“It is not possible for us to disregard Führer orders, and it is
out of the question that in the sphere of police and security
direct orders from the Reichsführer should be carried out over
the head of the man who has been appointed here by the Führer;
otherwise I should be completely superfluous.”
I now ask you, is it correct that there were very frequently such
disputes between the Governor General and the Higher SS Police Leader
Krüger, and that the Governor General terminated these disputes by
asking for co-operation, so that some sort of administration could
function in this territory?
BÜHLER: Yes, that is correct, such disputes were our daily bread.
DR. SEIDL: The Prosecution has also submitted to you another exhibit,
USSR-335 (Document Number USSR-335), the Court-Martial Decree, dated
October 1943. I now ask you what the security situation was like in the
Government General then, and would it have been at all possible at that
time to control the situation with normal criminal procedure?
THE PRESIDENT: Doctor Seidl, has that not already been dealt with very
fully in his examination in chief?
DR. SEIDL: I forego having this question answered again. Now one last
question, which refers to art treasures.
Is it correct that a portion of the art treasures which were found in
the region of Upper Silesia were taken to the last official residence of
the Governor General at Neuhaus to be safeguarded, and that the Governor
General gave you instructions to prepare a list of these articles and
send it to Reich Minister Lammers?
BÜHLER: The Governor General dictated a report to Reich Minister Lammers
about the transfer of 20 of the most outstanding art treasures from the
property of the Polish State. I was present when it was dictated and I
took that report personally to State Secretary Kritzinger in Berlin. It
was stated therein that these art treasures, so as to save them from the
Russians, had been taken from Seichau, or whatever the place is called,
to Schliersee. These art treasures were left unguarded in the official
residence of the Governor General.
DR. SEIDL: I have no further questions to put to the witness.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness can retire.
DR. SEIDL: I have now completed the examination of witnesses, but as the
document books have not yet been bound, I would like to suggest that at
some later stage, perhaps after the case of Frick, I could submit these
document books.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Seidl, how many books are you presenting?
DR. SEIDL: A total of five volumes, but I myself have not received them
yet.
THE PRESIDENT: Has the Tribunal approved the documents in five volumes?
DR. SEIDL: They are almost entirely documents which have already been
submitted by the Prosecution and an agreement has been reached with the
Prosecution regarding the documents.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, then, we need not wait now for the document books.
The document books will be considered by the Tribunal when they are put
in and then, if you have anything in particular you want to say upon
them in explanation, you may do so.
DR. SEIDL: Very well.
THE PRESIDENT: No doubt you will comment upon them in your final speech.
You say that they are mostly documents which have already been put in,
and therefore it would not be necessary to make any preliminary comment
upon them. You will be able to deal with them in your final speech.
DR. SEIDL: But I should have liked to quote a few passages during my
submission of evidence, since this is necessary to establish the
connection, and as it would be impossible to do all that during my final
speech; but I do not think that too much time will be lost through that.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, Dr. Seidl, it would not be very useful to the
Tribunal for you to make a commentary upon the documents at a later
stage, when your witnesses have been finished and somebody else’s—some
other defendant’s—witnesses have been interpolated; therefore, the
Tribunal thinks it will be much better and much more convenient to the
Tribunal if you defer your comments on the documents until your final
speech.
Well, Dr. Seidl, as I understand, you have two books which are before us
now. Three is it?
DR. SEIDL: There is a total of five books. The other three do not appear
to have been bound.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, but you say that most of the documents in them are
documents which are already in evidence.
DR. SEIDL: The diary of the Defendant Dr. Frank, which contains 42
volumes, has been submitted, but the Prosecution has used only those
parts which appeared favorable for them. In my opinion it is, therefore,
necessary that the connections should to some extent be re-established
during the submission of evidence. Also, there are other documents in
the document book which I believe should be read, at least in extract,
before this Tribunal, but I shall, of course, limit myself to the
absolutely necessary passages when I read the documents. I should like
to suggest to the Tribunal that the matter be handled as it was in the
case of the Defendant Von Ribbentrop, so that I submit the individual
documents to the Tribunal as exhibits. There are several speeches by the
Defendant Frank, there are decrees and legal regulations, there are two
affidavits, and I really think that somehow an opinion with regard to
them should be given during the submission of evidence; and, besides,
individual documents will have to be given exhibit numbers. Up to now
only one document has been submitted as evidence on behalf of the
Defendant Frank, and that is the affidavit of the witness Dr. Bühler;
but I have the intention of bringing a whole series of further documents
formally to the notice of the Tribunal and would like to postpone that
only because the Tribunal has not yet received the bound document books.
THE PRESIDENT: When will these other books be ready, Dr. Seidl?
DR. SEIDL: I was told that they would be completed by this evening.
THE PRESIDENT: How long do you think you will take in dealing with these
books?
DR. SEIDL: I think that two hours will be enough.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, the Tribunal will adjourn now.
[_A recess was taken._]
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Seidl, the Tribunal would like you to deal with your
documents now, and insofar as they are documents which have already been
put in evidence, unless you wish to refer to other passages in them,
they think that you need only tell us what the documents are and put
them in evidence, unless it is very important to you to refer to any
particular document. So far as they are new documents, you will, no
doubt, offer them in evidence and make such short comments as you think
necessary. But the Tribunal hopes that you will be able to finish this
afternoon. With reference to the other books that you have, we
understand that you have all the documents in German yourself, and
therefore you can refer us to those documents now.
DR. SEIDL: Mr. President, upon the wish of the Prosecution and also, I
believe, of the Tribunal, I have reduced the original bulk of my
document books considerably. The first five document books, as I had had
them prepared, contained more than eight hundred pages. The new form is
considerably shorter; but I have not received the German text of the new
form, so that I am not in a position just now to give the number of
pages to the Tribunal or to co-ordinate my page numbers with the
numbered pages of the translations. If I may express a wish, it is that
we should first wait until the five document books in their new form are
available, because otherwise it is very likely that the numbering of the
pages would not correspond to the numbering of the individual documents
as exactly as might be desired.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal thinks it best that you should begin now
with the first three volumes. We have them here.
DR. SEIDL: If the Tribunal has the first three volumes, then I will
begin. I begin with Volume I. The first document on Page 1 is the decree
of the Führer and Reich Chancellor, dated 12 October 1939, concerning
the administration of the occupied Polish territories. This decree
defines in detail the authority of the Governor General. In Paragraphs 5
and 6 some of the limitations to the authority of the Governor General
are included, which the witnesses Dr. Lammers and Dr. Bühler have
already pointed out. This document bears the number 2537-PS and it will
be Exhibit Frank-2.
I pass to Page 3 of the document book. This document is the decree of
the Führer concerning the establishment of a State Secretariat for
Security in the Government General, dated 7 May 1942. I quote Paragraph
2:
“The State Secretary for Security serves at the same time as
deputy of the Reichsführer SS in his capacity as Reich
Commissioner for the Preservation of German Nationality.”
On Page 4 I quote Paragraph IV:
“The Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police is
authorized to give the State Secretary for Security direct
instructions in the province of security and the preservation of
German Nationality.”
This document will be Exhibit Frank-3 (Document Number Frank-3).
Following the decree of the Führer of 7 May 1942 comes the decree for
the transfer of authority to the State Secretary for Security, of 23
June 1942. I do not know whether that decree is already bound in that
volume. Apparently that decree, which was added later, has not yet been
translated.
THE PRESIDENT: What is the date?
DR. SEIDL: 23 June 1942.
THE PRESIDENT: We have one of 27 May 1942.
DR. SEIDL: That decree apparently has not yet been translated because it
was added afterwards, and I will put it in the document book later. It
will be Document Frank-4. In Paragraph 1 of that decree, we find, “The
jurisdictions of the administrative and creative branches of the Police
referred to in appendices A and B are now transferred to the State
Secretary for Security.” In Appendix 1 the spheres of authority of the
Order Police are mentioned under 15 headings—no, I must correct
that—26 headings; and in Appendix B the spheres of authority of the
Order Police come under 21 headings.
I pass now to Document Book I, Page 5. That is the decree of the Führer
concerning the appointment of officials and the termination of this
status as officials in the sphere of the Government General, of 20 May
1942. I quote from the figure 3, Paragraph 2:
“The Governor General’s sphere of activity does not, in the
sense of this decree, include officials belonging to the
province of the Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police
in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, or those belonging to the
Customs Frontier Service.” (Document Number Frank-4(e).)
I pass to Page 6 of the document book, the decree of the Führer and
Reich Chancellor, for the Preservation of German Nationality, of 7
October 1939, which is already Exhibit USA-305 (Document Number 686-PS).
The next document is the letter from Reich Marshal Göring to the Chief
of the Security Police and the SD, of July 1941.
MR. DODD: Mr. President, I suggest that an exhibit number be given as we
go along so that we can follow better, and later on have some track of
the exhibits as they go in. The last one and this one have not been
given any exhibit number.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Francis Biddle, Member for the United States): The
last one was Frank-5, was it not?
THE PRESIDENT: No. Frank-5 was the one of the 27th of May 1942.
MR. DODD: We did not know that; we did not get the number over the
speaker. I am sorry.
THE PRESIDENT: It may not have been stated but I took it down as that
myself. Will you take care to state each time, Dr. Seidl, what the
exhibit number is that you are giving. You are dealing now with the
letter of the 31st of July 1941.
DR. SEIDL: Yes. This letter has a USA number, namely, 509.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. Wait a minute, perhaps I made a mistake. Yes,
Mr. Dodd, I think I made a mistake. The reason why Dr. Seidl did not
give a number was because it was already in evidence as USA-305. I made
a mistake. It was not Frank-5. He only got to Frank-4. The next one is
USA-509.
DR. SEIDL: 509 (Document Number 710-PS). I pass to Page 10 of the
document book. That is an order, a directive rather, of the High Command
of the Armed Forces concerning Case Barbarossa, USA-135 (Document Number
447-PS), and I quote Paragraph 2:
“It is not intended to declare East Prussia and the Government
General an operational area of the Army. On the other hand, on
the basis of the unpublished Führer decrees of 19 and 21 October
1939 the Commander-in-Chief of the Army is authorized to enact
measures that are necessary for the execution of his military
task and for the security of his troops.”
I pass to Page 11 of the document book, a directive for the execution of
the Führer decree concerning the Plenipotentiary General for the
Allocation of Labor, of 27 March 1942. I quote Paragraph 4:
“The Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor will
have at his disposal for the performance of his tasks the
authority delegated to me by the Führer to issue instructions to
the highest Reich authorities, their subordinate offices, as
well as to the offices of the Party and its formations and
affiliated organizations; to the Reich Protector; to the
Governor General; to the military commanders and the chiefs of
the civil administrations.”
This document becomes Exhibit Number Frank-5 (Document Number Frank-5).
The next document is on Page 12—the decree by the Führer, concerning a
Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor, of 21 March 1942,
from which it can be seen that his authority to issue instructions
included the Government General. It becomes Exhibit Number Frank-6
(Document Number Frank-6).
The document on Page 13 of the document book deals also with the
authority of the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor to
issue instructions. It is already Exhibit USA-206 (Document Number
3352-PS).
The document on Page 15 is a letter from Professor Dr. Kubiowicz,
Chairman of the Ukrainian Control Committee, to the Defendant Dr. Frank.
It already has the Exhibit Number USA-178 (Document Number 1526-PS); and
I will read only the first sentence from that document, in order to show
what the relation was between the Defendant Dr. Frank and the author of
that letter. I quote:
“Complying with your wish I send you this letter, in which I
should like to state the abuses and the painful incidents which
create an especially difficult position for the Ukrainian
population within the Government General.”
Then I pass on to Page 16 of the document book. That is an excerpt from
Exhibit USA-275 (Document Number 1061-PS), namely, the report of SS
Brigadeführer Stroop about the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto. I quote
the second paragraph of Section II, from which it can be seen that the
order came directly from the Reichsführer SS Himmler:
“When the Reichsführer SS visited Warsaw in January 1943, he
ordered the SS and Police Leader in the District of Warsaw to
transfer to Lublin the armament factories and other enterprises
of military importance which were installed within the ghetto,
including the workers and the machines.”
The affidavit which the Prosecution submitted during the
cross-examination of the Defendant Kaltenbrunner should then really
follow after Page 16 of the document book.
COLONEL Y. V. POKROVSKY (Deputy Chief Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): As
far as I can gather, there has been some misunderstanding on this point.
Under the number mentioned by Dr. Seidl in his document book there is no
document referring to the Warsaw ghetto, but there is a document from
the Chief of Police and SS in Galicia relating to the solution of the
Jewish problem in Galicia. I should like this elucidated.
DR. SEIDL: The document on Page 16 is the report by the SS Brigadeführer
Stroop which has already been submitted as Exhibit USA-275. The report
by SS Führer Katzmann, which the Russian Prosecutor apparently means,
concerning the solution of the Jewish question in Galicia, is on Page 17
of the document book, that is, on the next page. Apparently the
insertion of Page 16 in the document book which was prepared for the
Russian Prosecution was overlooked.
After that report by Brigadeführer Stroop, Exhibit USA-275 should be
inserted as Page 16a, the affidavit by SS Brigadeführer Stroop which was
submitted during the cross-examination of the Defendant Dr.
Kaltenbrunner under Exhibit Number USA-804. That affidavit bears the
Document Number 3841-PS. I could not include that affidavit in the
document book because it was submitted by the Prosecution only after I
had sent the document book to be translated.
As Page 16b another document should be put in which was also submitted
during the cross-examination of Dr. Kaltenbrunner. That is the affidavit
by Karl Kaleske. That affidavit bears the Exhibit Number USA-803,
Document Number 3840-PS. That would be Page 16b of the document book.
Now I come to the report which the Soviet Prosecutor had in mind and
which deals with the solution of the Jewish question in Galicia. It is
on Page 17 of the document book. That measure has the Exhibit Number
USA-277 and the Document Number L-18. I quote Pages 4 and 5, word for
word:
“After it had been found in more and more cases that Jews had
succeeded in making themselves indispensable to their employers
by providing them with scarce goods, _et cetera_, it was
considered necessary to introduce really Draconic measures.”