The Avalon Project : Nuremberg Trial Proceedings Vol. 11

Nuremberg Trial Proceedings Vol. 11

ONE HUNDRED AND THIRD DAY

Tuesday, 9 April 1946

Morning Session

[The witness Lammers resumed the stand.]

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, Dr. Dix.

DR. DIX: Witness, it has been pointed out that I am putting my question too soon after your answers and that you are replying to my questions too quickly.

MR. JUSTICE ROBERT H. JACKSON (Chief of Counsel for the United States): I should like to take up a matter before the examination of the witnesses, if I may ask the indulgence of the Tribunal.

I regret to say that this matter of printing documents has proceeded in its abuses to such an extent that I must close the document room to printing documents for German counsel. Now, that is a drastic step, but I know of nothing less that I can do and I submit the situation to the Tribunal.

We received from the General Secretary's office an order to print and have printed a Document Book Number I for Rosenberg. That document book does not contain one item in its 107 pages that, by any stretch of the imagination, can be relevant to this proceeding. It is violent anti-Semitism and the United States simply cannot be put in the position, even at the order-which I have no doubt was an ill-considered one-of the Secretary of the Tribunal, of printing and disseminating to the press just plain anti-Semitism; and that is what this document is. Now, I ask you to consider what it is.

I should say it consists of two kinds of things: anti-Semitism and what I would call, with the greatest respect to those who think otherwise, rubbish. And this is an example of the rubbish we are required to print at the expense of the United States and I simply cannot be silent any longer about this:

"The philosophic method suited to bourgeois society - the critical one. That holds true in a positive as well as a negative sense. The domination of purely rational form, the subjugation of nature, the freeing of the autonomous personality, all that is contained in the method of thinking classically formulated by Kant, likewise, the isolation of the individual, the inner depletion of nature and community life, the connection with the world of form which is contained in itself and with which all critical thinking is concerned."

9 April 46

Now, what in the world are we required to print that for?

Let us look at some of the anti-Semitism. Now, let us look at what we are actually asked here to disseminate, Page 47 of this document book:

"Actually, the Jews, like the Canaanites in general, like the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, represent a bastard population . . ."

And it goes on largely upon that theme. Then it goes on:

"The Jews are arrogant in success, obsequious in failure, shrewd and crooked wherever possible, greedy, of remarkable intelligence, but nevertheless not creative."

I do not want to take this Tribunal's time, but last night we received an additional order to print 260 copies more of this sort of thing, and I have had to stop the presses; and we cannot accept the duty of printing this stuff unless it is reviewed by the Tribunal.

Most of this book, as far as we have been able to check it, has already been rejected by the Tribunal; and nobody pays the least attention to the Tribunal's rejection, and we are ordered to print. Now, with the greatest deference, I want to say that the United States will print any document that a member of this Tribunal or an alternate certifies, but we can no longer print these things at the request of the German counsel nor at the ill-considered directions which we have been receiving.

DR. THOMA: At the moment I want merely to explain that on 8 March 1946 I was expressly given permission by the Tribunal to quote excerpts from philosophical books in my document book. Consequently, I have based my work on the assumption that Rosenberg's ideology is an offspring of the so-called new romantic philosophy and have quoted philosophical excerpts from serious new romantic philosophical works, works which have been recognized by science.

Secondly, Your Honors, I have earnestly endeavored not to submit any anti-Semitic books. What has just been read to me must be simply translation mistakes.

I have quoted the work of a famous Evangelical theological teacher, Homan-Harling; and secondly, I have quoted a work of a recognized Jewish scholar, Isma Elbogen; and, thirdly, I have quoted from an excerpt from the periodical Kunstschatz written by a Jewish university professor, Moritz Goldstein. I have deliberately refrained from bringing anti-Semitic propaganda into this courtroom. I request, therefore, that the documents quoted by me be investigated to see whether they are really trash and literary rubbish. I still maintain that the works which I have quoted were written by American, English, and French scholars-recognized scholars-and

9 April 46

that the quotations which Mr. Justice Jackson has just read about the bastard race, et cetera, come as far as I know, from non-German scholars. But I should have to look at that once more. At any rate, may I ask the Tribunal that my compilation of excerpts be investigated to see whether it is in any way nonscientific or not pertinent.

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Justice Jackson, the Tribunal thinks that there must have been some mistake in sending to the Translation Division this book of documents without having it presented to Counsel for the Prosecution first. The Tribunal made an order some time ago, saying that Counsel for the Prosecution should have the right to object to any document before it is sent to the translation department.

Some difficulty then arose because documents had been mostly in German. There was a difficulty about Counsel for the Prosecution making up their minds as to their objections until they have been translated. That difficulty was presented to us a few days ago; I think you were not in court at the time, but no doubt other members of the United States counsel were here. We had a full discussion on the subject, and it was then agreed that Counsel for the Prosecution should see Counsel for the Defense and, as far as possible, discuss with them and point out to them the documents which Counsel for the Prosecution thought ought not to be translated, and, in case of disagreement, it was ordered that the matter should be referred to the Tribunal. So that so far as the Tribunal are concerned, they have done everything that they can to lighten the work of the Translation Division. Of course, insofar as documents have been presented to the Translation Division for trance ration, which the Tribunal had already denied, that must have been done by mistake because the General Secretary's office, no doubt, ought to have refused to hand over to the Translation Division any document which the Tribunal had already denied. But the general principles which I have attempted to explain seem to the Tribunal to be the only principles upon which we can go, in order to lighten the work of the Translation Division. That is to say, that Counsel for the Prosecution should meet Counsel for the Defense and point out to them what documents are so obviously irrelevant that they ought not to be translated.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, if Your Honor pleases, I do not think it is a mistake. It arises from a fundamental difference which this Tribunal has not, I think, made clear.

What the issues here are-counsel says that he thinks he should try the new romanticism of Rosenberg. We are charging him for the murder of 4 or 5 million Jews. The question here is one of ideology. The only purpose in ever referring to the anti-Semitic

9 April 46

sentiments is the motive. There is no purpose here in trying the question of anti-Semitism or the superiority of races, the fundamental difference in viewpoint. They believe-and, of course, if they can try this issue with this Tribunal as a sounding board, it forwards their purpose-they believe in trying that issue.

The first thing we get is this book with the order to print it. We cannot tell when they are going to present something in the document room. I simply must not become a party to this spirit of anti-Semitism. The United States cannot do it. And the Tribunal's directions to counsel are simply being ignored; that is the difficulty here.

THE PRESIDENT: I do not know if you have in mind the order which we made on 8 March 1946, in these terms:

'`To avoid unnecessary translation, Defense Counsel will indicate to the Prosecution the exact passages in all documents which they propose to use, in order that the Prosecution may have an opportunity to object to irrelevant passages. In the event of disagreement between the Prosecution and the Defense as to the relevancy of any particular passage, the Tribunal will decide what passages are sufficiently relevant to be translated. Only the cited passages need be translated, unless the Prosecution require the translation of the entire document."

Now, of course, if you are objecting to that ruling on principle, well and good, but the ruling seems to the Tribunal, up to the present at any rate, to be the best rule that can be laid down, and we reiterated it after full discussion a very few days ago.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I am calling Your Honor's attention to the fact that Your Honor's order is not being observed and that we are being given these documents to print without any prior notice. The boys in the pressroom are not lawyers; they are not in the position to pass on these things. I do not have the personnel; my personnel, as this Tribunal well know, is reduced very seriously. I cannot undertake it in the pressroom here after an order comes from the General Secretary's of lice-a review of what can be done.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, but did you...

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: The order is not being carried out; that is the difficulty.

THE PRESIDENT: You mean that none of these documents were submitted to the Counsel for the Prosecution?

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: The documents were not submitted to Counsel for Prosecution. They came to the pressroom with an order to print from the General Secretary's office. That is what I am arguing, a grievance; one I shall have to remedy. We are in the very peculiar position, Your Honor, of being asked to be press agents for

9 April 46

these defendants. We were ordered to print 260 copies of these stencils that I have. The United States cannot be acting as press agents for the distribution of this anti-Semitic literature, which we have protested long ago was one of the vices of the Nazi regime, particularly after they have been argued on and have been denied by the Court. This, it seems to me, is a flagrant case of contempt of court, to put these documents through after the Tribunal has ruled on them and ruled out this whole document book of Rosenberg.

THE PRESIDENT: Certainly, so far as these documents have been denied, they ought never to have been submitted to the translation department. Might not the Tribunal hear from Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, because he was here on the previous occasion, the last occasion that we dealt with this subject?

SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: May it please Your Lordship, my understanding of the matter is that the Rosenberg documents had been processed-that was what we were informed before our last discussion of the matter, and I therefore suggested to the Tribunal that the practical application of the proceeding should begin with the documents of the Defendant Frank. That is what I said to the Tribunal.

THE PRESIDENT: Then my recollection is that, after we made this rule of 8 March 1946, Counsel for the Prosecution-I think all four prosecutors, and I rather think the document came in signed by the United States, but I am not certain of it-pointed out that there w ere great difficulties in carrying out this ruling of 8 March, because of the difficulty of Counsel for the Prosecution making up their minds about what documents were irrelevant, having regard to the fact that they had to be translated for them to do it. Is that not so?

SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: That difficulty arose with Dr. Horn over the Ribbentrop documents.

THE PRESIDENT: But a written application was made to the Tribunal to vary this rule of 8 March 1946, and it was then after that that we had the subsequent discussion in open court when we came to the conclusion that we had better adhere to the ruling of 8 March 1946. And I see from Rosenberg that the documents, these documents, had been processed already beforehand.

SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Since our last discussion, of course, we have been trying to get this procedure going. Dr. Dix has met Mr. Dodd and me on the Schacht documents, and I understand that other learned Defense Counsel are making arrangements to meet various members with regard to theirs. But before this time, before the matter arose sharply on the Ribbentrop documents, there had not been any discussion with Counsel for the Prosecution. That is the position.

9 April 46

THE PRESIDENT: But what I am pointing out is that that was because the Prosecution were not carrying out the rule of the 8th March 1946. It may have been impossible to carry it out, but they were not carrying it out.

SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I do not know exactly how Your Lordship means, "The Prosecution were not carrying it out."

THE PRESIDENT: Both the Prosecution and the Defense, I suppose; because the application which came to us after the ruling of 8 March 1946 was made on behalf of the Prosecution that they had such difficulties in getting translations for the documents that they proposed another ruling.

SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I am sorry, My Lord, if we have not carried it out. It is the first time that anybody suggested this to me...

THE PRESIDENT: I do not mean to criticize you.

SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: We all have taken immense trouble. Everyone cooperated in every way. I was not aware that we were at fault; I am very sorry if we were.

THE PRESIDENT: I do not mean that, Sir David, but I think there was a difficulty in carrying this out, and I think there was a proposal that the rule should be varied. I will look into that and see whether I am right about it. I remember seeing such an application, and then we had the subsequent discussion in open court in which we decided to adhere to this rule of 8 March; and no doubt this difficulty has arisen, as you pointed out, because of the Rosenberg documents' having been processed before.

Probably the best course would be now. . .

[There was a pause in the proceedings while the Judges conferred.]

Mr. Justice Jackson, wouldn't the best course be for you to object in writing to all the documents which you object to, and then they will be dealt with by the Tribunal after argument.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: But, Your Honor, the Tribunal has once rejected the documents, and yet we get an order to print. The Tribunal's orders are not being observed, and-I do not want to criticize counsel-but we have had no opportunity to pass on these. These stencils that I stopped running last night are not anything that has been submitted to us. They have no possible place in the legitimate issues of this Tribunal, and we will get nowhere talking to Dr. Thoma about it. He thinks their philosophy is an issue.

What I think must be done here, if we are going to get this solved, is that the Tribunal-if I may make a suggestion, which I do with great deference; I may be a biased judge of what ought to be done; I never pretended to complete impartiality-that the Tribunal

9 April 46

name a master to represent it in passing these things. We won't finish this by discussion between Dr. Thoma and anybody I can name. My suggestion is that an official pass on these documents before they are translated. If the master finds a doubtful matter he can refer it back to you. We should not be in the position either of agreeing or of disagreeing with them in any final sense, of course. I realize it is too big a burden to put on the Tribunal to pass on these papers in advance and too big a burden on the United States to keep printing them. Paper is a scarce commodity today. Over 25,000 sheets have gone into the printing of a book that has been rejected. I think there is no possible way except that a lawyer with some idea of relevance and irrelevance represents this Tribunal in passing on these things in advance, rather than leaving it to counsel.

I would not even venture to sit down with Dr. Thoma, because we start from totally different viewpoints. He wants to justify anti-Semitism. I think it is not an issue here. It is the murder of Jews, of human beings, that is an issue here, not whether the Jewish race is or is not liked by the Germans. We do not care about that. It is a matter of settling these issues.

COLONEL Y. V. POKROVSKY (Deputy Chief Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): With the Tribunal's permission, I would like to add a few words to what Mr. Jackson has said.

I do not wish to criticize the counsel either, but the Tribunal has already said that there may possibly be a mistake. And I would like to draw the attention of the Tribunal to the fact that this mistake took place too often. I will permit myself to remind you about the documents in connection with the Versailles Treaty, which were rejected by the Tribunal in the most decided manner as not relevant; the Tribunal will remember also that a considerable amount of time was spent in listening to the reading of the documents presented by Dr. Stahmer and Dr. Horn. And I would like to remind the Tribunal about another fact, when another decision of the Tribunal was violated. Perhaps it was done by mistake; perhaps not. It took place when one of the documents which was presented by Dr. Seidl was published in the papers before it was accepted by the Tribunal as evidence. And it seems to me that it would be very useful if the Tribunal could, for the purpose of saving time, guarantee more effectively that the rules set out by the Tribunal should be obeyed, not only by the Prosecution, who always follow them carefully, but also by the Defense Counsel.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, Dr. Thoma?

DR. THOMA: I am very much disconcerted by the reproach that I have not followed the instructions of the Tribunal. During discussions regarding which documents were admissible, I explained in

9 April 46

detail just which philosophical works I want to quote from and why. It has been stated during the case for the Prosecution, that Rosenberg invented his philosophy for the purpose of aggressive war and for the committing of war crimes, et cetera. I considered it my duty to prove that this so-called national . . .

THE PRESIDENT: Will you tell the Tribunal where the Prosecution states that he invented his philosophy, whether in the Indictment or in the presentation?

DR. THOMA: I can prove it. It appears in the Churchill speech; and also in the speech by Justice Jackson there are similar expressions that Rosenberg's philosophy had led to that.

THE PRESIDENT: You say it appears in Churchill's speech?

DR. THOMA: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: What have we got to do with that? I asked you whether the Prosecution alleged it in the Indictment or alleged it in the course of the presentation of the Prosecution, and you answer me that Mr. Churchill. . .

DR. THOMA: No, it is not Churchill, but rather Mr. Justice Jackson. In his presentation he said things, the sense of which was about the same. Consequently I felt that it was my duty to present to the Tribunal that philosophy which, before Rosenberg, raised similar arguments and which is indeed the philosophy of the entire world.

Regarding the presentation of the document book, the following happened: The Translation Division asked me to submit my document book without delay, as they had time at the moment to deal with it before it was handed to the Tribunal. So the Translation Division actually received this document earlier than the Tribunal. But the Tribunal in their resolution of 8 March 1946 had expressly given me permission to use quotations from these philosophical works; they refused me only the anti-Semitic works of Goldstein, Elbogen, and Homan-Harling. Consequently I immediately informed the Tribunal that documents were contained in my document book which had not been granted me.

And now, Your Honors, something of great importance: I have just ascertained that the quotation which Mr. Justice Jackson has just read comes from a French research scholar, Mr. Larouche.

Secondly, I have marked with red pencil those passages in my document book which were to be translated. The passage quoted by Mr. Justice Jackson was not marked in red and was not meant to be included in the document book. This is a regrettable error.

Thirdly, I should like to refer to the fact-my attention has just been called to this-that the passage reads literally, "Rosenberg developed the philosophical technique of the conspiracy and thus

9 April 46

created an educational system for an aggressive war." That was the expression in Mr. Justice Jackson's presentation. I therefore felt justified in pointing out that this entire philosophy was already in the air and was a philosophical necessity which had to make its appearance. I therefore believe that I have cleared myself of the accusation of not having obeyed the ruling of the Tribunal.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, Dr. Thoma, were these documents sent to the pressroom or were they sent to the translation department?

DR. THOMA: In my opinion, they were sent to the Translation Division, since this department had told me that they had time at the moment, but expected a terrible rush soon. I had my document ready and I gave it to the Translation Division.

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Justice Jackson stated apparently that they had been sent to the pressroom and were being disseminated to the public in that way, but on the outside of each document book there is this notice that they are not to be publicized until they are presented before the Tribunal in open court and then only that portion actually submitted as evidence. Therefore, any documents which are sent to the translation room are not disseminated, or ought not to be disseminated to the press and ought not to be publicized until they are presented before this Tribunal.

There seem to be a number of misunderstandings about this which seem to have arisen principally from the fact that you submitted your documents to the translation department before they had been submitted to the Tribunal, and therefore some of them got translated which were subsequently denied by the Tribunal. Is that right?

DR. THOMA: No, Your Honors, that is not right. Past of all, this was actually a matter of internal procedure in the various offices of the Translation Division. I gave the Translation Division this document book because they asked me to do so, and then...

THE PRESIDENT: I did not say who had asked whom. I said that the translation department got the documents for translation. They received them before they were submitted to the Tribunal, and, in consequence, they translated certain documents which were subsequently denied by the Tribunal.

DR. THOMA: The only rejected works were, as is known, the three anti-Semitic works. That these documents from the courtroom reached the press I naturally did not know. I was merely trying to lighten the work of the Translation Division. I subsequently informed the General Secretary that I had submitted the document book and I referred him to it. The quotations from my philosophical works, however, were granted to me later. I want to point out again that I was always of the opinion that this was an entirely internal matter

9 April 46

and that these documents could by no means reach the press. I was not informed about that. I am very well aware that quotations not read in court are not supposed to reach the press. I have adhered to that rule. Nothing has as yet been stated in court and therefore it should not reach the press.

THE PRESIDENT: As you no doubt know, the first granting of documents when they are applied for is expressly provisional, and afterwards you have to submit your documents in open court, as Dr. Horn did, and then the Tribunal rules upon their admissibility; and this other rule was introduced for the purpose of preventing undue translation. It. was decided then that after the Tribunal had given its provisional ruling as to what was provisionally relevant, you should then submit the passages you wanted to quote, to the Prosecution Counsel to give them an opportunity to object, so that the translation department should not be unduly burdened. That, as you have explained and as Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe has said, was not carried out in your case, partly possibly, because, as you say, the Translation Division was prepared to undertake certain work. Therefore, documents were submitted to them which the Tribunal subsequently ruled to be inadmissible.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: May I correct something which has led to misunderstanding? I did not mean to say that counsel had sent the documents to the press in the sense of a newspaper press. They were sent to the press, the printing press. They were, of course, printed. The 260 copies we were ordered to print contained the usual release notice that they were not to be released until used. They have not reached the press, and I did not mean to say that they had been sent to the newspaper press; they were sent to our printing press.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, Dr. Dix?

DR. DIX: Your Honors, before a resolution is made to the matter under discussion, I should like to make just a few remarks, not referring to the case of Rosenberg but to the Defense in general. Very serious accusations against the entire Defense have been raised. The expression was used that the Prosecution was not the press agent of the Defense. The accusation was raised that the Defense were trying to make propaganda, and then these accusations reached their peak in the most serious charge which one can possibly make in reference to a participant in a trial, that of contempt of Court.

In the name of all Defense Counsel I oppose these heavy accusations with the best and strongest argument possible, that of an absolutely clean and pure conscience in this respect. Anyone who has listened to the debate of the last 30 minutes must have recognized that the differences of opinion, which have cropped up here and on

9 April 46

already been mentioned repeatedly and which was confiscated on Schacht's estate by the Red Army when the Red Army marched in.* Despite all efforts the Russian Delegation have not yet succeeded in getting this strong box.

Although some rather good passages are contained therein, I am perfectly refilling to break off here and to put these questions to Herr Schacht if the Tribunal would prefer that. May I have the Tribunal's decision on this question; if necessary I can cease to discuss the memorandum any further.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal had no objection to your asking this witness about it, but they thought you ought not to put a leading question and that you ought to ask the witness if he remembers the document and what the contents of the document were; not to put to him that it was such and such in the document or some other passage in the document, but just to ask him what the contents of the document were.

DR. DIX: The dividing line between leading questions and putting the contents of a document to the witness, a document which the witness does not remember exactly, is rather fluid. Therefore, I should prefer to have Herr Schacht give the rest of the contents of the memorandum; then we would avoid these difficulties. I shall therefore leave this point and proceed to another field.

Witness, you quite correctly stated yesterday in answer to a question in connection with the defense of Funk by my colleague, Dr. Sauter, how it was the practice in 1939, that Hitler simply decreed that the Reichsbank would have to give so much credit. I want to avoid a mistaken impression on the part of the Tribunal as to the former position of the Reichsbank in regard to this question.

You know that by Hitler's decree, the Reichsbank in January 1939 lost its former independence. In this decree Hitler ordered that he would decide what credits the Reichsbank would have to give; and this restricted decree of Hitler's was announced and became effective as a law in June 1939.

Therefore, in order that the Tribunal get a proper impression of the general and also of the former position of the Reichsbank, I am asking you how the situation was before January 1939, that is, during Schacht's term in office as Reichsbank President, which ended, as is known, in January 1939. Was it possible at that time for Hitler simply to decree that so much credit was to be given, or was the Reichsbank still independent and could it refuse such credit or cancel it?

LAMMERS: I do not remember the legal regulations which existed in this connection to such an extent that I can give a complete answer as to when and how they were altered. I can confirm

9 April 46

one thing, however; that is that during the period when Herr Schacht was President of the Reichsbank he must have made certain difficulties for the Fuehrer with reference to the granting of these credits. I was not present at the discussions' between the Fuehrer and Schacht, but I know from statements made by the Fuehrer that regarding those credits he met with considerable difficulties and restraints on Schacht's part, restraints which finally brought about Schacht's resignation from his position as President of the Reichsbank. On the other hand, I know that at the moment when Funk became President of the Reichsbank, these difficulties ceased to exist. These were obviously removed by legal regulations and also by orders which the Fuehrer had given; for when Funk became President of the Reichsbank, these credits were simply handled in the way which I described yesterday, when I described the technical procedure; in the main orders for credits and Reich loans from the Reichsbank were merely a simple matter of signature for the Fuehrer. They were a matter...

THE PRESIDENT: I do not think he is able to answer your question, really. I do not think he is able to answer the question which you put to him, which was as to the position before 1939, so I think you must rely upon the decrees and documents.

DR. DIX: One moment, Herr Lammers: I shall clarify that right away. You have just stated how things were handled in practice in 1939, in the books. Do you not remember that the Reichsbank had previously been independent as far as the Government was concerned?

LAMMERS: Yes, I do remember. I also recollect that certain legal alterations were made, but I cannot remember just when. Without seeing the law books I cannot tell you exactly the contents of these legal regulations, just what the limitations were in terms of figures. All I do know is that the position of the President of the Reichsbank was later reduced considerably according to orders coming from the Fuehrer.

DR. DIX: That is enough. Now, as to the same subject: It is very difficult even for a German who has lived here the whole time but particularly for a foreigner, to understand the powerful machinery of the Third Reich. I think that in spite of the statements that you made yesterday in answer to the questions which my colleague, Sauter, put to you, not everything has yet been said and that you can say still more to inform the Tribunal. If I did not know what you know, if I were an outsider, then your statements of yesterday would give me the impression: Well, it was like this-the Reich Minister of the Interior could not give orders to the Police; the Reich Minister of Economy did not direct economy

9 April 46

independently; all Reich Ministers were without official authority and could not give instructions as far as the Reich commissioners for the occupied territories were concerned.

MR. DODD: If Your Honors please, I respectfully suggest that Dr. Dix is really testifying here. I think perhaps he could put his questions more simply and we can get along faster and get the answer better.

DR. DIX: I shall put my questions more precisely, but I cannot put that question precisely unless I first of all ascertain, by means of statements, what has not yet been said up to now. Otherwise the most precise and shortest question cannot be put, for the Tribunal would not understand what I am aiming at. I can assure Mr. Dodd, I shall not ask anything of an uncertain nature; rather I shall put a very precise question. Let us proceed at once.

[Turning to the witness] We have already talked about the office of the Reichsbank President. Now I should like to ask you: If all these ministers were so hampered in respect to their authority, who were the men and who were the authorities who could interfere in departmental jurisdiction and who held the real power? That is my question. And I might mention that as far as Frank is concerned, Himmler's interference has already been mentioned. But we must go into that question more deeply so that the Tribunal can see clearly what we are talking about.

LAMMERS: The infringement on the authority Of the individual ministers arose because of the number of institutions which the Fuehrer had created obviously quite consciously as a counterpoise, I might say, to the various ministers. That is the one faction. Secondly, it was done through offices created on a higher level, which, in the interest of a certain uniformity in particular fields, were to have sole authority. In the last category the typical example is, in the first instance, the Four Year Plan. In this connection the Fuehrer desired a comprehensive unified direction which was not to depend on the wishes of the ministers of the departments, and consequently, he created the Four Year Plan. In other sectors, in some way or other, the minister was confronted with a counterpart; for instance, by the appointment of Herr Ley as Reich Commissioner for Housing the Minister for Labor lost his jurisdiction in the important field of housing. He was relieved of one of his main duties by the appointment of the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor, Herr Sauckel, in the field of labor employment. As far as economy was concerned, the Minister of Economy, as I have already mentioned, was considerably limited in his powers by the setting up of the Four Year Plan and the powers given to it and later, in addition to that, by the powers which were transferred to the Minister for Armament and War Production. In

9 April 46

the Ministry of the Interior the actual authority of the Chief of the German Police...

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Dix, the Tribunal thinks that once the general aspect of the matter has been explained by the witness the matter can be explained by the defendants themselves from their particular point of view. I mean the witness is now explaining to us, and probably indicating he will do it at some length, that with reference to the Four Year Plan, for instance, there was to be a unified command which was not to be interfered with by individual ministers. That explains the general system and when it comes to the individual defendants they can explain how it applied to them, and, therefore, we do not want this dealt with at any great length or in any great detail

DR. DIX: I shall take that into consideration and ask merely a few more concrete questions.

It is not merely a question, Your Lordship, of the ministers having had to hand over certain fields in their departments to third persons, but there is also the fact that third persons, because of their authority, actually interfered in a field which was really under the jurisdiction of the minister. And now I shall give the witness a lead: What was, for example, the position of Reichsleiter Bormann?

LAMMERS: The Reichsleiter Bormann was a successor to Reich Minister Hess.

DR DIX: And as far as interference in the ministries is concerned?

LAMMERS: He was appointed secretary to the Fuehrer by the Fuehrer and was thereby directly included in the State sector. As Chief of the Party Chancellery he was merely the successor to Reich Minister Hess, who was supposed to represent the wishes and ideas of the Party. The fact that he was appointed secretary to the Fuehrer, which meant that in the State sector a considerable number of things would have to go through Bormann's hands gained him a strong position in the State affairs. I had to experience this personally to a large extent, since I, who originally had at least been able, on occasion, to report to the Fuehrer alone, could no longer do that and could get to the Fuehrer only by way of Bormann. Most of my reports were given in Bormann's presence and everything which I formerly had been able to dispatch to the Fuehrer directly, even pure and simple matters of State, had now to go through the Secretary of the Fuehrer, through Bormann.

DR. DIX: This resulted, of course, in Bormann's influence in the various ministries?

9 April 46

LAMMERS: Yes, he had that influence, for all departments matters which I could not settle by reporting them to the Fuehrer directly or by asking for his decision had to be made in writing and had to go through Bormann. I would then received word from Bormann saying this or that is the Fuehrer's decision. The possibility of a personal report, which would have enabled me to speak of behalf of the minister for whom I was reporting, was lacking. They were not my own affairs; they were always complaints or protest or differences of opinion among the members of the Cabinet whip I finally could no longer take to the Fuehrer personally.

DR. DIX: Thank you, that is enough.

And what you say about Bormann, does that not apply to some extent to the Gauleiter, too, who also interfered in the ministries'

LAMMERS: Gauleiter as such, had, of course, to go through the Party Chancellery; that was the prescribed channel for them. Since. the Gauleiter as a rule, however, were at the same time heads o Prussian provinces or Reichsstatthalter these two positions were, o course, somewhat mixed up; and a number of matters, instead o going through the prescribed channels from the minister concerned and through me, went directly from the Gauleiter to Reichsleiter Bormann. There are, in fact, cases where this channel was chosen deliberately.

DR. DIX: Thank you. Regarding the position of Himmler in the same respect, that of the appointment of a third person with authority, you made statements yesterday in connection with the cases o Frank and Frick. Can your statement be extended, in fact, to a] leading ministries, with reference to the increased power given to Himmler and the SS and his Police?

LAMMERS: I did not quite understand the question.

DR. DIX: You did not hear the question?

LAMMERS: I did not understand the question completely.

DR. DIX: Well, under the heading "interference with other, departments" you have talked about Bormann and you have talker about Gauleiter; yesterday you talked about Himmler, his Police and his SS with reference to the cases of Frick and Frank. I err now asking you whether this increasing power of Himmler's ant the SS did not similarly affect the other ministries?

LAMMERS: To a considerable extent in the most varied fields

DR. DIX: That exhausts that question.

I am now coming back to Schacht. We have talked about the applications for resignation. Now we come to the actual dismissal Ministers who were dismissed were usually given a letter of dismissal by Hitler?

9 April 46

LAMMERS: Yes.

DR. DIX: And this letter of dismissal, I assume, was drafted by you and discussed with Hitler?

LAMMERS: Yes.

DR. DIX: Was considerable attention paid by Hitler to the wording of this letter of thanks on the occasion of a dismissal?

LAMMERS: Hitler usually looked at it carefully and he frequently made his own improvements, a sharper or a milder wording.

DR. DIX: The two letters of dismissal, Your Honors, which concern Schacht's dismissal from his office as President of the Reichsbank and as Minister without Portfolio are included in my document book as evidence. Therefore I do not propose to put them to the witness to any extent. There are only two sentences I propose to quote in the letter of dismissal from Hitler to Schacht on The occasion of his dismissal from his position as President of the Reichsbank: "Your name particularly will always be connected with the first period of national rearmament." Schacht considered that this sentence was written deliberately and that it contained a slight reprimand, a limitation of the praise he was getting. What is your view to this question, as one concerned in the drafting of that letter of dismissal?

LAMMERS: As far as I can recollect, I drafted the letter in such a way that a general expression of thanks was made to Schacht. This additional sentence is due to a personal insertion by the Fuehrer, as far as I can recollect, because it was not like me to make such a subtle difference here.

DR. DIX: In a later letter of dismissal of 22 January 1943, not signed by Hitler, but by you by order of the Fuehrer it is said:

"The Fuehrer, with regard to your general attitude in this present fateful struggle of the German people, has decided to relieve you temporarily of your office as Reich Minister."

Herr Schacht's feeling regarding his personal safety could not have been exactly pleasant when he read that sentence.

May I ask you, since you drafted this letter on Hitler's order, was Schacht's anxiety unjustified?

LAMMERS: As to the reasons which caused the Fuehrer to dismiss Schacht, I know merely that a letter from Schacht to Reich Marshal Goering caused the Fuehrer to dismiss Schacht from his position. The Fuehrer did not inform me of the actual reasons. He was very violent and ordered me to use this text, implying that he even wanted it to be somewhat sterner, but I put it in the rather acceptable form which you find in this letter. The Fuehrer did not tell me, of course, what further measures were intended against

9 April 4

Schacht. But he had expressly ordered me to use the word "temporarily."

DR. DIX: A last question: Originally I had intended to ask you in detail, as the person best informed on these points, about the slob development from the year 1933 until Hitler's complete autocracy The answers which you gave to my colleagues yesterday have, it the main, settled these questions. I do not want to repeat them But two questions I should dike to have clarified. The Enabling Ac of 1933-that is the law by which the Reichstag deprived itself of its powers-did this law empower Hitler, the Reich Cabinet, or the Reich Government?

LAMMERS: This Enabling Act gave legislative powers and the right to alter the Constitution to the Reich Government, and the Reich Government, in turn, used this power to alter the Constitution, both expressly as well as by implication, by creating pub])' law based on usage which...

DR. DIX: Yes, thank you. You explained that yesterday. You do not need to go into that again. Yesterday you pointed out that this Reich Government consisted not only of National Socialists but that the majority of their members belonged to other parties. You mentioned only members of the German National Party, such as Hugenberg, Dr. Dorpmuller, and Gurtner, and you mentioned the Stahlhelm, the head of which was Seldte; but you forgot-and that is why I am asking you-to mention the Center Party. Is it true that Herr Von Papen came from the Center Party?

LAMMERS: Yes, I admit that is correct; but I do not know whether Herr Von Papen was a member of the Center Party or not.

DR. DIX: In my opinion you talk in rather scholarly and euphemistic terms about public law based on usage. I am going to give it a different name, but let us not discuss that. All I want you to tell me is whether during that gradual development toward complete dictatorship by Hitler, there were some other laws which were important and, as such, significant?

Do you not consider the law after Hindenburg's death which unified the offices of the Reich Chancellor and the Reich President with the result that the incumbent of this office became simultaneously the supreme military commander to whom the Wehrmacht swore their oath-do you not consider that law a further milestone in that development?

LAMMERS: That law was one of the most important milestones in this development, particularly because, by decree of the Reich Government, it was confirmed by a plebiscite with nearly 100 percent votes.

9 April 46

DR. DIX: And no further laws were issued to support this development?

LAMMERS: No, I do not know of any.

DR. DIX: Nor do I.

And the other question is whether a combination of terror and ruse can be called public law based on usage and whether one should want to call it that. That is a question I do not want to raise at the moment; I think we are of different opinions in that connection.

Your Lordship, I have now finished my questions to the witness Lammers on behalf of my client. But my colleague Dr. Kubuschok is away on duty. I do not think the airplane took off yesterday and therefore I do not think that he can be back. He asked me to question the witness on behalf of Herr Von Papen, and I wanted to able the Tribunal whether I may ask the witness the question now-there is only one short question-or whether I should wait until Papen's defense comes up at the proper time.

THE PRESIDENT: No, now, because this witness will not be called again except for some very exceptional reason.

DR. DIX: No, I meant, did you want me to ask the question later today, when Von Papen's turn comes in the proper sequence of defendants?

THE PRESIDENT: You may go on now. I think you had better ask it now.

DR. DIX: [Turning to the witness.] Please call to mind the Rohm Putsch. Papen's experiences during that revolt will be discussed later. But do you remember that Von Papen, who was Vice Chancellor at the time, demanded his dismissal from Hitler on 3 July 1934, and received this dismissal?

LAMMERS: Yes, I cannot tell you whether the dates right, but it happened right about that time.

DR. DIX: Do you also remember whether a short time afterwards, probably only a few days afterwards, between ~ and 10 July, you went to see Herr Von Papen by order of Hitler and asked him whether he was prepared to accept the position of Ambassador to the Vatican?

LAMMERS: I can remember that I visited Von Papen and, acting on the Fuehrer's order, was to give him the prospect of another position and that this concerned a position with the Holy See. But whether I had been ordered to make him a direct offer, that I cannot recollect now.

DR. DIX: Do you remember what Papen replied to that?

9 April 46

LAMMERS: At that time he was not very much inclined to accept such a position.

DR. DIX: Thank you. I have no further questions.

DR. ROBERT SERVATIUS (Counsel for Defendant Sauckel): Witness, on 21 March 1942 Sauckel was appointed Plenipotentiary for Allocation of Labor. What were the reasons for Sauckel's being chosen for this position?

LAMMERS: The Fuehrer was of the opinion that the allocation of labor had not been pushed with the necessary intensity by the Reich Minister for Labor and that this task would, therefore, have to be transferred to a particularly energetic person.

DR. SERVATIUS: Did the Fuehrer demand the use of foreign workers with particular emphasis?

LAMMERS: He demanded that all laborers who could possibly be made available should be used.

DR. SERVATIUS: Particularly with reference to foreign laborers?

LAMMERS: Yes, foreign countries were also mentioned in that connection, because at home we had exhausted all possibilities.

DR. SERVATIUS: Did you receive the assignment of informing the highest offices in the occupied territories of the demand that they do their best to support Sauckel's task?

LAMMERS: That happened very much later. First the appointment of the Plenipotentiary for Allocation of Labor took place and was announced to all important offices. I do not think I added any particular demand to that. But at the beginning of 1944 a conference took place at the Fuehrer's headquarters dealing with the program of labor allocation for the year of 1944. At the end of that conference, during which Sauckel had been given a number of injunctions expressed in definite figures, I had the task of writing to all offices concerned and telling them that they should support the task Sauckel had just been given, with all the powers at their disposal.

DR. SERVATIUS: You are talking about a meeting at the beginning of January 1944. An extensive report which you prepared on that is available. According to this report, Sauckel said during that meeting that with regard to the number of foreign laborers he would find it difficult or perhaps even impossible to fulfill the demands made by the program. What was the reason he gave for that?

LAMMERS: The statement is correct, and the reason he gave was that the executive power necessary for the carrying out of that task was lacking in the various sectors. He said that if he were to fulfill his task, then under all circumstances he should not have to

9 April 46

rely on a foreign executive power, as, for instance, was the case in France, but that there must be a German executive power which supported his actions.

DR. SERVATIUS: Did he not talk about the fact that fulfillment of the demand was impossible because of the danger of the partisans?

LAMMERS: He pointed out these difficulties repeatedly, namely, the partisan danger; and it was regarded as self-evident that no recruitment of labor could be carried out by him in territories where the partisans were still fighting.

DR. SERVATIUS: Did he demand the pacification of these agitated partisan territories and demand executive powers in that connection?

LAMMERS: Yes, that is correct.

DR. SERVATIUS: Did he wish to have the authorities protected against these resistance movements?

LAMMERS: Yes, he wanted the local of lice to take action, so that he would have a free hand to work.

DR. SERVATIUS: I am quoting one sentence from the report, and I want you to explain to me how that is to be understood. There it says:

"The Reichsleiter of the SS explained that the forces at his disposal were extremely small but that he would try by increasing them and by using them more intensively to win success for Sauckel's actions."

How is that to be understood?

LAMMERS: That referred mainly to the Russian territories, in which there were partisans, and Herr Sauckel thought that he could not be active there unless these territories were cleared up. Himmler, who was present, promised to do his best, but he had misgivings as to whether enough police battalions or other forces would be at his disposal

DR. SERVATIUS: Then it is right to say that it was a question of safeguarding the authorities, of safeguarding the territories, and not a transfer of the recruiting to the SS?

LAMMERS: A transfer of this recruiting to the SS, as such, was not provided. The German executive power demanded by Sauckel referred in every case to whatever executive power was available. In France, for instance, it was not the SS but the field command who had to look after that; and in Russia it was necessary, in part, for the police battalions to pacify the partisan regions.

DR. SERVATIUS: Now, I have a question regarding the Leadership Corps. A document has been presented here under Number

9 April 46

D720. It bears the signature of Gauleiter Sprenger and has no date, but it obviously dates from the spring or the beginning of 1945. In this letter there is mention of a new Reich health law, and it is supposed to contain a ruling on people suffering from heart and lung diseases, who are to be eliminated. It says that this law is to be kept a secret for the time being. On the strength of that law these families could no longer remain among the public and could not produce any offspring. Did you know anything about that law?

LAMMERS: I did not understand the word. Did you say insane or what sort of sick people?

DR. SERVATIUS: It is a Reich health law referring to people suffering from heart and lung diseases.

LAMMERS: I know nothing whatsoever about that law.

DR. SERVATIUS: I did not understand you.

LAMMERS: I know nothing about it.

DR. SERVATIUS: Would you have had to know about it?

LAMMERS: Yes, the Minister of the Interior would have had to know about it. Health matters were dealt with in his ministry. It never reached me.

DR. SERVATIUS: Thank you. I have no further questions.

DR. GUSTAV STEINBAUER (Counsel for Defendant Seyss-Inquart): Witness, one day after the German troops marched into Austria a law was published-on 13 March 1938-which has the heading, "Law for the Reunion of Austria with the German Reich." Seyss-Inquart and his Government were surprised by the contents of this law. I now ask you whether you know the details as to how this law was decreed in Linz on 13 March 1938.

LAMMERS: Like every other radio listener I heard about the march of German troops into Austria through the radio. And since I assumed that I might be needed I went to Vienna. At that point the law had already been signed and published. I did not participate in the drafting of this law; the Minister of the Interior and State Secretary Stuckart drafted that law. I did not work on it at all, because I did not even know that this action was to take place.

DR. STEINBAUER: Did these gentlemen you just mentioned tell you, perhaps, why this law was published so precipitately?

LAMMERS: It was the wish of the Fuehrer.

DR. STEINBAUER: Thank you. At the same time Dr. Seyss-Inquart was named an SS-Obergruppenfuehrer, not an SS general, as the Prosecution have stated and in addition the Fuehrer promised him that within a year he would be made a member of the Reich

9 April 46

Government. In 1939 he actually did become Minister without Portfolio. Did SeyssInquart in his capacity as an SS-Obergruppenfuehrer and as Minister without Portfolio carry out any functions of any kind?

LAMMERS: As far as I know, SeyssInquart did not become Obergruppenfuehrer but Gruppenfuehrer. That was merely an honorary rank which was given him. He had no authority in the SS and he never served in the SS, as far as I know. He merely wore the uniform and later he became Obergruppenfuehrer.

DR. STEINBAUER: In other words, this was purely an honorary rank, a matter of uniform, as you correctly say?

LAMMERS: Yes, a sort of honorary rank.

DR, STEINBAUER: Thank you.

One year later SeyssInquart was appointed Reich Commissioner for the Netherlands, and in the Law Gazette for the Netherlands Verordnungsblatt as well as in the Reichsgesetzblatt, this appointment was published. Do you know whether, apart from this published decree which appointed him Reichsstatthalter he was also given a duty within the framework of the Four Year Plan?

LAMMERS: From the moment of his appointment as Reich Commissioner for the Netherlands, SeyssInquart experienced the same limitations of authority as I described yesterday in connection with Herr Frank and Herr Rosenberg. In other words, certain powers were held in reserve for the Delegate for the Four Year Plan who everywhere exercised comprehensive command powers. To this extent his position was limited from the very beginning.

DR. STEINBAUER: What was the position of the German police in the Netherlands? Was the German police directly under the command of the Defendant SeyssInquart or was it under the Reichsleiter SS Himmler?

LAMMERS: The conditions here are exactly the same, or similar, as I described them yesterday in connection with the Government General. The Higher SS and Police Leader was at the disposal of the Reich commissioner but his technical instructions came from Himmler.

DR. STEINBAUER: Thank you.

Do you, Witness, recollect that at the beginning of 1944 you forwarded to the defendant, in his capacity as Reich Commissioner for the Netherlands, an order from the Fuehrer according to which he should draft 250,000 workers in the Netherlands, and that Seyss-Inquart refused this?

LAMMERS: This is the letter which I mentioned previously when I was being asked questions in connection with Sauckel. It is

100

9 April 46

a circular letter in which everybody was asked to support Sauckel's action and individual offices were given orders regarding the numbers of workers they were to supply. However, I cannot remember whether the number was 250,000 workers in Seyss-Inquart's case. But I do know that SeyssInquart told me that he had considerable misgivings about getting the number ordered of him. He wanted to take up these misgivings with the Fuehrer.

DR. STEINBAUER: Thank you. I have no further questions.

DR. HANS LATERNSER (Counsel for the General Staff and High Command of the German Armed Forces): Witness, did Hitler come to power in 1933 with the help of the Reichswehr, that is, was there any military pressure employed at that time?

LAMMERS: I myself did not participate directly in the seizure of power. I cannot tell you, therefore, the exact details. At any rate, nothing is known to me about the Reichswehr's having had any influence on the seizure of power. I assume that if that had been the case one would have heard about it.

DR. LATERNSER: In 1934 there followed coordination of the offices of the head of the State and Reich Chancellor in the person of Hitler. Could the military leaders have refused to swear the oath of allegiance to Hitler without violating a law?

LAMMERS: The law regarding the head of the State was decreed constitutionally and thereby the Fuehrer became the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. Any possibility of resisting did not exist. That would have been pure revolt; it would have been mutiny.

DR. LATERNSER: Did you ever hear that military leaders made proposals regarding the starting or the preparation of an aggressive war?

LAMMERS: No, not in the least.

DR. LATERNSER: It is well known that Hitler did not permit military leaders any influence upon his political decisions. Do you know of any statements made by Hitler in which he denied the generals the right to a political judgment?

LAMMERS: From the military point of view the Fuehrer praised the generals as a group and also individual generals very highly. As far as politics were concerned, he was always of the opinion that they knew nothing about politics and that one should, as far as possible, keep them away from a position where political matters had to be decided.

DR. LATERNSER: It is also known that Hitler would not suffer any contradiction. Was not that the real reason for Blomberg's dismissal and the dismissal of Fritsch and Beck-the fact that they repeatedly contradicted him?

101

9 April 46

LAMMERS: Yes, I could assume that such personal differences in the end did bring about the dismissal of Schacht, Blomberg, Neurath, and Fritsch. But I was never present at such conferences and I cannot therefore report what was said. But I do think that they often contradicted the Fuehrer.

DR. LATERNSER: Did Hitler distrust the generals, particularly those of the Army?

LAMMERS. One cannot generalize about that. The Fuehrer was rather reserved in his behavior toward most people. He told each one only what actually concerned him. If you call that distrust, then this distrust was present in his relations with almost all ministers and generals, for nobody was told any more than the Fuehrer wanted him to hear.

DR. LATERNSER: Among the circle of persons who had Hitler's complete confidence was there any military leader?

LAMMERS: I do not believe so. I do not know of one.

DR. LATERNSER: Now one last question: What was the reason for putting most of the occupied territories under Reich commissioners and only a few of them under military administration?

LAMMERS: As a rule it was the Fuehrer's wish that occupied territories be administered by political leaders. He considered generals unsuited for that task, because he accused them-I might put it this way-of having no political instinct.

DR. LATERNSER: Was it not the plan to replace the military administration in Belgium by a civilian commissioner even before 1944?

LAMMERS: That had long been provided for. Preparations had already been made, but the Fuehrer could not decide to put it in force, because he had always been told that in the case of Belgium there were important military reasons for not establishing a civilian administration, since Belgium might possibly become again a zone of combat. So the decision was postponed a year and still longer.

DR. LATERNSER: Thank you. I have no further questions.

THE PRESIDENT: Do the Prosecution wish to cross-examine?

MAJOR F. ELWYN JONES (Junior Counsel for the United Kingdom): Witness, there is one matter upon which I want to ask you-as to the powers of Reich ministers under the Constitution of Nazi Germany. It appears, from your testimony, that they were men with very little authority, or jurisdiction, or power of command of any kind, that they were men of straw. Is that so?

LAMMERS: Well, to say no authority goes too far. I mean in respect to politics...

102

9 April 46

MAJOR JONES: But, they were of an extremely limited character. 'That is what you are saying to the Tribunal, isn't it?

LAMMERS: In the main they were administrative chiefs in their ministries. They were not political ministers who were consulted in regard to large-scale political matters.

MAJOR JONES: Less authority than the ministers of Germany had under the previous Constitution?

LAMMERS: That, beyond doubt, was the case, for under the former Constitution votes were taken and the minister could at least give expression to his authority by voting against something in the Cabinet.

MAJOR JONES: I am now going to put to you some observations which you yourself made in 1938 about the powers of ministers in the Fuehrer's State. I am referring to Document 3863-PS. This is your comment on the Staatsfuehrer in the Third Reich:

"From this basic total concentration of supreme power in the person of the Fuehrer there results, however, no excessively strong and unnecessary centralization of administration in the hands of the Fuehrer. In my general elaborations on the basic concept of the Fuehrer State I have already pointed out that the respect for the authority of the subordinate leader" -Unterfuehrer-"by those beneath him forbids interference with every one of his individual orders or measures. This principle is applied by the Fuehrer in his governmental leadership in such a manner that, for example, the position of the Reich ministers is actually a much more independent one than formerly, even though today the Reich ministers are subordinate to the Fuehrer's unlimited power of command, in respect to their entire official sphere and in respect to every individual measure and decision on the most trivial matters. Eagerness to bear responsibility, resolution, energy, coupled with initiative and real authority, these are the qualities which the Fuehrer demands above all of his subordinate leaders. Therefore he allows them the greatest freedom in the execution of their affairs and in the manner in which they fulfill their tasks. He is far from exercising petty or even nagging criticism."

That is a picture of the power of Reich ministers, which is very different from the picture you are painting to the Tribunal, is it not?

LAMMERS: In my opinion there is not the least contradiction. All I am saying here is that every minister normally had no say in respect to large-scale politics. In his own sphere however, he was the supreme administrative chief. I explained here that as a subordinate leader he had the widest powers, insofar as the Fuehrer

103

9 April 46

had left him those powers, and that the Fuehrer did not narrow-mindedly interfere with these powers. He did not think of doing that. This concerns matters of second and third grade importance; large-scale politics were not discussed here.

MAJOR JONES: You see, your picture of the administration of this vast State of Nazi Germany is a picture of one man deciding all principal matters himself out of his own intuitive powers. Is that the picture you seek to present to this Tribunal?

LAMMERS: Yes. The Minister was the supreme leader in his own sphere and insofar as he was not limited, he had greater powers than any minister previously had had, because the Fuehrer did not interfere in small matters.

MAJOR JONES: In the case of the Defendant Funk, for instance, you say that he was a small man with no authority, with no influence upon the decisions of affairs. Is that so?

LAMMERS: Regarding the large scale political issues he had no authority. But within his department he had considerable influence. But those were matters of second or third grade importance.

MAJOR JONES: But decisions, but as to profound important economic questions like the amount of wealth that was to be extracted from the occupied territories, the Fuehrer's decisions were based upon the representations and recommendations of ministers like Funk, were they not?

LAMMERS: I do not know that. The finance policy in occupied territories was handled by the Minister for the Eastern Territories or the Reich commissioners together with the Reich Finance Minister.

MAJOR JONES: But as to decisions on economic matters concerned with the occupied territories, like recommendations as to occupation costs, as to the technique of purchasing on the black market, men like Funk had to give recommendations for determination of policy on these matters, did they not?

LAMMERS: He cooperated, yes, but he had no authority as Reich commissioner in the occupied territories. The Reich commissioner was directly under Hitler.

MAJOR JONES: All these ministers cooperated in their sphere and were indispensable to the running of this Nazi State, were they not?

LAMMERS: Yes, of course, cooperation was a necessity. This; does not mean that Funk had power to issue orders in the occupied territories. He certainly had none.

MAJOR JONES: You, so far as Funk is concerned, were concerned with making quite clear what his position was in the State. Do you recollect that you were concerned with clearing up the

104

9 April 46

matter as to whether he, Funk, was directly subordinate to the Fuehrer or not? Do you remember that?

LAMMERS: Yes, of course Funk, as Minister, was under the Fuehrer.

MAJOR JONES: And he was advising the Fuehrer himself, was he not?

LAMMERS: He very rarely saw the Fuehrer.

MAJOR JONES: But, in the vital sphere of the financing of rearmament, for instance, he had important decisions to communicate to the Fuehrer and advise the Fuehrer upon, did he not?

LAMMERS: I do not know to what extent the Fuehrer sent for him for I was not present at conferences regarding armament credit and rearmament.

MAJOR JONES: I want to ask you one further question regarding ministerial matters. Ministers without portfolio did continue to receive communications as to the Reich Cabinet, did they not?

LAMMERS: They received texts of subjects up for discussions.

MAJOR JONES: The Defendant Frank, for instance, was a Minister without Portfolio?

LAMMERS: Yes.

MAJOR JONES: He continued to receive communications in his capacity as a Minister without Portfolio?

LAMMERS: He received all the texts which were received by other ministers, provided there was a general distribution.

MAJOR JONES: And indeed, when he was the Governor General of the Government General, he maintained a ministerial office to deal with the incoming matters of the Reich Cabinet?

LAMMERS: Who are you talking about? Frank?

MAJOR JONES: I am now talking about the Defendant Frank, yes.

LAMMERS: Frank had an office in Berlin where ministerial matters were delivered to him.

MAJOR JONES: So that the Reich Cabinet did not actually meet, but it continued to exist, did it not?

LAMMERS: The Reich Cabinet existed only for those legislative and administrative matters which could be handled in writing and by means of circulating letters.

MAJOR JONES: And the members of the Reich Cabinet, dike Frank, continued to receive communications as to the legislative

105

9 April 46

tasks and performances of the Reich Cabinet, even though they were not available for conferences or meetings? LAMMERS: They got such communications.

MAJOR JONES: I think it is time to break off. THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

[The Tribunal recessed until 1400 hours]

106

9 April 46

Afternoon Session

MAJOR JONES: Witness, I want to ask you some questions about the Defendant Frank. Frank is a friend of yours, is he not?

LAMMERS: Frank?

MAJOR JONES: Yes.

LAMMERS: No, I have no very close connection with Frank.

Before answering this question, I would like permission to return to a document which you submitted to me previously, and which I have just now been able to finish reading. I would like to say just two sentences in connection with that document.

MAJOR JONES: If the Counsel for the Defense desire you to return to it, I have no doubt they will draw your attention to the matter in due course.

Will you now deal with the question that I put to you on the Defendant Frank? You say he is not a friend of yours?

LAMMERS: I did not know him particularly well, and I had no closer relation to him than with any of the other people in the Reich Government.

MAJOR JONES: Would it be right to say, like yourself, he was one of the leading Nazi jurists?

LAMMERS: Well, I never really thought of myself as a leading National Socialist jurist.

MAJOR JONES: Are you saying that you were not a leading jurist, or that you were not a National Socialist?

LAMMERS: I considered myself in the first place as a lawyer, an expert on constitutional law, which I have been for many years, in fact, since the year 1920 and under other governments; then I joined the National Socialist Party and naturally in my position in the National Socialist State, I made every effort to propagate the National Socialist idea of law.

MAJOR JONES: And you have said that so far as Hans Frank was concerned, he was a jurist who opposed the arbitrary use of power by the Police.

LAMMERS: He did that in some of his speeches; and the Fuehrer did not approve of these speeches.

MAJOR JONES: He was a man who believed in fair trials, was he?,

LAMMERS: What kind of trials do you mean? I cannot hear you; there is such noise.

MAJOR JONES: Criminal trials.

107

9 April 46

LAMMERS: I did not hear the word.

MAJOR JONES: He was in favor of fair trials and he resisted the arbitrary power of the SS? That is your evidence, is it?

LAMMERS: He told me that repeatedly, and he frequently expressed this view in his speeches, too.

MAJOR JONES: And you say he was a man who favored a liberal administration in the territory of which he was Governor General? Is that so?

LAMMERS: I am sorry, but I cannot follow this. There is so much noise that I can barely hear half of what you are saying; the other half is completely lost.

MAJOR JONES: Well, we will try again. Did you ever hear of the "AB Action," for which Frank was responsible in the Government General?

LAMMERS: That is an action of which I know nothing at all. Someone mentioned this name to me about a week ago and said that Frank was accused of this AB Action. I do not know of any AB Action.

MAJOR JONES: You were getting frequent reports by Frank as to the administration of his territory, were you not?

LAMMERS: Reports were occasionally sent in.

MAJOR JONES: Are you saying that Frank never informed you about the AB Action?

LAMMERS: Yes. I do not know what the AB Action is.

MAJOR JONES: I will remind you. It was an action which resulted in the slaughter of the flower of the Polish race, of the Polish intelligentsia.

LAMMERS: I know nothing about such an action.

MAJOR JONES: If you will look at the Document 2233-PS which has already been exhibited as USSR-223, and which is Frank's diary, you will see the history of this action and perhaps you will then remember something of the circumstances of it.

LAMMERS: What page is that, please?

MAJOR JONES: On Page 8 of the annex to that text. You will see on that page that the action started on the 16th of May with a conference at which Frank, the Governor General, and Reich Minister Dr. SeyssInquart, Secretary of State Bubler, SS Brigadefuehrer Streckenbach, and a Colonel Muller were present. You will see there that Frank decreed, with immediate effect, that the task of carrying out an extraordinary pacification program be given to the Chief of the Security Police, to commence immediately. The

108

9 April 46

more important details of the action were then discussed, and Brigadefuehrer Streckenbach was formally given the necessary authority by the Governor General. The Governor General ordered a detailed report to be made on the 30th of May.

Then, I want you to look at Page 2 of that text, at a report of the conference on the 30th of May, where you, and what is more important, this Tribunal, may be able to judge what kind of jurisprudence Nazi jurists believed in.

You will see, on Page 43 of the English text of 2233-PS, a report of the Police conference on the 30th of May, where Frank and Kruger and others were present.

LAMMERS: I was never present at these conferences of the Government.

MAJOR JONES: I want you to see how far removed Frank, the apostle of decency in administration, was from the true Frank that was Governor General of Poland. You will see there that Frank states, "If I had not the old Nazi guard of fighters of the Police and SS here in the country, with whom could we then carry out this policy"? The report, which the Tribunal is already familiar with, goes on to describe how, now that the German aggressions in the West were in full swing, it was possible for Frank to go through with this action against the Polish intelligentsia.

LAMMERS: If the entries in the Governor General's diary do not agree with what I gathered from the speeches which he made in public, I cannot make any comment. I do not know what he said about this. It may be that many of his speeches contradict other speeches which he made at a different time. What I said concerned only those speeches of which the Fuehrer disapproved, to which he objected, and which led to Frank's being forbidden to make speeches or to have them printed. I was referring to those speeches. I cannot say at the moment what other speeches the Governor General made and what he entered in his diary.

MAJOR JONES: Let us be quite clear. Do you know that the regime of Frank in the Government General was a murderous one?

LAMMERS: I never heard anything about that.

MAJOR JONES: Did you receive any reports from him, or from other sources, of misgovernment in the Government General?

LAMMERS: Complaints about misgovernment in the Government General came in frequently from Frank himself as well as from other departments against Frank.

MAJOR JONES: Did you have knowledge of the utter ruthlessness of Frank's methods in the Government General?

LAMMERS: I only heard half your question.

109

9 April 46

MAJOR JONES: You were receiving reports from Frank as to what he was doing in the Government General, were you not?

LAMMERS: Yes. Reports came in frequently and I immediately passed them on to the Fuehrer as transmit matters. Most of them went to Reichsleiter Bormann or the adjutant office of the Fuehrer. These were reports...

MAJOR JONES: Just a moment. If you deal with the questions I put to you, we shall get on much faster, you know. Just answer the question I put, briefly. I am going to put to you one message which Frank's diary indicated that you received. At Page 41 of the English text of Frank's diary, there is this entry for the 5th of August:

"The Governor General sends the following teletype to Reich Minister Dr. Lammers:

"The city of Warsaw is for the most part in flames. Burning down the houses is also the surest way of depriving the insurgents of hiding places. After this rising and its suppression, it's deserved fate of complete annihilation will rightfully overtake Warsaw or be imposed upon it."

Do you recollect receiving that teletype?

LAMMERS: To my knowledge this report did come inland was immediately transmitted to the Fuehrer. However, I was not concerned in the action itself; that was a military measure and military reports normally went straight to the Fuehrer. In all probability I passed on this teletype message not only to the Fuehrer, but probably also to the Chief of the OKW.

MAJOR JONES: I am not concerned with the action you took in these circumstances; I am concerned with your knowledge, because you have denied to this Tribunal, time and time again, that you ever knew anything of these abominations that were going on under the Nazi regime. So just deal with the question of your knowledge at the moment.

You have said...

LAMMERS: I know that this report was received...

MAJOR JONES: And that was a characteristic Frank message' was it not?

LAMMERS: And that an annihilation action had been decreed in Warsaw and that there was fighting in Warsaw. After all, I had no right to give orders to the Governor General. I could only transmit his report to the Fuehrer. The report was meant for the Fuehrer and not for me personally.

MAJOR JONES: You say that Frank was opposed to the institution of concentration camps. That is your evidence, is it not? Is it your evidence that Frank was opposed to concentration camps?

110

9 April 46

LAMMERS: Yes. Frank himself told me that in principle he was opposed to internment in concentration camps, for he agreed with my view that such a proceeding must at least have a legal basis.

MAJOR JONES: That is what he told you?

LAMMERS: Yes, he told me that. Yes.

MAJOR JONES: Just let me read to you one brief extract from his diary to show why he disapproved of concentration camps. I am reading from Page 45 of the diary. He is referring to the Polish intelligentsia, and he says:

"First, we do not need to deport these elements to the concentration camps in the Reich, because then we should only have annoyance and unnecessary correspondence with their families; instead we shall liquidate matters in the country itself."

Then he goes on to say that:

". . . we do not intend to set up concentration camps in the real sense of the term, here in the Government General. Any prisoners from the Government General who are in concentration camps in the Reich must be put at our disposal for the AB Action, or dealt with there. Any one who is suspected here must be liquidated immediately."

That is why Frank opposed the institution of concentration camps. He believed in immediate murder, did he not?

LAMMERS: It may be that Frank's diaries and his actions do not agree with what he told me, but I only know what he told me to be his opinion of concentration camps. I do not know what he wrote in his diaries nor do I know what he did in practice, I had no right to exercise supervision over the Government General.

MAJOR JONES: You have spoken of the battle between Frank and various other Reich commissioners and Reich ministers and the SS. I suggest to you that the battle between Frank and the SS Brigadefuehrer Kruger was a battle for power, a battle between personalities, and was not connected in any way with Frank's desire to see decency and justice determine the administration of the Government General.

LAMMERS: If you mean that Frank's statements to me do not agree with his actions, you must question Herr Frank on the point. I am not responsible for his actions. I can say only what Herr Frank told me.

MAJOR JONES: You see, you were receiving reports not only from Frank himself but from the SS, were you not?

LAMMERS: A great many reports came in to me and were passed on in the routine way, for I was but a channel for such

111

9 April 46

reports. In any case, reports from the SS in most cases did not go through my office.

MAJOR JONES: You were another of these highly placed post offices on which the Nazi Reich was founded, were you?

LAMMERS: I am sorry, I did not understand that.

MAJOR JONES: Do you remember communicating with Himmler about the situation in the Government General?

LAMMERS: Yes, certainly. I know that Himmler would have liked to remove Governor General Frank from the Government General. He would rather have had some one else as Governor General.

MAJOR JONES: You submitted a report to Himmler on the strength of a discussion you had had with SS General Kruger, did you not?

LAMMERS: I cannot recall a discussion with General Kruger at the moment, unless I am given more exact information as to when it took place.

MAJOR JONES: Will you just look at the Document 2220-PS, which is Exhibit USA-175. That is your report to Himmler. You will see that that report is dated the 17th of April 1943, addressed to Himmler, with reference to the situation in the Government General. I just read some of it; it has not been read before:

"Dear Herr Reichsfuehrer:

"We had agreed at our conference on 27 March of this year that written material should be prepared on the situation in the Government General, on which our intended mutual report to the Fuehrer could be based."

That was the mutual report of the SS and yourself, and then the next paragraph reads, "The material.. ."

LAMMERS: That was a report made on instructions given me

by the Fuehrer to investigate certain complaints made against Frank. A series of complaints against Frank had been received and the Fuehrer had given instructions that Himmler and I should investigate the matter. That is the matter we are concerned with now.

MAJOR JONES: And you and your colleague, Himmler, you see, were actively interested in this matter. I just want you to look further at this report. You will see that in the report itself it is headed, in Paragraph A:

"The tasks of the German administration in the Government General.

"The German administration in the Government General has to fulfill the following tasks:

112

9 April 46

"1. For the purpose of guaranteeing the food supply for the German people, to increase agricultural production and to collect it as completely as possible, to allot sufficient rations to the native population occupied with work important for the war efforts, and to deliver the rest to the Armed Forces and the homeland."

Then it goes on to deal with the difficulties of extracting sufficient manpower and wealth from the territory of the Government General for the benefit of the Third Reich. And then towards the end it deals specifically with the utilization of manpower, and it is to that paragraph that I desire to draw your particular attention. Have you found the paragraph headed, "Mobilization of manpower," dealing with the difficulties that the administration in the Government General was confronted with? I draw your attention to it because it contains this sentence: "It is clear that these difficulties have been increased by the elimination of Jewish manpower."

LAMMERS: Where is that, please?

MAJOR JONES: It is in the paragraph headed, "Mobilization of manpower."

LAMMERS: Yes, but that is not my report.

MAJOR JONES: But you said that in your covering letter that the memorandum was checked with SS Obergruppenfuehrer Kruger, who agreed with it in full. You recollect in your covering letter you indicated that this memorandum had received your consideration. Now, whether you wrote that or not, is not the matter that I am concerned with at the moment. What I want you to explain to the Tribunal is, first of all, did you appreciate that this report contained the sentence, "It is clear that these difficulties of manpower have been increased by the elimination of Jewish manpower?"

LAMMERS: May I please be allowed time to read this document through? I cannot reply to documents several pages long unless I have read them. I find it quite impossible; and I ask for time to read this report which is several pages in length.

MAJOR JONES: You have the time required; but I only want you to concern yourself with one sentence, you see. You can take it that in the last paragraph but one of that report there appears this sentence about the elimination of Jewish manpower, and what I am going to suggest to you is that...

LAMMERS: No-where is that? I have not read this sentence. I have not yet found the place. Where can I find it? Is it at the top or at the bottom of the page? If I may read the whole page, I will find the sentence; I will need a few minutes for this. Can you

113

9 April 46

give me the approximate place? This is evidently Kruger's report and he probably means the further evacuation of the Jews to the East. I do not know what you mean by "elimination." With the best intentions I am not in a position to give an explanation on the spur of the moment of one sentence taken out of a context of 14 pages. It is absolutely impossible.

MAJOR JONES: Are you saying that elimination of Jewish manpower is to be translated as emigration of Jewish manpower?

LAMMERS: I do not know. I will have to read the complete document in order to give you an explanation of the report. There are 14 closely written pages in it, not written by myself; and I do not know what the connection is.

MAJOR JONES: You know, do you not, that Hans Frank himself was in favor of a policy of extermination of the Jewish people?

LAMMERS: I do not know whether he held this view. He told me exactly the opposite, and as a witness I can only tell you what he said to me and not what he said elsewhere.

MAJOR JONES: You see, this Tribunal has had read to it extracts from Frank's diary in which he says that, "My attitude towards the Jews. . ."-and this is found at Page 12 of the German copy-"My attitude towards the Jews is such that I expect them all to disappear." And he says, as to the 31/2 minion Jews in the Government General, that, "One cannot shoot them or poison them, but we will be able to take steps in order to successfully annihilate them. The Government General must become as free of Jews as the Reich is."

Are you saying that Frank did not express similar views to you?

LAMMERS: If Frank made these entries in his diary and if he actually did say that, then it contradicts what he told me. That is all I have to say on that point.

MAJOR JONES: Did you know that Frank's diary indicates that on the 9th of September 1941 there were 31/z million Jews in the Government General and when he makes an entry on the 2d of August 1943, he says that only a few labor companies are left? Did you not know that?

LAMMERS: I do not know that this happened because he told me nothing about it. He himself must account for what he said in his diary. He himself must establish whether he did it or not. I knew nothing about these things.

MAJOR JONES: In view of your translation of "elimination" as "emigration," Frank says in connection with those millions that this Tribunal knows were murdered' "All the others have, let us

114

9 April 46

say, emigrated." Are you using the word "emigrated" in an equally cynical and brutal sense as that?

LAMMERS: I am not in a position to comment on Herr Frank's diary. Herr Frank himself will have to do that.

MAJOR JONES: You, Witness, were from the beginning of this tale of terror involved in assisting in drafting legislation towards achieving the end of racial persecution, were you not? Is that not so? Did you not put your signature to the Fuehrer's decree empowering Himmler to carry out the necessary measures to eliminate from the territory of the Reich racial elements that you, as Nazi, did not approve?

LAMMERS: I do not recall ever signing anything like that.

MAJOR JONES: Well, I will draw your attention to it. It is Document 686-PS, which is Exhibit USA-305. It is the decree of Hitler to strengthen German folkdom. That is the title of it. It is dated the 7th of October.

LAMMERS: Yes, I know of the decree.

MAJOR JONES: I thought it would not surprise you.

LAMMERS: But this says nothing about what you asserted.

MAJOR JONES: Just look at the first clause of it. It reads:

"The Reichsfuehrer SS is responsible, in accordance with my directives:

"1. For finally returning to the Reich all German nationals and racial Germans abroad;

"2. For elimination of the harmful influence of such alien parts of the population as represent a danger to the Reich and the German people."

Then it goes on with, "Formation of new German settlement districts, by resettlement..." and it says:

"The Reichsfuehrer SS is authorized to take the necessary measures to carry out his duties."

You signed that decree, did you not?

LAMMERS: It is correct, but it says nothing about killing Jews. It speaks of the elimination of a harmful influence exercised by alien populations. There is no mention of the elimination of aliens, but only of the elimination of the influence of alien elements of the population; the removal of a person's influence does not mean the removal of the person himself.

MAJOR JONES: Are you, as the head of the Reich Chancellery, the man who knew all the secrets of the Third Reich, saying to this Tribunal that you had no knowledge of the murder of millions and millions who were murdered under the Nazi regime?

115

9 April 46

LAMMERS: I mean to say that I knew nothing about it until the moment of the collapse, that is, the end of April 1945 or the beginning of May, when I heard such reports from foreign broadcasting stations. I did not believe them at the time, and only later on I found further material here, in the newspapers. If we are speaking now of the elimination of a harmful influence that is far from meaning annihilation. The Fuehrer did not say a word about murder; no mention was ever made of such a plan.

MAJOR JONES: I now want you to turn your attention to the Defendant Rosenberg. You have told us that the first you heard of several of the major military operations of the Third Reich, was through the newspapers. Was it from the newspapers that you heard of the Nazi plans to invade the Soviet Union?

LAMMERS: I learned of the war of aggression against Russia only when everything was complete. The Fuehrer never said a word about a war of aggression against Russia before that. He spoke only of military complications with Russia which might be imminent, but I did not interpret that as meaning a war of aggression against Russia.

MAJOR JONES: Did you know that the war between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union was a defensive war on the part of Nazi Germany?

LAMMERS: The Fuehrer never told me anything except what I have already stated here, that troop concentrations had been observed which led us to the conclusion that military complications with Russia might be expected. "I want to be prepared for any eventuality, and therefore Herr Rosenberg is to deal with Eastern questions." That was all I heard and I was completely unaware of the fact that a war of aggression was to be waged against Russia.

MAJOR JONES: Just one minute.

LAMMERS: From various incidents it could be inferred that we had to expect an attack; at least, it was represented to us in that way, as far as we were informed.

MAJOR JONES: But you-you know, Witness, that as early as the 20th of April 1941 Hitler was planning and plotting the details of action against the Soviet Union. Just look at Document 865-PS, Exhibit USA-143, will you? That, as you will see, is a decree of the Fuehrer, dated the 20th of April 1941, and let me remind you that the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany did not take place until the 22d of June. On the 20th of April you signed that decree in which Hitler named Rosenberg as "My Commissioner for the central control of questions connected with the East European region."

116

9 April 46

LAMMERS: Yes, that is correct. I have never testified to anything else. That was the assignment, the first assignment which Rosenberg was given, and on this occasion the Fuehrer spoke of possible military complications with Russia and granted Rosenberg his authority.

MAJOR JONES: Just a minute. Answer the question I am putting to you at the moment. You can give your explanations later. You look further down that Document 865-PS. You see it is a letter from you to Keitel, dated the 21st of April, in which you say:

"Herewith I am sending you a copy of a Fuehrer decree of the 20th of this month by which the Fuehrer appointed Reichsleiter Rosenberg as his Commissioner for the central control of the question of the East European region. In this capacity, Reichsleiter Rosenberg is to make all the necessary preparations for a possible emergency with the greatest speed."

Are you saying that these activities of yours and Rosenberg, at that time, were not connected with aggressive plans on the part of Nazi Germany?

LAMMERS: I most certainly will not say that. By an emergency the Fuehrer meant, as I said before, that the Fuehrer believed that there might be war with Russia. That was the emergency which led to Rosenberg's assignment. There is not a word here about a wear of aggression and, Indeed, there was no question of it.

MAJOR JONES: You know that Rosenberg was in communication with other government departments of the Third Reich, in connection with this preparation for aggression against the Soviet Union, weeks before the invasion took place; do you not?

LAMMERS: Whom is he supposed to have influenced? I did not hear whom he is supposed to have influenced.

MAJOR JONES: Perhaps I was not understood. He was collaborating with other departments of the Third Reich weeks before the invasion happened.

LAMMERS: He may have worked with other departments in carrying out his assignment, but I do not know to what extent or with what purpose. Nor do I know what other assignments he was given by the Fuehrer.

MAJOR JONES: At least you do know that Hitler made clear to Rosenberg before he took office, what the main principles of Nazi policy towards the conquered territories of the Soviet Union was to be, do you not? You attended the conference of Hitler on the 16th of July 1941, when he set out his principles and aim with regard to the Soviet Union?

117

9 April 46

LAMMERS: This happened after the outbreak of war but not before it. Previous to this, there was never any discussion about a war of aggression in my presence.

MAJOR JONES: You said that Rosenberg was a man who believed again in liberal treatment for those whom the Nazi armies conquered, but you were at Hitler's conference in July 1941, in the very first weeks of this man's responsibility, and you heard Hitler in that conference enunciating a program of terror and brutality and exploitation, did you not?

RAMMERS: On 16 July Herr Rosenberg had already raised objections to it.

MAJOR JONES: But they were doubts which did not cause him to leave his post and he continued until the Red Army made his position somewhat uncomfortable in the East, did he not?

LAMMERS: Yes, but he always followed principles of moderation. I have discussed Rosenberg's activities only generally. I cannot testify to all the special measures which he took and I can but tell you what Rosenberg told me, the complaints he made to me personally and what he described to me as his aims. If he acted at all differently, I know nothing about it.

MAJOR JONES: You were familiar with the conflict between Rosenberg and Koch, the Reich Commissioner for the Ukraine, were you not?

LAMMERS: Yes, I know all about that. Rosenberg was always in favor of moderation and reasonable application of al1 political measures. Koch inclined towards a more radical solution.

MAJOR JONES: When you say a "more radical solution," what do you mean by that, "mass murder"?

LAMMERS: No, I do not mean that at all.

MAJOR JONES: But you did in fact know that Koch was a murderer, did you not?

LAMMERS: That Koch was a murderer?

MAJOR JONES: Yes.

LAMMERS: I do not know the particulars. I had no control of it.

MAJOR JONES: I will just draw your attention to them. Look at the Document 032-PS, which will be Exhibit GB-321, the document which has not yet been exhibited. Khakis a report dated the 2d of April 1943, from Rosenberg to Mingler, with a copy to you. It is a report on the murder of the people of the Zuman wooded area so that there could be established a place for Reich Commissioner Koch to hunt in.

118

9 April 46

LAMMERS: I know of this complaint and I even submitted it to the Fuehrer. Herr Rosenberg explained that Reich Commissioner Koch had had a large wooded area cleansed of all towns and villages too because he wanted to hunt there. That was submitted by Rosenberg to the Fuehrer as a complaint.

MAJOR JONES: And this word "cleansed"-does that mean emigration or does that mean murder?

LAMMERS: "Cleanse" means to free the area.

MAJOR JONES: I do not want you to shut this document. I just want you to look at this document because you have denied knowledge that Koch was a murderer. In Paragraph 2 of the report you see this:

"I have just received the following report from an old Party comrade who has worked for 9 months in Volhynia and Podolia with a view to preparing to take over a district commission or a main division in the General District of Volhynia and Podolia. This report reads:

" 'On orders from the highest quarters, steps were taken to evacuate the whole district of Zuman. Germans and Ukrainians both stated that this was done because the entire wooded area of Zuman was to become a private hunting ground for the Reich Commissioner. In December 1942, when it was already bitterly cold, the evacuation was begun. Hundreds of families were forced to pack all their belongings over night and were then evacuated a distance of over 60 kilometers. Hundreds of people in Zuman and its vicinity were shot down with the aid of an entire police company, because they had communist sympathies. None of the Ukrainians believed this. . .' "

Have you not found it, Witness? Because I want you to follow this, you see. Have you found it?

LAMMERS: No, I have not found it yet.

MAJOR JONES: It is very difficult to follow these embarrassing parts of the document, you know.

LAMMERS: Yes, I have found the place.

MAJOR JONES: I will read the last sentence, in order to refresh your memory as to these murders:

"'Hundreds of people in Zuman and its vicinity were shot down with the aid of an entire police company, because they had communist sympathies. None of the Ukrainians believed this; and the Germans were also puzzled by this argument, because even if this was done for the security of the country, it would, at the same time, have been necessary to execute

119

9 April 46

elements infected by communism in other regions. On the contrary it is flatly maintained all over the country that those men were ruthlessly shot down without trial simply because the evacuation was too extensive and could not possibly be carried out in the short time at their disposal and because, in any case, there was not enough space available at the new spot where the evacuees were to be settled."'

Do you mean to say that after reading that report you did not know that Koch WAS a murderer?

LAMMERS: On receiving that report I did everything in my power. The report was immediately submitted to the Fuehrer, and' if It is true, I admit it was murder; but I do not remember this report just now. If he killed these people, he is a murderer; but I am not Herr Koch's judge.

Rosenberg complained very bitterly about this matter and it was immediately passed on to the Fuehrer.

MAJOR JONES: Rosenberg continued in office with this man as one of his commissioners, did he not?

LAMMERS: The Fuehrer asked Bormann and myself to decide; and he tried to console Rosenberg. Rosenberg tried to resign repeatedly but was not able to do so.

MAJOR JONES: I want to turn to another territory so that you can give further information to the Court as to the conditions in the

occupied territories because what I am putting to you generally, you see, is that the battles that were going on there were bathes between ruthless men struggling for power and that there was totally absent from this scene of Nazi control any person who was pressing for human decency, pressing for human pity. You were not pressing for either of those things, were you?

LAMMERS: I did not hear; what would I not initiate? There are continual disturbances on this channel. Will you please repeat the question.

MAJOR JONES: You, in the situation in which you found yourself, were not acting on the side of human decency in this regime, were you?

LAMMERS: I was always on the side of human decency and pity. I have always done such things. I have saved the lives of perhaps one to two hundred thousand Jews.

MAJOR JONES: All you did was to forward annihilation reports to the Himmlers and Bormanns and Hitlers, was that not so?

LAMMERS: I never transmitted annihilation orders.

MAJOR JONES: There is one matter which went through your hands relating to the Defendant Keitel and the ruthless policy that

120

9 April 46

Terboven was carrying out against the Norwegian people. I draw your attention to the document...

LAMMERS: I only asked Herr Keitel to define his point of view and I objected to the Fuehrer against the shooting of hostages. My subordinates can vouch for that.

MAJOR JONES: I just want to draw your attention to Document 871-PS, which will be Exhibit GB-322, which is a letter from Keitel to yourself and is related to the report by Terboven in Document 870-PS, which my learned friend Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe put in in connection with the Defendant Keitel.

Now' you will see that that letter, 871-PS, is a letter from Keitel to yourself and it says in the first paragraph:

"In connection with the problem of checking sabotage in Norway, I agree with the view of the Reich Commissioner for the occupied Norwegian territories to the extent that I expect results from reprisals only if they are carried out ruthlessly and if Reich Commissioner Terboven is authorized to have the offenders shot."

LAMMERS: I submitted that to the Fuehrer expressing at the same time my views on the shooting of hostages; and my representations to the Fuehrer were successful.

MAJOR JONES: You were successful in what respect?

LAMMERS: The Fuehrer, in a discussion in which Terboven participated, expressly stated that the shooting of hostages was not to take place on the scale he and some others wanted. Hostages were to be taken only from the offenders' intimate circle.

MAJOR JONES: So the effect of your intervention was that the murders did not take place on the scale that Terboven wanted to commit them, did it?

LAMMERS: Yes, Terboven wanted hostages shot on a large scale but the Fuehrer did not approve of that and I objected to every shooting of hostages. The officials of the Reich Chancellery know that and can vouch for it.

MAJOR JONES: And as a result...

LAMMERS: Yes, it is true that I received this letter. Matters took the following course: First I received Terboven's request and then I wrote to Field Marshal Keitel and told him that I intended to submit Terboven's request to the Fuehrer. I asked him to comment on it. Then the teletype came from Keitel and the request teas submitted to the Fuehrer.

Terboven's request was watered down. The Fuehrer took the position that the most important thing teas to apprehend the

121

9 April 46

miscreants and hostages were to be taken only in case of necessity. There was no mention of shooting them.

MAJOR JONES: Witness, you know perfectly well that over all the territory where Nazi power ruled hostages were taken, fathers and mothers were killed for the actions of their sons against the Nazi regime. Are you saying you do not know that?

LAMMERS: No, I did not know that for I was not the controller of the occupied territories and I have never been there myself.

MAJOR JONES: But you were receiving regular reports from there and you were the link between the ministers of the occupied territories and Hitler. Just a minute-you were the link between the-now will you please listen to my question? You were the link between the ministers of the occupied territories and Hitler, were you not?

LAMMERS: Not in all cases. A great many of them went through Bormann, especially Terboven. My subordinates in the Chancellery can vouch for that. Terboven constantly avoided sending his reports through me and sent them through Bormann.

MAJOR JONES: You were working hand in hand.

LAMMERS: Yes, I had to collaborate with him.

MAJOR JONES: You were working hand in glove with Bormann, you know, were you not?

LAMMERS: Yes, I had to work with him.

MAJOR JONES: You had to work with him? You were the head of the Reich Chancellery.

LAMMERS: In order to submit proposals to the Fuehrer I had to work through Bormann. I had to collaborate closely with him in order to have the sanction of the Party in countless instances where the sanction of the Party was prescribed, and for that reason I was forced to work closely with Bormann.

MAJOR JONES: Did you find it distasteful to work with Bormann?

LAMMERS: I did not find it distasteful. It was my duty to work with him.

MAJOR JONES: Of course I am suggesting to you, you see, that' the power which you and Bormann exercised was very great.

LAMMERS: Yes; it was also exercised in a very one-sided manner; for Bormann could see the Fuehrer every day and I could see him only once every 6 or 8 weeks. Bormann passed on to me the Fuehrer's decision and had personal interviews with the Fuehrer, but I did not.

122

9 April 46

MAJOR JONES: You were seeking to the very end to maintain your collaboration with Bormann, were you not?

LAMMERS: I had to work with Bormann; that was the only way in which certain things could be brought to the Fuehrer's notice at all. During the last 8 months of the Fuehrer's regime I had no interviews with him and I could only achieve through Bormann the things which I did accomplish.

MAJOR JONES: You wrote to Bormann, you remember, as late as the first of January 1945, a letter, Document D753(a), Exhibit GB-323.

LAMMERS: Yes, I remember. The letter contains-I can tell you that from memory without reading the letter-my complaints about the fact that I was no longer admitted to the Fuehrer's presence and said that this state of affairs could not go on any longer.

MAJOR JONES: And you say in that letter in the last paragraph but one:

"For our former harmonious cooperation has for a long time been a thorn in the flesh of various persons who would like to play us off one against the other."

That is the last paragraph but one of your letter, right at the end of it.

LAMMERS: Where is the place?

MAJOR JONES: The last paragraph but one of your letter, the last sentence but three.

LAMMERS: The sentence before the last?

MAJOR JONES: The one before.

LAMMERS: "In conclusion I would like to say," is that the paragraph you mean?

MAJOR JONES: The sentence before that, "For our former harmonious cooperation..."

LAMMERS: Yes, but I would like to add that at the end I repeated my wish for our cordial personal relations and I repeat that it was a New Year's letter and when I write to some one wishing him luck for the New Year, I cannot write that things went badly the year before; so in order to maintain cordial relations I say that everything went well.

MAJOR JONES: You were not seeking to shift responsibility in this matter to Bormann. You were the link between the occupied territories and Hitler.

LAMMERS: I was; but not exclusively, only for matters of secondary importance. The Reich commissioners were directly responsible to the Fuehrer.

123

9 April 46

MAJOR JONES: I want to ask you some questions now, not about terror which existed in the territory that Germany conquered, but about the terror in Germany itself. You have testified as to the Defendant Frick that as Minister of the Interior he was in effect a man without power, a man of straw. That is the rough effect of your evidence, is it not?

LAMMERS: I said that he had no influence on the Police.

MAJOR JONES: Did you not know that appeals against arrests in concentration camps went to Frick?

LAMMERS: Yes, many cases were referred to Frick.

MAJOR JONES: Do you know whether he exercised his power in any substantial way for the victims who were in those camps? Did you not hear my question?

LAMMERS: I cannot hear it all; I can hear about half of what you say. Other voices keep on interfering on my channel. Perhaps I had better take the earphones off.

MAJOR JONES: No, put them on. Just try again, just put them on, will you? Put your earphones on, will you and just try- patiently, you see, a little patience.

Is it not a fact that Frick was the person to whom petitions for release from concentration camps went?

LAMMERS: Frick received such petitions, of course; but a great many petitions of that kind came to me, too; and I took care of them. I treated them as petitions to the Fuehrer. They were given careful attention and I frequently secured the release of certain people in this way.

MAJOR CONES: But what did Frick do in his capacity as having authority in these matters?

LAMMERS: Frick often passed on such complaints to me to be reported to the Fuehrer. It is impossible for me to know what he did with all the other complaints.

MAJOR JONES: I want you to listen to an affidavit by a Dr. Sidney Mendel, a Doctor of Law, which is Exhibit GB-324 (Document Number 3601-PS). He says that he is a Doctor of Law, that until the end of 1938 he was a member of the Berlin Bar and admitted as an attorney at law to the German courts. His legal residence is now 8520 Elmhurst Avenue, Elmhurst, L.I., State of New York.

In his capacity as attorney he handled numerous concentration camp cases in the years 1933 to 1938. He remembers distinctly that in the years 1934 and 1935 he approached, in several cases, Frick's Reich Ministry of the Interior as the agency superior to the Gestapo

124

9 April 46

for the release of concentration camp inmates. Frick's Ministry had special control functions over concentration camps.

The deponent further states that he informed the Ministry about illegal arrests, beatings, torture, and mistreatment of inmates, but the Ministry declined the release and upheld the decisions of the Gestapo.

That was Frick's attitude towards these matters, was it not?

LAMMERS: I really do not know what steps Frick took with regard to complaints received. You will have to ask Dr. Frick.

MAJOR JONES: But you have testified on his behalf, you see- of Frick. If you now say you know nothing about him, then I shall not trouble you further with the case of the Defendant Frick; but you gave evidence for him, you know.

LAMMERS: I could only speak generally on his attitude on the Police but I cannot possibly know what steps he took in regard to letters which he received.

MAJOR JONES: You said that in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Frick again was a man without power. That was the effect of your evidence, was it not?

LAMMERS: I said then that he was mainly a decorative figure. That does not mean that he received no petitions or requests; but I do not know what he thought fit to do.

MAJOR JONES: You say he was a decorative personality. That is a matter of taste. But one of his functions, at any rate, was that he was the person to decide whether death sentences in his territory were carried opt or not. That is not a small matter for the human beings in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, you know.

LAMMERS: Yes, please delete the word "decorative." I mean more decorative than active, like the head of a state, for instance who usually deals with certain matters only. Frick was in Thai position. He was the head of the German organization and had authority to remit sentences. That was a very important matter, of

course; I do not doubt it.

MAJOR JONES: You know, Witness, perfectly well that it was within Frick's power to reprieve the death sentences that were being carried out in the territory of Bohemia and Moravia, do you; not?

LAMMERS: Yes, certainly that was in his power; there is no doubt about it.

MAJOR JONES: And I suggest to you that Frick did not exercise clemency or influence by moderation, but on the contrary enforcer brutal means against the victims of Nazi administration in that unfortunate part of Europe.

125

9 April 46

LAMMERS: Frick was empowered to use his own judgment in the matter of remitting sentences. I do not know on what principle he based his actions.

MAJOR JONES: You were concerned with Frick and the Ministry of Justice in the drafting of penal laws against Poles and Jews in the annexed Eastern territories, were you not?

LAMMERS: There was a proceeding pending at the Ministry of Justice at one time; and the Ministry of Justice corresponded with me, but I believe nothing ever came of the matter.

MAJOR JONES: You had no part in the drafting of that legislation, did you?

LAMMERS: No, I am not acquainted with it. I believe no special law was issued; as far as I remember, it was left to the Gauleiter to establish laws. I do not know.

MAJOR JONES: The laws were left to the Gauleiter, to the Kochs and the Franks and the Rosenbergs; is that what happened?

LAMMERS: No, we are talking about the provinces of West Prussia and of Posen now; that is what our correspondence was about.

MAJOR JONES: I now want you to answer some questions about Sauckel.

THE PRESIDENT: Shall we adjourn for 10 minutes?

MAJOR JONES: If Your Lordship pleases.

[A recess was taken.]

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Lammers, can you hear what I say?

LAMMERS: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, will you kindly try and answer the questions after they have been put to you and not break into the questions? Try and wait for a moment until the questions have been put because the interpreters and the reporters are finding it very difficult to take down what you say and to interpret what you say.

MAJOR JONES: I want to deal with your relations, for the moment, with Seyss-Inquart. You were receiving reports from him as to his administration in the Low Countries, were you not?

LAMMERS: It was like this: Every three months or so, a general report was sent in and then passed on to the Fuehrer. We also received individual reports.

126

9 April 46

MAJOR JONES: And in the Low Countries, as elsewhere, you know that the object of German administration was to extract and exploit that territory for the German advantage as much as possible, do you not?

LAMMERS: Our aim was naturally to make use of the occupied countries for our war production. I know nothing about any orders for exploitation.

MAJOR JONES: To reduce their standard of living, to reduce them to starvation, that was one of the results of the Netherlands policy. You knew that, did you not?

LAMMERS: I do not believe that we went as far as that. I myself had friends and relatives in Holland and know that people in Holland lived much better than we did in Germany.

MAJOR JONES: I want you to look at the Document 997-PS, which is already Exhibit Number RF-122, which consists of a letter which you sent to Rosenberg, the defendant, enclosing a report given to you by Stabsleiter Schickedanz to the Fuehrer, together with a report delivered by Reich Commissioner Dr. SeyssInquart, about the period from May 29 to July 19, 1940. If you look at Page 9 of your text, Page 5 of the English text, of 997-PS, you will see there is a first statement of the outlines of German economic policy in the Low Countries. You will see the paragraph is marked on your copy, so that your difficulty of finding where these passages are, might be eliminated. You see it reads, "It is necessary to reduce consumption by the population..."

LAMMERS: It goes without saying that in wartime consumption by the population must be reduced. There is no intention of gaining supplies for the Reich.

MAJOR JONES: Just one moment and I will read out the passage to you:

"It was clear that with the occupation of the Netherlands a large number of economic and, in addition, police measures had to be taken. The first of these were intended to reduce the consumption of the population in order, partly to gain supplies for the Reich and, partly, to secure a uniform distribution of the remaining stocks."

That is a very concise statement of the economic policy that SeyssInquart was pursuing towards the Dutch people, is it not?

LAMMERS: Yes, it is also a very reasonable policy. Supplies had to be reduced in order to distribute them equally and to gain some for the Reich. In any case, the report is not mine but was made by Herr Schickedanz, and I do not know if it is correct.

127

9 April 46

MAJOR JONES: But the object of this reduction of consumption of the population was to benefit the Reich so that the territory of the Low Countries should be robbed in order that the Reich should profit. That was the whole policy, was it not?

LAMMERS: That is certainly not here. It says here, firstly, that supplies must be acquired for the Reich; and secondly, that the various supplies must be equally distributed; that means among the Dutch people. There is not a word about a policy of exploitation.

MAJOR JONES: If it please the Tribunal, they have the document and can read the language in which it appears.

[Turning to the witness.] I want you now to turn your mind to the Defendant Sauckel. You, Witness, knew quite well of the vast program of enslavement of the people conquered by the Nazi forces that Sauckel was engaged upon, did you not?

LAMMERS: I have seen Sauckel's program and also the regulations he drew up to enforce it. I did not have the impression that it was a program of slave labor. Sauckel was always very kind and very moderate in his views and he made every effort to recruit the necessary quotas of foreign workmen by means of voluntary enlistment.

MAJOR JONES: Are you suggesting that you thought that the millions of foreign workers that Sauckel dragged into the Reich came there voluntarily?

LAMMERS: They did not all come voluntarily. For instance, they came from France through a compulsory labor law introduced by the French Government. They did not come voluntarily but due to a measure decreed by the French Government.

MAJOR JONES: I want you to look at one of the first reports that you received from Sauckel on his labor program. It is Document 1296-PS, Exhibit Number GB-325. It starts with a letter from Sauckel to you dated the 29th of July 1942:

"Dear Reich Minister,

"I enclose for your information a copy of a report to the Fuehrer and to the Reich Marshal of the Greater German Reich. Hell Hitler! Yours faithfully"-signed-"Fritz Sauckel."

LAMMERS: Yes, this report must have reached me.

MAJOR JONES: Yes. And you must presumably have examined it, did you not?

LAMMERS: Yes, not now; it was submitted to me for information.

MAJOR JONES: And you examined it at the time?

128

9 April 46

LAMMERS: I assume that I read it, that I glanced through it quickly. It was of no further interest to me.

MAJOR JONES: You will see in the first page of the report itself that it indicates, for instance, that in the period from April to July 1942, which was the first period of activity of Sauckel as Plenipotentiary General for Manpower, he had obtained a total of 1,639,794 foreign workers, and of those you see that 221,009 were Soviet Russian prisoners of war. You saw that, did you not?

LAMMERS: I probably read it. I had no reason to object to it. Sauckel was not under my orders. He was really under the Four Year Plan, as the signature here shows; but for all practical purposes he was immediately under the Fuehrer. He sent the reports straight to the Fuehrer, and the only reason why I myself did not pass this report on to the Fuehrer was because I knew that the same report had reached the Fuehrer via Reichsleiter Bormann. Otherwise I had nothing at ale to do with this matter.

MAJOR JONES: But you knew perfectly well that it was wickedly wrong, did you not, to compel soldiers that had been captured in battle to go to work against their own country?

LAMMERS: It was Sauckel's job to arrange that with the offices with which he worked. I never bothered about this question. That was a matter for Sauckel to arrange with the appropriate departments, with the Wehrmacht, and possibly, in respect to international law, with the Foreign Office. Moreover, I see no mention of prisoners of war here.

MAJOR JONES: I do not want to suggest that you are...

LAMMERS: I have not yet read anything about prisoners of war.

MAJOR JONES: Just look at the first page of the report. There is no mystery about this, you know. You can read German perfectly easily.

LAMMERS: Yes, but I cannot read reports of several pages in one minute.

MAJOR JONES: Just look at the first page of the report.

LAMMERS: Yes, now I see it.

MAJOR JONES: And you knew it at the beginning of the questioning of this matter... [The witness attempted to interrupt.] Just a minute, if you please. When I am speaking would you mind waiting until I have finished before you interrupt. Otherwise the translation machinery is not able to offer a prompt translation. You see from that report, quite clearly, do you not, that in the very first 4 months of Sauckel's career as a slave driver, he obtained Z1,009 Soviet prisoners of war to work in this labor machine?

129

9 April 46

LAMMERS: The details did not interest me. I had no authority to supervise Sauckel. A report was sent in stating how he had done this. As to whether he had a right to do it, that was a question which he had to settle in agreement with the appropriate departments. I did not investigate the matter because the report was only sent to me for information.

MAJOR JONES: You have testified on Sauckel's behalf that he resisted the suggestion that the SS should work in this sphere of labor personnel Did you not say that?

LAMMERS: No, I did not say that. I merely said that he did not want to have the SS alone, but that he wanted support from any executive authority which was available at the moment; it is obvious, of course, that in the partisan regions this would be mainly Police and SS.

MAJOR JONES: And quite simply, you knew that Sauckel was asking for more help from the SS to get more labor. That is what he was after, was it not?

LAMMERS: Yes. Otherwise he could not work in these regions, if order was not maintained.

MAJOR JONES: Just look at the Document 1292-PS, which is Exhibit USA-225 and RF-68. That is the report of a conference on the allocation of labor in 1944, the 4th of January, the minutes of which you wrote yourself, so that if anything you say is to be relied upon, that is your report. You will see that at that conference Hitler was there, Sauckel, Speer, Keitel, Milch, Himmler.

LAMMERS: The new work program for 1944 was made out and I was instructed to inform the departments concerned. 1 took part in Ibis conference only because it concerned a measure in which the respective fields of a number of offices had to be made known. Otherwise I would not have participated in this at all.

MAJOR JONES: And in that conference Hitler said that Sauckel must get at least another 4 million workers for the manpower pool, did he not?

LAMMERS: That is possible. The Fuehrer asked more of Sauckel than Sauckel thought he could provide.

MAJOR JONES: And Sauckel said that whether he could do that depended primarily on what German enforcement agents will be made available; his project cannot be carried out with domestic enforcement agents. And then your record goes on:

"The Reichsfuehrer SS explained that the executives put at his disposal were very few in number but that he"-that is to say, Himmler-"would try to help on the Sauckel project by increasing their number and working them harder. The

130

9 April 46

Reichsfuehrer SS immediately made 2,000 to 2,600 men from the concentration camps available for air raid precautions in Vienna."

That is to say, it is clear from that report, is it not, that Sauckel was seeking more help from the SS and that Himmler was saying he would do his best to help him? Is that not so?

LAMMERS: There is no doubt of that, but Sauckel did not want to have help from the SS only, he wanted to get any help he needed in the country in question by the appropriate service, as I said before, the Feldcommandantur, for instance.

MAJOR JONES: There is a last document which I want to put to you on Sauckel. It is Document 3819-PS, Exhibit Number GB-306, a small part of which was read into the record by Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe. That is a report from Sauckel to Hitler, dated 17 March 1944. I take it that you probably saw a copy of that report, did you not?

LAMMERS: I do not know.

MAJOR JONES: Just look at it, because it is most illuminating on the attitude of Sauckel toward the assistance of the SS and the German Police.

LAMMERS: Yes; this is dated 11 July 1944. I have one here which is dated 11 July 1944.

MAJOR JONES: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Elwyn Jones, he is saying that he has in his hand a document of 11 July 1944. The document you referred to was 17 March, was it not?

MAJOR JONES: Yes.

[Turning to the witness.] You have got your minutes of the conference. Is there not attached to it a report of Sauckel dated 17 March?

LAMMERS: There is a report attached here dated 5 April.

MAJOR JONES: I shall not proceed with that part of the document, My Lord.

[Turning to the witness.] If you will turn to the document dated 12 July, that will do for my present purposes. You remember that is your own report of the conference of 12 July 1944 on the question of ~ the increased procuring of foreign manpower. And you opened that conference, Witness, did you not?

LAMMERS: I was always a neutral agent. If there were any differences of opinion, I offered my service as go between.

MAJOR JONES: What were you neutral about, Witness?

131

9 April 46

LAMMERS: I was not in charge of an office. The other departments had their own departmental interests.

MAJOR JONES: You were not being an honest broker between Sauckel and Himmler, were you?

LAMMERS: I frequently had to try to effect a compromise between various people, including on occasion Himmler or Sauckel, when a dispute arose; and I think I need not blush to say that in that case I was an honest broker. I wanted to bring about an agreement between these two so that it would not be necessary to involve the Fuehrer in such differences of opinion.

MAJOR JONES: Just look at the manner in which you opened that conference. You said there-it is the second sentence under your name:

"He limited the subject of the discussion to an examination

of all the possible means of making good the present deficit of foreign workers."

Then you say in the next question:

"The question of whether and in what form greater compulsion can force people to accept work in Germany must remain in the foreground."

The operative word is, you know, "compulsion."

LAMMERS: Yes; they were obviously thinking of female labor and of a reduction of the age limits set for juvenile workers.

MAJOR JONES: Just go on to the next sentence of your statement:

"In this connection we must consider how the executives,

whose inadequacy is the subject of strong complaints by the Plenipotentiary for Allocation of Labor, can be strengthened on the one hand by the exercise of influence on the foreign governments and on the other by the expansion of our executive forces and the intensified use of the Wehrmacht, the Police, or of other German services."

That is how you opened that conference, you know.

LAMMERS: That is quite correct. These were the problems that had to be discussed.

MAJOR JONES: To produce more forced labor and discover by what terrorizing by the police and what pressures by Ribbentrop the results could be achieved? That was the object of the conference, was it not?

LAMMERS: No, our object was not to consider how we might terrorize people but how we could carry out official decrees with the necessary executive power to back them up. Surely no terrorist

132

9 April 46

measures are implied in saying that something must be done in a matter. I could describe a case in France, for instance. The workers recruited by Sauckel in France were brought to the railroad station by French executives for transportation as prescribed by the French compulsory labor decree. Everything was in order...

MAJOR JONES: Just answer my questions, will you? You are going on to a different matter.

LAMMERS: I did not suggest terrorist measures. Some compulsion must be exercised by every state authority; but to talk of compulsion is by no means terrorism, or a crime, or violation.

MAJOR JONES: I just draw your attention to the contribution of General Warlimont in this discussion, where he said that:

"The troops assigned to fighting the partisans will take over, in addition, the task of raising manpower in the partisan areas. Everyone who cannot account satisfactorily for his presence in these areas is to be seized."

And you said:

"On further inquiry by the Reich Minister, Dr. Lammers," -this is on Page 10 of the English record-"as to whether members of the population fit for employment could not be withdrawn along with the troops, Colonel Saas, Plenipotentiary for Italy, stated that Field Marshal Kesselring had already decreed that the population of an area extending to a depth of 30 kilometers behind the front was to be "captured'."

The whole emphasis of that conference was on the use of force, was it not, and the collaboration of the executive agencies of the State to procure the necessary forced labor for the Reich?

LAMMERS: A certain degree of coercion was to be applied undoubtedly.

MAJOR JONES: There are only two more matters, My Lord, which I feel that it is my duty to put to the witness.

[Turning to the witness.] On the question of the massacre of the Jewish people, you said in your evidence before the adjournment that you had saved 200,000 Jews yourself. Do you remember saying that to the Tribunal?

LAMMERS: Yes.

MAJOR JONES: You saved them from extermination, you meant, I take it?

LAMMERS: No. I merely saved them from evacuation and nothing else. I found out afterwards, of course-now-that in actual fact I really did save them from death. You have...

133

9 April 46

MAJOR JONES: You know you have testified - just a moment- you have testified to the Tribunal as to a conference which took place early in 1943 where you were invited by the Reichssicherheitshauptamt to send a representative to the conference dealing with the Jewish problem. Do you remember saying that to the Tribunal?

LAMMERS: Yes, the matter was discussed. It was a conference of experts.

MAJOR JONES: That was the famous conference which Eichmann presided over, do you remember?

LAMMERS: That I do not know. I did not attend it myself; I merely sent a subordinate.

MAJOR JONES: The invitation to attend the conference, that came from Kaltenbrunner, did it not?

LAMMERS: The invitation came from the RSHA.

MAJOR JONES: Not from Kaltenbrunner personally.

LAMMERS: I do not know.

MAJOR JONES: And you sent a representative to the conference, did you not?

LAMMERS: Someone had to go as my representative; and he had specific orders simply to listen and not to make any comments during the conference, because I reserved for myself the right to report this to the Fuehrer.

MAJOR JONES: Was your representative at this conference instructed by you to take no attitude? Was that what you said to the Tribunal?

LAMMERS: He was given express orders not to make any comments. My State Secretary, who gave him the instructions, can confirm this. He could not do so in any case, since no decisions were reached. But he was not to make any comments on his own initiative because I intended to discuss this question, which was at that time described as "the final solution of the Jewish problem," with the Fuehrer. For this reason, I deliberately gave the order, "No comments!"

MAJOR JONES: You sent Gottfried Bohle as your representative to that conference, did you not?

LAMMERS: I did not send him; my State Secretary sent him, and he was not even the competent expert, but was accidentally. . .

MAJOR JONES: Just answer my questions, briefly, won't you? Gottfried Bohle made a report to you, did he not?

LAMMERS: I received a short written report, not a verbal report.

134

9 April 45

MAJOR JONES: And did that report indicate to you that Eichmann was planning extermination?

LAMMERS: No, there was nothing about that; and we did not know about it. At least, I cannot remember that there was anything in it that would have caused me to take any immediate action.

MAJOR JONES: Yesterday you told the Tribunal that concentration camps were not mentioned in the Reich budget. Do you remember saying that?

LAMMERS: That what was included?

MAJOR JONES: Yesterday...

LAMMERS: I do not know. I did not find or read anything about it.

MAJOR JONES: Yesterday you told the Tribunal that nothing was mentioned in the Reich budget about concentration camps.

LAMMERS: I did not find anything and I did not read anything on that subject. I do not know anything about it. Such matters did not interest me much anyway.

MAJOR JONES: You are saying now that you do not know whether there were any references to concentration camps in the budget or not?

LAMMERS: I could not say for certain. I do not remember any specific mention of the concentration camps in the budget.

MAJOR JONES: Does it surprise you to know that for the 1939 budget for the armed SS and concentration camps in the Ministry of the Interior budget there was a sum of 104,000,000 marks and 21,000,000 marks set out as expenses for these items? Did you know that?

LAMMERS: I did not study every item of the budget drawn up by the Minister of the Interior. I did not read any budgets at all. I was interested only in my own budgets in the Reich Chancellery; I did not read those of other offices. I had no reason to do so.

MAJOR JONES: Did you know that there were over 300 concentration camps in Nazi Germany?

LAMMERS: No, I did not know that.

MAJOR JONES: How many did you, as head of the Reich Chancellery, know of the existence of?

LAMMERS: I only knew about a few.

MAJOR JONES: Only a few.

LAMMERS: Three at the most.

MAJOR JONES: Are you solemnly, on oath...

135

9 April 46

LAMMERS: But I did know that others existed.

MAJOR JONES: Are you solemnly, on oath, saying to the Tribunal that you, in the very center of the web of Nazism, did not know of the existence of more than three concentration camps?

LAMMERS: Yes, I do mean to say so. I was not in the very center of Nazism; I was the head administrative official who did administrative work for the Fuehrer. I did not concern myself with concentration camps. I knew of some concentration camps, that is of two or three; and it was clear to me that others must exist. I cannot say more under oath.

MAJOR JONES: I put it to you that you knew quite well of this regime of terror but continued to serve in it until the last. Is that not so?

LAMMERS: What regime of terror? The concentration camp system existed. I knew that; everyone knew that.

MAJOR JONES: But that did not trouble your conscience, I take it.

LAMMERS: That they existed? I submitted my proposals with regard to the concentration camps to the Fuehrer; and he excluded me from the entire question as early as 1934 after I had made suggestions to him about concentration camps, and turned the whole matter over to Himmler to whom I had to transmit all complaints about concentration camps. I had nothing whatever to do with concentration camps except when I received complaints which I considered as being addressed to the Fuehrer. I pursued them as far as was possible and had them remedied in part.

MAJOR JONES: You, of course, were an SS Obergruppenfuehrer. Perhaps you did not recognize terror when you heard and saw it.

LAMMERS: I was SS Obergruppenfuehrer, which was an honorary rank, just as I said before of SeyssInquart. I performed no official duties in the SS; I had no command, no authority, or anything.

MAJOR JONES: And you profited considerably, you and your Nazi colleagues, from this regime, did you not? You, as the Comptroller of the Reich Chancellery funds, can probably assist us in that matter.

LAMMERS: What did I have? Considerable what?

MAJOR JONES: Funds, money, marks, Reichsmark.

LAMMERS: Yes. I had an income, naturally.

MAJOR JONES: And you were responsible for distributing..

LAMMERS: Not as an SS Fuehrer.

136

9 April 46

MAJOR JONES: As Reich Chancellor you were responsible for distributing the largess of the Nazis among yourselves, were you not?

LAMMERS: I was in charge of the Fuehrer's funds; and on his instructions I made the necessary payments out of those funds. I could not spend money as I pleased.

MAJOR JONES: You, as Reich Chancellor, delivered a million Reichsmark to Dr. Ley, did you not?

LAMMERS: That was a donation that the Fuehrer specifically granted to Ley. I did not do that on my own initiative.

MAJOR JONES: And Ribbentrop was another recipient of a million, was he not?

LAMMERS: He received a million in installments, first one half and then the other.

MAJOR JONES: And Keitel was another millionaire, was he not? He received a million, did he not?

LAMMERS: He received a sum of money and an estate, because the Fuehrer renewed the practice of the old Prussian kings of granting land and money to his generals.

MAJOR JONES: And you yourself received 600,000 marks, did you not?

LAMMERS: I received 600,000 marks on my 65th birthday. I received this sum because I had never received anything in my previous positions, since I had never asked for it-also because I had twice been bombed out and had no house or property of my own. The Fuehrer wished me to buy a small house.

MAJOR JONES: That is all.

If your Lordship will allow me to clarify the exhibit numbers of the documents I have put in: Document 3863-PS is Exhibit GB-320; 2220-PS is USA-175; 686-PS is USA-305; 865-PS is USA-143; 032-PS is GB-321; 871-PS is GB-322; D753(a) is GB-323; 3601-PS is GB-324; 997-PS is RF-122; 1296-PS is GB-325; 1292-PS was USA-225 and RF-68; 3819-PS was GB-306.

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Elwyn Jones, have you put in the budget which shows the figures that you gave us?

MAJOR JONES: It is on Page 1394 of the 1939 budget. For the purposes of the record, it will be Exhibit GB-326 (Document 3873-PS).

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.

MAJOR JONES: The Prosecution will have an extract made from this vast volume, My Lord, for the purposes of the court document.

137

9 April 46

THE PRESIDENT: Very well

Colonel Pokrovsky, the Tribunal thought that there was going to be only one cross-examination of the witnesses who were not defendants.

COL. POKROVSKY: The Soviet Delegation wished to question the witness Lammers. It was suggested that the interrogation be split up into two parts, some of the questions to be asked by the British Delegation and the others by the Russian Delegation.

MAJOR JONES: If your Lordship pleases...

THE PRESIDENT: Was this the one case that was mentioned?

MAJOR JONES: This is the exceptional case, My Lord, and the agreement was made before the new regime of cross-examination was introduced. My colleague, Colonel Pokrovsky, and I did agree to share the work; and there are very few matters which Colonel Pokrovsky has indicated which he desires to put; and that was in agreement between the Prosecution.

1~; PRESIDENT: Very well.

COL. POKROVSKY: On 6 November 1945 you were interrogated by a representative of the Soviet Prosecution. Do you remember this interrogation?

LAMMERS: Yes, I do remember an interrogation by a representative of the Soviet Prosecution.

COL. POKROVSKY: You testified at the time that Hitler . . .

LAMMERS: Yes. I testified.

COL. POKROVSKY: You do not know what I am talking about, so do not hurry.

Now, you testified that Hitler authorized you to render your help to Rosenberg. You remember that, do you not?

LAMMERS: Yes, Rosenberg was to take over the political work in connection with Eastern problems.

COL. POKROVSKY: That is correct. What was your help to Rosenberg?

LAMMERS: To begin with, it only meant that I had an interview with him at which he discussed his plans for a possible administration to be established. The Fuehrer had given him instructions to consider how, in the case of war with Russia, the country might be occupied and administered. For this Herr Rosenberg . . .

COL. POKROVSKY: Witness, wait a moment. I did not ask you what the Fuehrer asked Rosenberg to do. I am asking you, what did the Fuehrer authorize or ask you to do? You said, "To help Rosenberg." Exactly what form did your help to Rosenberg take? You

138

9 April 46

assisted in... [The witness attempted to interrupt.] Wait a minute. Did you participate in the development-wait a moment, please listen to my question. Did you participate in working out a plan for the economic organization of the Eastern territories? Do you understand me?

LAMMERS: I did not take part in working out the organization of the economy.

COL. POKROVSKY: I want you to take a look at Document Number 1056-PS. Do you recall this document now?

[The document was handed to the witness.]

LAMMERS: I must see it first.

COL. POKROVSKY: Yes, that is the reason why it was given to you.

LAMMERS: I do not seem to recognize this document, nor do I believe that I prepared it. It is obviously a plan drawn up by Herr Rosenberg.

COL. POKROVSKY: In other words, you affirm that you did not know anything; and you do not know anything at all about this document?

LAMMERS: It is possible that Herr Rosenberg handed me a plan of the kind, but at the moment I cannot say whether I ever had these 30 pages in my hands or not. I do not know.

COL. POKROVSKY: Yesterday you testified before the Tribunal -and your testimony was very detailed-in regard to the economic administration of Eastern territories. How could you give any truthful testimony if you did not know anything at all about this basic document? This particular document really defines and determines the structure of the administration in territories which were under Rosenberg. Do you understand me?

LAMMERS: I cannot give any opinion as to what is contained in this document. I cannot form an opinion of a document of 30 pages in one moment here. Please let me have the document so that I read the whole of it. I do not believe that I ever had this document in my hands. Rosenberg attended to organization in the East. I simply cooperated in a decree, a basic decree, in which Rosenberg was given the authority in the East. I was not at all interested in the details.

COL. POKROVSKY: If your memory is so weak in regard to this document, then would you please be good enough to look at another document? It is less than 30 pages long. Now, you will be shown a document signed by yourself. It deals with the question of the Soviet prisoners of war. It is Exhibit USSR-361. There is one

139

9 April 46

passage marked in this document which says that the Soviet prisoners of war should not be treated according to general rules, but be put under the charge of the Ministry for the Eastern Territories. Have you found the place? [There was no response.] Witness Lammers, I am asking you . . .

LAMMERS: I have not found the place.

COL. POKROVSKY: Take a look at the second page.

LAMMERS: The appendix?

COL. POKROVSKY: Yes, yes, in the appendix. For your convenience, the place Is marked with a pencil.

LAMMERS: Not here. There is no marked passage in the one I have.

THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Pokrovsky, the document I have-if it is the same one, 073-PS is in paragraphs. Might you refer him to the paragraphs?

COL. POKROVSKY: Just a minute, please.

Unfortunately the paragraph is not mentioned in the excerpt have. However, the exact place will be shown to the witness. The place in the document was indicated to the witness.]

This place is really marked with a pencil. He simply did not notice it.

[Turning to the witness.] Did you find it?

LAMMERS: Yes, I have it now.

COL. POKROVSKY: And now have you convinced yourself that it is marked with a pencil?

LAMMERS: Yes, the Foreign Office. .

COL. POKROVSKY: I am not asking you about that. I am interested in another place where it says, "The exception to this regulation is the Soviet prisoners. . ." Did you find it?

LAMMERS: Yes.

COL. POKROVSKY: "The exception to this regulation is the Soviet prisoners of war"-that is what I am interested in-"who are under the charge of the Minister administering Occupied Eastern Territories, since the general Geneva Convention does not..."-and so forth.

Did you find the place?

LAMMERS: Yes, I have the place.

COL. POKROVSKY Did you sign this document?

LAMMERS: I did not sign this document, because it has been drawn up by the Foreign Office. I simply signed a letter forwarding

140

9 April 46

this memorandum from the Foreign Office to Minister Rosenberg for his information.

COL. POKROVSKY: Also, with a covering note. You also sent your letter...

LAMMERS: In this covering note I say that I am enclosing a memorandum from the Foreign Of lice, "The Foreign Of lice comments on your letter, et cetera; and I may inform you of this." I simply acted as intermediary and forwarding office. I did not draw up the memorandum or sign it.

COL. POKROVSKY: Then do I understand you, in this way, that you actually substantiated the authenticity of this document, the document that went through your hands?

LAMMERS: I do not know; I can only substantiate...

COL. POKROVSKY: How could you not say it? You told us you were forwarding it; you gave this document and forwarded it to somebody else. Did you send it to some address?

LAMMERS: I sent on the document signed. I signed the letter informing Herr Rosenberg of the attitude taken by the Foreign Of lice. Whether the enclosure is authentic or not, I do not know.

COL. POKROVSKY: I am quite satisfied with this answer.

On 8 April, here before the Tribunal, you stated that the solution of the Jewish problem was referred by Hitler to Goering and Heydrich and later on to Heydrich's successor, Kaltenbrunner. Now, I want you to tell us exactly how Goering, Heydrich, and Kaltenbrunner participated in solving the Jewish problem.

LAMMERS: I only knew that a Fuehrer order was transmitted by Reich Marshal Goering to Heydrich, who was at that time head of the RSHA. I believe that it was then transferred to Kaltenbrunner's authority. This order was called, "Final Solution of the Jewish Problem," but no one knew what it dealt with or what the term meant. In the period which followed I made several efforts to clarify the real meaning of the term "final solution" and what was to happen. I attempted yesterday to explain this question, but I was not allowed to say all I wanted.

COL. POKROVSKY: Well, it is not sufficiently clear exactly through whom and how-in what way-you attempted to clarify the meaning of the expression, "final solution of the Jewish problem."

To whom did you appeal? Whom did you ask?

LAMMERS: At first I appealed to Himmler and asked him what the meaning of it was. Himmler told me that the Fuehrer had ordered him to evacuate the Jews who were still in Germany, and this led to a number of problems referred to as the "Final Solution of the Jewish Problem." That is what I said yesterday.

141

9 April 46

COL. POKROVSKY: Witness, wait a minute. You said that Hitler charged Goering and Heydrich, and subsequently Kaltenbrunner, with the solution of this problem. Did you address yourself to Goering in regard to this? to Heydrich and to Kaltenbrunner? Did you ask them that question, the question in which you told me you were interested?

LAMMERS: No, I cannot remember doing that, because I believed that Goering was merely transmitting the Fuehrer's order. I have no knowledge of Keitel's participation; I did not hear of that until today.

COL. POKROVSKY: Who has been talking of Keitel? He was not mentioned at all; it was Heydrich.

LAMMERS: Heydrich had this assignment. I discovered from the reports of my assistants that such an assignment existed. I was interested in ascertaining what kind of assignment it was, and I applied to Himmler for information.

COL. POKROVSKY: And so you were not successful?

LAMMERS: I did not see a written order.

COL. POKROVSKY: Yesterday you said, "all except me" expressed their opinion on Jewish problems. Who are all these, "all" except you? You remember that testimony yesterday?

LAMMERS: I testified yesterday that I had spoken to Himmler about this question and that I reserved for myself the right to report to the Fuehrer. I also testified that I had this interview with the Fuehrer but that the Fuehrer was very difficult to persuade in these matters. I also testified yesterday that there were rumors about Jews being killed which led me to make 'investigations. I further testified yesterday that these rumors, as far as I could find out, were gossip. So there was nothing else for me to do but to go to the Fuehrer in this matter-first to go to Himmler, and then to the Fuehrer.

COL. POKROVSKY: Witness, I do not ask you what you said yesterday. I do not want to hear your testimony for the second time. What I am interested in, and what I want to clarify at the moment, is the fact that you mentioned yesterday that, "All except me expressed their opinion in regard to the Jewish problem." "All" means whom? Name them. Whom do you mean? And answer my question directly.

LAMMERS: I do not understand the question "all."

COL. POKROVSKY: I will repeat this question for the third time, so that you can understand it better: Yesterday you said, when you were testifying on the solution of the Jewish problem,

142

9 April 46

"All except me expressed their opinion and defined their attitude in regard to the Jewish problem. I was also asked to give my opinion." Do you remember it now?

LAMMERS: Yes, I remember that.

COL. POKROVSKY: Very well.

LAMMERS: The word "all" refers to all the departmental representatives invited to attend their conference. The heads of the departments concerned were invited to attend all these RSHA conferences. That is what "all" applies to.

COL. POKROVSKY: Which of the defendants here were present?

LAMMERS: There were no ministers present at all. This was merely a conference of experts. I was not there. I do not know who attended this conference.

COL. POKROVSKY: You were present at the conference in Hitler's quarters on 16 July 1941? You underhand what conference I mean, do you not? That is the one which was for the purpose of considering objectives of war against the U.S.S.R. Do you understand it now?

LAMMERS: Yes.

COL. POKROVSKY: Was Keitel present at the conference?

LAMMERS: To my knowledge, yes.

COL. POKROVSKY: Do you not remember what Keitel said about the aims of the war against the U.S.S.R.?

LAMMERS: I cannot remember whether he mentioned that subject.

COL. POKROVSKY: And did you stay until the end of the conference?

LAMMERS: I assume I stayed to the end.

COL. POKROVSKY: And Keitel, too? And Keitel also stayed until the end?

LAMMERS: I cannot remember that now. I assume that he did but he may have left earlier.

COL. POKROVSKY: You cannot be positive about it?

LAMMERS: No, I cannot be certain.

COL. POKROVSKY: On 13 October 1945, you were interrogated by a lieutenant colonel of the American army., and on that occasion you testified that Rosenberg was appointed Minister for the Eastern Territories according to the personal wish of the Fuehrer. Do you remember this testimony?

143

9 April 46

LAMMERS: I know that I testified.

COL. POKROVSKY: Further, you testified, on the same day and during the same interrogation, that you did not recommend Rosenberg for this post, since you had certain objections in regard to his candidacy. What were the objections against Rosenberg's candidacy?

LAMMERS: There were many objections to Rosenberg's appointment. These were specifically raised by Bormann. Reichsleiter Bormann did not want to have Rosenberg in this position.

COL. POKROVSKY: Tell us something about your objections. What were your own objections?

LAMMERS: I submitted the question to the Fuehrer at the time whether, if military complications arose, it was necessary to have such a man at all for the East; and, if so, whether Rosenberg was the right man to organize the matters.

COL. POKROVSKY: That was in April 1941?

LAMMERS: I no longer remember; it was in the spring.

COL. POKROVSKY: On orders from Reich Minister Rosenberg, forced labor was introduced, forced labor for the Jewish population of the Eastern regions, on 16 August 1941. Everyone of Jewish origin between the ages of 14 and 60 had to perform forced labor. If they refused to work they were liable to be executed. Do you know about this order or not?

LAMMERS: I did not know of it. I cannot recall it.

COL. POKROVSKY: Take a look at this document and try to remember.

Mr. President, this document is printed on Page 50 of the second part of Goering's Green Folder, which is already submitted to the Tribunal under Document Number EC-347.

LAMMERS: I cannot remember this document.

COL. POKROVSKY: All right. We will let that go. Take a look at another document. Perhaps your memory will be somewhat better in regard to this document.

THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Pokrovsky, in that last document that you were referring to, have these paragraphs of the ordinance been read into the record?

COL. POKROVSKY: I would not be quite positive about that, Mr. President; I do not know whether this particular paragraph was read into the record. All the second part of Goering's Green Folder was presented to the Tribunal in evidence and listed under Exhibit USA-320 (Document Number EC-347). The document about the preliminary investigation bears the Number EC-347. This part was

144

9 April 46

read into the record. I think that inasmuch as the witness does not remember this document now, we shall touch upon it when it is needed more urgently at the interrogation of another defendant.

Now, we will take care of something else.

Turning to the witness.] Take a look at the Fuehrer directive of 29 August 1941. This document, of course, will be easy to remember, since your signature appears on it. This is a directive in regard to the economic measures in the Occupied Eastern Territories.

This document, Your Honors, is also one of the documents of the second part of Goering's Green Folder. It is presented to the Tribunal in English.

[Turning to the witness.] Now, do you recognize this document?

LAMMERS: Yes, I signed this document. This is a measure which the Fuehrer decreed at the Reich Marshal's suggestions.

COL. POKROVSKY: Very well; and how do you explain the fact that Keitel was signing directives or orders like this one, concerning general governmental matters of the Reich which were not of a military nature? How do you explain this? Why should it be signed by Hitler, Keitel, and Lammers?

LAMMERS: This was a Fuehrer decree; and Fuehrer decrees were attested by myself and also signed by Keitel, as Chief of the Own, if the Wehrmacht was in any way interested. They might also be signed by Bormann as a third member, if Party interests were involved. That caused Bormann's signature . . .

COL. POKROVSKY: Bormann's signature is not here. It is signed by Hitler, Keitel, and Lammers. Is that right?

LAMMERS: It was signed first by Keitel because it dealt with the occupied regions in the East.

COL. POKROVSKY: In other words, Keitel was responsible for all legislation in occupied territories; is that so? Do you hear my question? Was the Defendant Keitel responsible for all legal measures in occupied territories? Do you hear my question?

LAMMERS: The signature does not involve any responsibility . . .

COL. POKROVSKY Then why his signature and what was the purpose of his signature? Just for decorative purposes?

LAMMERS: Since he was interested or concerned in the matter, he attested that, along with us, but to speak of responsibility . . .

COL. POKROVSKY: You should know better than anybody else. All the same it is not quite clear why there was any necessity to have his signatures on the document; and his signature is right above yours. What does it deal with?

145

9 April 4G

LAMMERS: It was probably assumed that this decree would affect Wehrmacht interests. Field Marshal Keitel must know better than I do why he signed it at that time.

COL. POKROVSKY You read this document yourself, and you could see very well for yourself that the Armed Forces are not affected by it. ~

I have two more questions for you. You testified today that Seyss-Inquart received SS rank and uniform but he did not have the rights of a commander of the SS. Is that correct?

LAMMERS. Yes, that is correct.

COL. POKROVSKY: Well, then, should one conclude after this that the rank of a police official and the police uniform were really an honorary distinction in the Reich?

LAMMERS: SeyssInquart did not belong to the Police but to the General SS.

COL. POKROVSKY: But the SS was actually being used for police measures, was that not so?

LAMMERS: No, the general SS had no police assignments; that is not correct. And the SS uniform represented a special distinction in the Reich.

COL. POKROVSKY: He received his uniform as a sort of reward for certain work he had done?

LAMMERS: Yes.

COL. POKROVSKY: Now, I want to ask you one last question . . .

LAMMERS: It was not always a reward for exceptional service, but certain leading personages in the Reich received. . .

COL. POKROVSKY: I am satisfied with your answer and I do not need any further details. Now I want to ask you one last question. On 17 January the Defendant Keitel sent an application to the Tribunal to have you brought in as a witness. He stated in his application that you could testify here before the Tribunal that he, Keitel, as the head of the Armed Forces along with the military agencies under his charge in the occupied territories, opposed Rosenberg's plunder squads and issued orders for their arrest. You were called before the Tribunal to answer this question and for some unknown reason this was the only question not put to you. I would like you to answer this question now. What do you know about the struggle of Keitel and the Armed Forces against Rosenberg's looting squads, as Keitel calls them?

LAMMERS: I know only that Rosenberg was commissioned to buy up objects of art and that he was also commissioned to get

146

9 April 46

furniture in the western occupied territories which was needed for the offices an the East. He received this assignment in his capacity of Minister of the Reich.

COL. POKROVSKY: Witness, evidently you misunderstood me. [The witness attempted to interrupt.] Wait a moment. Now, we are not talking about the worries of Rosenberg; but I am asking you what you know about the fight of the military command against Rosenberg's looting squads-to use Keitel's words. Do you understand my question? Do you know anything at all about this or do you know nothing?

LAMMERS: No, I know nothing about that.

COL. POKROVSKY: All right, I am quite satisfied. I have no further questions to ask the witness.

THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Pokrovsky, in order to be accurate: I understood you to say with reference to that document that you were putting to the witness just now, of 2 June 1941, that this document had no reference to military authority. But Paragraph 2 of it says: `'To achieve this end he"-that is Goering-"may give direct orders to the respective military authorities in the Eastern Occupied Territories." Therefore, it is not accurate to say that the document does not refer to the military authority at all.

COL. POKROVSKY: I suppose that the Tribunal remembers the testimony which was given here in regard to the circumstances under which Keitel signed general directives and general law. He explained it by saying that all these orders and directives were of an operational staff nature.

In this particular case the question concerns but a general Reich office which has directly nothing to do with staff affairs.

. THE PRESIDENT: I do not want to argue with you. I only want to point out it was not accurate to say that the document did not refer to military matters at all.

Dr. Nelte, do you want to reexamine?

DR. NELTE: Mr. President, I should be grateful if Colonel Pokrovsky would make clear his last question to the witness, Dr. Lammers. He has stated that the Defendant Keitel called Dr. Lammers as a witness to the fact that he, Keitel, had opposed the efforts made by Rosenberg's special staff in the Eastern territories. Did I understand him correctly? Perhaps the translation from Russian into German was not very good.

THE PRESIDENT: I am not sure that I understood the question, but I understood the witness was not able to answer it. But I do not think it can be of very great importance. The witness was not able to answer the question.

147

9 April 46

DR. NELTE: No, I thought that the Soviet prosecutor meant that Dr. Lammers had been called as a witness to give certain evidence and I did not ask the witness any such question. I only want to make it clear that this is not the. case; otherwise I have no query on the matter, nor have I personally any further questions to put to the witness on behalf of the Defendant Keitel.

THE PRESIDENT: I do not think the Tribunal think that it is necessary for you to go into that. You have covered the ground fully in your examination-in-chief. Then, Dr. Nelte, have you any ether witnesses to call?

DR. NELTE: I can finish in half an hour tomorrow morning. I have no further witnesses to examine.

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Francis Biddle, Member for the United States): I would like to ask two or three questions about the Reich Cabinet. You said the first meeting was on 30 January 1933 and the last was in November 1937. Were there any other meetings in 1937?

LAMMERS: No, the Cabinet meetings were not replaced by any other meetings.

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): I did not ask you that. Would you listen? You said there was a meeting in November 1937. Were there any other meetings in the year 1937?

LAMMERS: Yes, there were some before that. There were several Cabinet meetings but not very many. There were comparatively few in 1937.

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): How many would you say in 1937?

LAMMERS: How many? There might have been five or six Cabinet meetings. I do not think there were more.

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Do you know how many there were in...

LAMMERS: There may have been less.

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Do you know how many there were in 1936?

LAMMERS: There were rather more Cabinet meetings then, but not as many as at the beginning of 1933 and 1934. The number of Cabinet meetings has...

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): That is enough, thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, Dr. Laternser?

DR. LATERNSER: Mr. President, I have no questions to put to the witness, but I simply wanted to interpose a few remarks on the following matter:

148

9 April 46

Dr. Thoma this morning felt that he had not underlined it and he also felt that there was undoubtedly a mistake in the translation and Colonel Dostert tells us that there is no mistake in the translation and that it was underlined.

THE PRESIDENT: Well now, Dr. Nelte, we should like to know what your position is about General Westhoff and-I think it is the Obergruppenfuehrer Wielen or something of that sort. You were given the opportunity of calling those witnesses and we understand you do not desire to do so.

DR. NELTE: Gentlemen of the Tribunal, I think that the cross-examination has made it clear that the Prosecution has abandoned the original charge against Keitel, namely, that he issued an order, or transmitted an order from Hitler, to the effect that the 50 Royal Air Force officers should be shot.

Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe confronted the defendant with the four points of which he accused the Defendant Keitel in connection with this case; and the defendant admitted these four points.

Since I named General Westhoff as a witness only to testify that Keitel did not issue the order and he did not pass it on, and as Westhoff was not present at the conference at the Obersalzberg and has no firsthand knowledge, there is no further need for me to call this witness.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Nelte, you, of course, are to decide whether you call him or not. But unless Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe says that he has withdrawn any charge against Keitel I do not think that you ought to refrain from calling him on the ground that a charge has been abandoned. There has not been any express abandonment of any charge. Subject to anything that Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe says I should not have thought that that would be a good reason for not calling him, but it is entirely a matter for you.

Yes, Sir David?

SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My Lord, there is no abandonment of any charge. In fact, the Prosecution stands by what is stated by General Westhoff in his statement which I put to the Defendant Keitel. That is the evidence for the Prosecution and the Prosecution stands by that as it is put in.

DR. NELTE: May I ask whether the Prosecution wish to assert that General Westhoff has testified that Keitel did issue this order or transmit it?

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Nelte, you have seen the document which contains an excerpt of the statement by General Westhoff. You therefore know what he says in that statement. The Tribunal, subject to what counsel desires to address them on the subject-they

150

9 April 46

will, of course, hear them-but the Tribunal propose to call General Westhoff themselves in order to hear his statement whether he adheres to his statement; and also Wielen,Wielen's evidence, of course, is principally against the Defendant Kaltenbrunner.

DR. NELTE: Then may I also ask the Prosecution to submit to the Tribunal the affidavit deposed by General Westhoff with regard to this matter, so as to make clear. . .

THE PRESIDENT: When you say affidavit, do you mean the statement?

DR. NELTE: No; I mean the affidavit, not an unsworn statement. So far, the Prosecution have dealt only with statements not made under oath. Apart from these, however, Colonel Williams required and received an affidavit from the witness Westhoff, and this affidavit contains a precise statement from Westhoff to the effect that he does not wish to say and never has said that Keitel ever issued or transmitted any such order.

SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I have no affidavit. I have checked with Mr. Roberts and we have not got one. There were two interrogations, if my recollection is correct, one which was early and one on 2 November. There were two interrogations, one of which I put in. They are in Dr. Nelte's document book. I have no affidavit. If I had, of course, I should produce it at once. I do not know where Dr. Nelte got the information, but certainly no affidavit has ever been brought to my attention.

Am; PRESIDENT: The only thing the Tribunal has got is a statement made by General Westhoff which is annexed to the report of a certain brigadier whose name I have forgotten. Oh yes, Brigadier Shapcott. The course which the Tribunal proposes to do is to call General Westhoff and to ask him whether his statement made in that document is accurate and also true.

SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: The Prosecution has not the slightest objection to that.

THE PRESIDENT: The Marshal will have General Westhoff and also Wielen-they mill be here tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock.

MARSHAL (Colonel Charles W. Mays): Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now adjourn.

[The Tribunal adjourned until 10 April 1946 at 1000 hours.]

151

Nuremberg Trials Page

Volume 11 Menu

ONE HUNDRED AND THIRD DAY Tuesday, 9 April 1946 Morning Session

ONE HUNDRED AND THIRD DAY

Tuesday, 9 April 1946

Morning Session