRESIDENT: Go on.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: If, as the defendant says, he was exclusively employed on intelligence work and with nothing else, then did he consider the buying over of the Iran elections and the receipt from Ribbentrop of 1 million tomans to send to agents as entering purely within the scope of intelligence work?

KALTENBRUNNER: I certainly had nothing to do with the buying of votes in Iran; but I admit, of course, that agents of my Intelligence Service did work in Iran.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: You did not ask Ribbentrop for 1 million tomans for bribery?

KALTENBRUNNER: No, I had sufficient means to pay my agents myself.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: This letter bearing Kaltenbrunner’s signature has already been submitted to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-178, during Ribbentrop’s cross-examination. Mention is made in this letter of the allocation of 1 million tomans. Does the defendant deny this evidence which Ribbentrop, himself, has admitted?

KALTENBRUNNER: I believe that I did not demand any money from Ribbentrop because I had enough money. Show me this letter. It might be quite possible. I had sufficient funds at my disposal for the intelligence service.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: The original of this letter has already been submitted to the Tribunal during Ribbentrop’s interrogatory. We have only the copy but the original, of course, can be brought immediately from the document room. It is said here that:

“In order to exert a decisive influence on the election results,
400,000 tomans would be needed for bribes in Teheran and at
least 600,000 tomans for the rest of Iran.”

The letter ends as follows:

“I request you to tell me briefly if it would be possible to
obtain 1 million tomans from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

It would be possible to transfer this money by people whom we
are sending there by airplane.

“Heil Hitler. Your devoted Kaltenbrunner, SS Obergruppenführer.”

The contents of this letter are quite definite. Ribbentrop acknowledged the letter. Are you denying Ribbentrop’s evidence?

KALTENBRUNNER: Not in the least, but I would like to add the following as far as this document is concerned. I cannot remember it easily because it was written in Office VI. I do not know the contents—did not know them until now. I am absolutely sure that I signed it, because it is a letter to a Minister of the Reich which, of course, for reasons of tact, I had to sign personally. As to the subject itself, I am grateful that the last question in this cross-examination is a question which actually refers to my sphere of activities proper. You are the first prosecutor to whom I must be grateful on that account, and who at last can no longer conceal the fact that my agents and my activities extended as far as Iran.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Is that your signature?

KALTENBRUNNER: Yes.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I have no further questions to put to this defendant, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: What document is that you put to him then?

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: This is Exhibit Number USSR-178, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: 178?

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: That is Kaltenbrunner’s letter addressed to Von Ribbentrop, Minister of Foreign Affairs, dated 27 June 1943.

THE PRESIDENT: Very well. Thank you. Now, the Tribunal will deal with Dr. Thoma’s documents for Rosenberg. Is the Prosecution ready? Are you ready, Mr. Dodd?

MR. DODD: Yes, Your Honor.

THE PRESIDENT: Would it be convenient for Mr. Dodd to tell us how the position stands? Would it be agreeable to you, Dr. Thoma, if Mr. Dodd tells us how the position stands?

DR. THOMA: Yes.

MR. DODD: Dr. Thoma has prepared three document books, and there are two volumes to the first book—two parts, two volumes—and I should like to take up first, Volumes I and II of the first document book. In the first, Volume I...

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal has already looked at these volumes.

MR. DODD: Well, there is contained in the book that has been submitted to us a number of authorities, starting with that first document by Falckenberg, _The History of Modern Philosophy_, and running down to the _Introduction into the Psychology of the Nations_, by Hellpach; and really, as we understand the ruling of the Court, on the 8th of March, it stated that these books could be used so far as appropriate for the purpose of argument, and to this end they should be produced and made available to Defense Counsel; and the Court went on to say that any particular passage which Counsel for the Defense wish to quote should be incorporated in the document book for translation.

We object to all of these excerpts and for mostly the same reasons, and I think I can discuss them as a group rather than individually.

THE PRESIDENT: We have all read them, and we wish only to hear any arguments which Dr. Thoma desires to make comments upon.

DR. THOMA: Mr. President, I would like to stress that only the legal points of view prompt me to offer writings of contemporary historians as evidence in this Trial. The Tribunal has to decide whether there is a connection between Rosenberg’s ideology and the war crimes and crimes against Jews.

I assert that, in addition to that ideology, other factors—so-called preliminary conditions, that is, the entire contemporary situation, the philosophical and mental outlook—contributed their part; but the main question is this: Did Rosenberg culpably anticipate the dangerous possibilities of his ideas and nevertheless promulgate them? In what manner can he be considered guilty if Rosenberg was convinced that his ideas were right, and if he was unaware of their dangerous development? I shall therefore indicate facts about the mental outlook of the time which prove that his ideas were perceived, and even partly championed by exact science. I will show that other countries introduced certain National Socialist measures, such as suppressing births of children unfit for life, even before Rosenberg’s books were written. Further, I shall allude to the results of the investigations of natural science on the natural basis for the existence of man and the ensuing limitation of man’s freedom. I shall point to the effects and consequences of a technical age; and I want to refer to the fact that irrational ideas and conceptions have been taken seriously even by rational empirical science; and I want to show how laws govern the development of philosophical concepts and political movements which are often inevitable. On the basis of these scientific conclusions, it is possible that Rosenberg underestimated or overlooked the dangerous side of his ideology—to wit, that all ideas and conceptions degenerate according to the laws governing the human mind. The question of guilt, therefore, must be regarded in a new light and, in my opinion, also the question of carelessness should be examined. These theses will be extracted from works on natural science by Von Eickstedt, Mühlmann, Scheidt, Keiter, and from the philosophical works of Hellpach, Messer, Tillich, Buber _et cetera_.

Gentlemen of the Tribunal, the belief that a philosophy of the irrational might be applied to politics may sound ridiculous, but I would mention that only 15 years ago in Germany it was preached that a policy based on Christian ethics was nonsensical, because Christian ethics could not be applied in the political sphere. Today we know that this is possible, and, therefore, I am pleading before a Tribunal who, to my conviction, receive their authority from these ethical motives. That is only one example for the importance of the irrational in politics. The belief in the power of the ideal and the moral is, after all, irrational, too.

Gentlemen of the Tribunal, the question of the causal connection between Rosenberg’s ideology and the war crimes must not, or rather should not, be confused with the charge of Rosenberg’s actual participation in the murder of the Jews and the crimes in the East. This has another connection. I will have to try to refute the actual participation of Rosenberg in these matters separately.

I would like to draw your attention to one more important viewpoint. Organizations, whose members formerly had in part been under the influence of Christianity and the so-called youth movement, and who let themselves be won over to National Socialism because they believed that by it their Christian and idealistic interests could be realized, are also indicated. They are now left helpless in their camps, disappointed in this world. They, too, have the right to ask that the Tribunal be told what they believed in and what they had been taught. I believe that I have made it clear that I am not trying to deliver a lecture on aesthetics but that these are very important legal problems.

Gentlemen of the Tribunal, if any of the authors are unsuitable, then I shall forego quoting them. Perhaps Lapouge may not be suitable at all. I withdraw his work, although it is precisely Lapouge who points out that certain biological laws have also been applied in the legislation of other states. But Mr. Justice Jackson objected to a passage from Lapouge, and I withdraw it herewith. There are also one or two works of Martin Buber which I am willing to withdraw. But I particularly wanted to use Martin Buber to prove that we are concerned here with principles which have nothing whatsoever to do with anti-Semitism but merely represent a philosophy which is as justified as the philosophy of rationalism during the last centuries. But I ask the Tribunal that, during the presentation of evidence, cognizance be taken only of actual philosophical-historical proofs and facts. Gentlemen of the Tribunal, if I presented these facts in my address, I would run the risk of presenting only my own knowledge. That is why I need these documents.

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Dodd, we understand that you object to all up to that book of Hellpach’s. Then, with reference to the other volumes, the others are all Rosenberg’s own documents, are they not?

MR. DODD: Except the two last.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, the two last are in the same category, I suppose, as the ones down to Hellpach, are they not?

MR. DODD: Yes, there are also some quotations from newspapers contained in the document books, on Pages 182 to 185. We also made objection to them.

THE PRESIDENT: Are they in Volume II?

MR. DODD: Yes, they are in Volume II of Book 1.

THE PRESIDENT: I was dealing, at the moment, with Volume I of Document