“The Reichsführer SS, with the approval of the Governor General,
has ordered that in all cases where assassinations of Germans or
attempts at such assassinations have occurred, or where
saboteurs have destroyed vital installations, not only the
perpetrators are to be shot but also all their kinsmen are
likewise to be executed and their female relatives above 16
years of age are to be put into concentration camps.”
Is it known to you whether the Governor General ever spoke about this
question with the Reichsführer SS and whether he had given any such
approval?
BÜHLER: I know nothing about the issuing of an order of that kind. Once
during the second half of 1944, an order came through my hands relating
to the joint responsibility of kin, but I cannot say whether that
concerned the Reich or the Government General; it was a police order, I
should say. If it had had that formula, “with the approval of the
Government General,” I should have questioned the Governor General on
that point.
DR. SEIDL: Would such an approval have been consistent with the
fundamental attitude of the Governor General to this question as you
knew it?
BÜHLER: The fundamental attitude of the Governor General was on the
contrary opposed to all executions without trial and without legal
reasons.
DR. SEIDL: Is it correct that from 1940 on the Governor General
complained continually to the Führer about the measures taken by the
Police and the SD?
BÜHLER: Yes; I myself drew up at least half a dozen memoranda of about
the length of the one submitted, addressed to the Führer direct or to
him through the Chief of the Reich Chancellery. They contained repeated
complaints with regard to executions, encroachments in connection with
the recruiting of workers, the importation of inhabitants of other
regions without the permission of the Governor General, the food
situation, and happenings in general which were contrary to the
principles of an orderly administration.
DR. SEIDL: The Prosecution submitted one of these memoranda under the
number USA-610. This is a memorandum to the Führer of 19 June 1943. Is
this memorandum essentially different to any previous or later
memoranda; and what, basically, was the attitude of the Führer to such
complaints and proposals?
BÜHLER: This memorandum, which has been submitted, is somewhat different
from the previous ones. The previous memoranda contained direct
accusations with regard to these happenings and the encroachments by the
Police. When these memoranda remained unsuccessful, acting on the order
of the Governor General, I drew up the complaints contained in this
memorandum of June in the form of a political proposal. The grievances
listed there were not caused by the government of the Governor General;
rather they were complaints about interference by outside authorities.
DR. SEIDL: In the diary we find on 26 October 1943 a long report about
the 4 years of German construction work in the Government General which
was made by you yourself. On the basis of what documents did you compile
that report?
BÜHLER: I compiled that report on the basis of the material which the 13
main departments of the government had given me.
DR. SEIDL: Now a question of principle: What, basically, was the
attitude of the Governor General to the Polish and Ukrainian people, as
you know it from your 5 years’ activity, as the head of the government?
BÜHLER: The first principle of all was that of keeping peace in this
area and of increasing the usefulness of this area as far as possible by
improving its resources, economically speaking. In order to achieve
that, decent treatment of the population was necessary; freedom and
property must not be infringed upon. Those were the principles of policy
according to which, acting on the order of the Governor General, I
always carried out my functions as state secretary of the government.
DR. SEIDL: Is it correct that the Governor General also tried within the
framework of wartime conditions to grant the population a certain
minimum of cultural development?
BÜHLER: That was the desire of the Governor General, but the realization
of this desire very frequently met with resistance on the part of the
Security Police, or the Propaganda Ministry of the Reich, or it was made
impossible by conditions themselves. But in principle the Governor
General did not wish to prohibit cultural activity among the Polish and
Ukrainian populations.
DR. SEIDL: Is it correct that he tried particularly to revive higher
education and that, evading the directives from the Reich, he instituted
so-called technical courses in colleges?
BÜHLER: Instruction was certainly given at the technical schools by
Polish professors in Warsaw and Lvov which corresponded approximately to
a university education. As a matter of principle, the Governor General
also wanted to open secondary schools and seminaries for priests, but
that always failed because of the objections of the Security Police. As
no agreement could be reached, and acting on the order of the Governor
General, in October 1941 on my own authority I promised the opening of
secondary schools and, I believe, of seminaries for priests with a
certain advisory autonomy for the Poles. Two days after this
announcement the Führer’s opinion was transmitted to me that I had no
authority to announce such measures.
DR. SEIDL: Dr. Frank’s diary often mentions the principle of unity of
administration and the fact that the Governor General was the deputy of
the Führer in this territory and the representative of the authority of
the Reich. Does this conception tally with the facts? What other
authorities of the Reich and the Party came into the administration of
the Government General?
BÜHLER: The authority of the Governor General was limited from the very
beginning in many important respects. Thus, for instance, before the
establishment of the Government General, the Reichsführer SS had been
invested with full power in the matter of the preservation of German
Nationality in all occupied territories. The Delegate for the Four Year
Plan had equal authority and power to issue decrees, in the Government
General. But many other offices as well, such as those for armaments,
post, railways, building, and other departments tried, and tried
successfully, to take over parts of the administration of the Government
General or to gain some influence over it. After the Governor General
had lost his offices as Reichsleiter in 1942, there was a special rush
in this direction. I might almost say that it became a kind of sport to
diminish the prestige of the King of Poland.
DR. SEIDL: Who appointed, dismissed, and paid the police officials in
the Government General and otherwise saw to their interests from the
point of view of the Civil Service?
BÜHLER: That was done exclusively by Himmler’s administrative office in
Berlin.
DR. SEIDL: Is it correct that even officials of the administration of
the Government General were arrested by Krüger and that it was not
possible for even the Governor General to effect their release? I remind
you of the case of Scipessi.
BÜHLER: Yes. I can confirm that from my own experience. Even from my own
circle people were arrested without my being notified. In one such case
I instructed the commander of the Security Police that the official was
to be released within a certain space of time. He was not released, and
I demanded the recall of the commander of the Security Police. The
result was that Himmler expressed his special confidence in this
commander of the Security Police and the recall was refused.
DR. SEIDL: Witness, how long was the Government General able to work at
all under normal conditions?
BÜHLER: I might almost say, never at any time. The first year was taken
up in repairing destruction caused by the war. There were destroyed
villages, destroyed cities, destroyed means of transport; bridges had
been blown up in very large numbers. After these destroyed objects had
been repaired, as far as it was possible under war conditions, the
Government General became again the deployment area for the war against
the East, against the Russians, and then the transit area to the front
and the line of communications area. It was the great repair shop for
the front.
DR. SEIDL: Another question: During the war Himmler presented to the
Reich Government the draft of a law concerning the treatment of
anti-social elements. What was the attitude of Dr. Frank towards this
draft?
BÜHLER: As far as I can remember...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Seidl, the Tribunal thinks that the matters which the
witness is going into are really matters of common knowledge. Everyone
knows about that. I think you might take the witness over this ground a
little bit faster than you are.
DR. SEIDL: Yes, Sir. He has given the answer already.
Witness, during the war did the government of the Reich...
THE PRESIDENT: But I am speaking of the future, Dr. Seidl.
DR. SEIDL: Yes, Sir.
[_Turning to the witness._] During the war, Himmler submitted to the
Reich Government, the draft of a law concerning the treatment of
anti-social elements.
BÜHLER: Yes.
DR. SEIDL: What was the attitude of the Governor General to this?
BÜHLER: The Governor General protested against this. At the conference
which I had with Heydrich in February 1942 the latter asked me as a
special request to ask the Governor General to retract his protect
against the law. The Governor General refused to do this.
DR. SEIDL: The Prosecution has presented a chart which shows Dr. Frank
as having authority over the Reich Minister of Justice, Dr. Thierack.
Did such a situation ever exist?
BÜHLER: That must be an error; such a situation never existed.
DR. SEIDL: What, according to your observations, were the relations
between the Governor General and the Reichsführer SS Himmler?
BÜHLER: The Governor General and the Reichsführer SS Himmler as
individuals were so different...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Seidl, I thought we had been hearing all morning what
the relations were between the Governor General and the Reichsführer.
DR. SEIDL: Then I will not put that question.
Witness, the Soviet Prosecution, under Exhibit Number USSR-93, (Document
Number USSR-93), submitted an appendix to the report of the Polish
Government. The appendix is entitled “Cultural Life in Poland.” I have
shown it to you once before and would like you to tell me whether the
Governor General, or his government, ever actually issued such
directives?
BÜHLER: I do not remember ever having signed such directives or having
seen any such directives signed by the Governor General. This document
submitted to me, seems to me to be a fake or a forgery. That can be
recognized from the contents.
DR. SEIDL: In the diary we find a large number of entries referring to
the policies of the Governor General which seem to contradict what you
yourself said before as a witness. How can you explain these
contradictions?
BÜHLER: These statements by the Governor General, which have also been
called to my attention during previous interrogations, do not merely
seem to contradict what I said; they very clearly do contradict what I
had to say as a witness. As I myself heard such statements frequently, I
have tried to understand how he came to make such statements; and I can
only say that Frank perhaps took part more than was necessary in the
conferences and affairs of the government officials. There was scarcely
a conference in which he did not take part. Thus it happened that he had
to speak many times during one day, and I might say that in 99 out of
100 cases he spoke on the spur of the moment, without due reflection,
and I frequently witnessed how after making such grotesque statements he
would try in the next sentences, or at the next opportunity, to retract
them and straighten them out. I also witnessed how he rescinded
authority which he had delegated on the spur of the moment. I am sure
that if I could go through the diary for every one of these statements,
I would be able to give you a dozen—dozens of other statements to the
contrary.
DR. SEIDL: Frank’s diary includes...
BÜHLER: I should like to say the following: When the Governor General
was working with the members of his administration, he never made such
statements; at least I cannot remember any. Those statements were always
made when the Higher SS and Police Leader was sitting next to him, so
that I had the impression that he was not free at such moments.
DR. SEIDL: The diary of the Defendant Dr. Frank covers about 10,000 to
12,000 typewritten pages. Who kept this diary—he himself or somebody
else?
BÜHLER: According to my observations, the diary was kept by
stenographers. At first by one stenographer, Dr. Meidinger, later by two
stenographers, Nauk and Mohr. The procedure was that these stenographers
were in the room during conferences and took notes.
DR. SEIDL: Is it correct that to a certain extent these stenographers
received reports from a third person as to what was said at a
conference?
BÜHLER: I often noticed that these stenographers did not take the
trouble to record everything literally, but merely wrote summaries of
the sense. I was also sometimes asked what this or that person, or what
the Governor General, had said or thought in some particular instance.
DR. SEIDL: Did the Governor General see these entries in the diary or
read them later?
BÜHLER: From what I know of the Governor General I do not believe that
he read them over.
THE PRESIDENT: How can this witness tell whether he read the notes
later?
DR. SEIDL: Mr. President, the witness, Dr. Bühler, was the Governor
General’s closest collaborator.
THE PRESIDENT: If you wanted to put that sort of question, you should
have asked the Defendant Frank.
DR. SEIDL: A further question, Witness. According to your observations
what caused the Governor General not to destroy that diary, but to hand
it over when he was arrested?
BÜHLER: On 15 March for the last time I was...
THE PRESIDENT: That, again is a matter which rests in the mind of Dr.
Frank, not of this witness, why he did not destroy it.
DR. SEIDL: He has answered the question already, and I forego the answer
of the witness.
[_Turning to the witness._] Now, one last question. In 1942, after the
speeches made by Dr. Frank, he was deprived of all his Party offices.
What effect did that have on his position as Governor General?
BÜHLER: I have already referred to that. It weakened his authority
considerably, and the administration in the Government General became
increasingly difficult.
DR. SEIDL: Is it correct, that the Governor General repeatedly, both in
writing and orally, tendered his resignation?
BÜHLER: Yes, written applications for resignation I often worded myself;
and I know that he also asked orally many times to be permitted to
resign, but that this was never approved.
DR. SEIDL: I have no more questions for the witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Do any other defendants’ counsel wish to ask any
questions?
DR. ROBERT SERVATIUS (Counsel for Defendant Sauckel): Witness, is it
correct that by far the largest number of the Polish workers who came to
Germany, came into the Reich before April 1942, that is, before Sauckel
came into office?
BÜHLER: I cannot make any definite statement about that, but I know that
the recruitment of labor produced smaller and smaller results and that
the main quotas were probably delivered during the first years.
DR. SERVATIUS: Were the labor quotas which had been demanded from the
Governor General reduced by Sauckel in view of the fact that so many
Poles were already working in the Reich?
BÜHLER: I know of one such case; Sauckel’s deputy, President Struve,
talked to me about it.
DR. SERVATIUS: Is it true that Himmler for his own purposes recruited
workers from the Polish area, without Sauckel’s knowledge and without
observing the conditions which Sauckel had laid down?
BÜHLER: I assume that that happened. Whenever I was told about roundups
of workers, I tried to clear matters up. The Police always said, “That
is the labor administration,” and the labor administration said, “That
is the Police.” But I know that once, on a visit to Warsaw, Himmler was
very annoyed at the loafers standing at the street corners; and I
consider it quite possible that these labor raids in Warsaw were carried
out arbitrarily by the Police without the participation of the labor
administration.
DR. SERVATIUS: Do you know Sauckel’s directives with regard to the
carrying out of labor recruitment?
BÜHLER: I have not seen them in detail, and I don’t remember them. I
know only that Sauckel stated, on the occasion of a visit in Kraków,
that he had not ordered the use of violence.
DR. SERVATIUS: Was that a speech of Sauckel’s?
BÜHLER: No, it was a conference.
DR. SERVATIUS: Do you recall an address which Sauckel made in Kraków to
the various authorities?
BÜHLER: He spoke as a Party speaker.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did he make any statements there about the treatment of
workers?
BÜHLER: These statements were made at a conference which preceded the
visit to the Governor General.
DR. SERVATIUS: And what was the nature of his remarks?
BÜHLER: My people had told him and his people that there had been
encroachments, and he answered that he had not ordered the use of
violence and denied that these events—the arrest of people in motion
picture houses or other places of assembly—had ever been ordered or
decreed by him.
DR. SERVATIUS: Do you know the structure of the labor administration in
the Government General?
BÜHLER: The Labor Department was part of my field of authority.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did Sauckel have any immediate influence on the carrying
out of labor recruitment?
BÜHLER: Not only did he have influence, but he also sent a deputy who
was not under my authority.
DR. SERVATIUS: Was it possible for that deputy to carry out the
recruitment of labor direct?
BÜHLER: If he wanted to, yes.
DR. SERVATIUS: In what manner? Could he give any instructions, or direct
orders?
BÜHLER: The recruiting units set up by Sauckel were not under my
authority. I tried on several occasions to get these people within my
organization, but these attempts were always countered with the argument
that these recruiting units had to be used in all the occupied
territories and that they could not be attached to one particular area.
In other words, Sauckel’s deputy in the Government General, President
Struve, who was also in charge of the Labor Department, was on the one
hand dependent on Sauckel’s directives and did not need to pay attention
to me but was also on the other hand responsible to me to the extent
that he acted as president of the Labor Department.
DR. SERVATIUS: What branches handled forced recruitment whenever that
became necessary? Could the recruiting units do that?
BÜHLER: I do not know. The deputy always denied the fact of forced
recruitment.
DR. SERVATIUS: I have no more questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Do any of the defendants’ counsel wish to ask questions?
Does the Prosecution desire to cross-examine?
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Witness, I should like to define your official
position more accurately. As from 1940 and until the moment of the
liberation of Poland you were Frank’s chief deputy, were you not?
BÜHLER: From the end of September until November 1939 I served the
Governor General in a leading position on his labor staff. In November
1939 I became Chief of the Department of the Governor General; that was
the central administrative office of the Governor General, in Kraków.
During the second half of the year 1940 the designation of this function
was changed to “State Secretary of the Government,” and I was State
Secretary of the Government until I left Kraków on 18 January 1945.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Consequently you were the chief deputy of the
Defendant Hans Frank.
BÜHLER: My field of activity was definitely limited. I had to direct the
administrative matters. Neither the Police, nor the Party, nor the
Wehrmacht, nor the various Reich offices which were directly active in
the area of the Government General, were under my authority.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: When Frank was away, who was then his deputy?
BÜHLER: The deputy of the Governor General was Seyss-Inquart, Reich
Minister Seyss-Inquart.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: And after Seyss-Inquart left?
BÜHLER: After the departure of Seyss-Inquart there was a gap. I cannot
recall the month, but I think it was in 1941 that I was assigned as
deputy of the Governor General. But that appointment was approved only
with certain modifications. I was supposed to represent the Governor
General only when he was neither present in the area nor...
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Answer me briefly. When Frank was away, did you
carry out his duties?
BÜHLER: I answer as my conscience dictates. Whenever Frank was not
present within the area, and could not be reached outside the area, then
I was supposed to represent him.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I understand. That means that you took over when
he was away.
BÜHLER: Yes, whenever he could not be reached outside of the area
either.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Yes, yes. That is precisely what I am asking
about.
I should like the witness to be shown the typed transcript of the report
on a conference of 25 January. Will you show him, first of all, the list
of those who were present. The Tribunal will find the passage that I
desire to quote...
THE PRESIDENT: What year? You said the 25th of January.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: 1943, Mr. President. Your Honors will find it on
Page 7, Exhibit Number USSR-223, (Document Number USSR-223), Paragraph
6.
Witness, is that your signature among the list of those present?
BÜHLER: My signature, yes.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: That means you were present at that conference.
BÜHLER: 1943, yes.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I shall quote three sentences from the typed
transcript of the report. Please hand the original to the witness.