“I had never heard of the Bullet Decree before I assumed the
office. It was an entirely new concept for me. Therefore I asked
what it meant. He answered that it was a Führer order; that was
all he knew. I was not satisfied with this information, and on
the same day I sent a teletype message to Himmler asking for
permission to look up a Führer order known as the Bullet
Decree.... A few days later, Müller came to see me on Himmler’s
orders and submitted to me a decree which, however, did not
originate with Hitler but with Himmler, and in which Himmler
stated that he was transmitting to me a verbal Führer order.”
From this it is safe to assume that, without consulting Keitel and
without the latter’s knowledge, Hitler must have given a verbal order to
Himmler, as stated in Document 1650-PS which was submitted here.
Now I come to Page 190 of my final plea:
[sm type begins]This confirms the assumption which Keitel expressed in
his interrogation, although Kaltenbrunner had not previously informed
him that he knew of verbal orders given by the Führer.[sm type ends]
[sm type begins]3) In another case also, the one dealing with the
branding of Soviet prisoners, Keitel’s statement in the witness box has
proved to be the simple truth.[sm type ends]
[sm type begins]The witness Roemer has confirmed in her supplementary
affidavit that the order to mark Soviet prisoners of war by branding was
cancelled immediately after being issued. A further statement of the
Defendant Keitel is therefore also credible, according to which this
order had been issued without his knowledge, although naturally Keitel’s
responsibility for the acts of the party concerned is not thereby
contested.[sm type ends]
[sm type begins]4) In this connection I refer finally to Document 744-PS
dated 8 July 1943, submitted in support of the charge against Keitel. It
deals with the increased iron and steel program, for the execution of
which the allocation of the necessary miners from among the prisoners of
war was ordered. The first two paragraphs of the document read:[sm type
ends]
[sm type begins]“For the extension of the iron and steel program
the Führer on 7 July ordered the unqualified promotion of the
necessary coal production and the employment of prisoners of war
to cover the labor requirements. The Führer ordered the
following measures to be taken with all possible dispatch for
the ultimate purpose of assigning 300,000 additional workers to
the coal mining industry.”[sm type ends]
[sm type begins]The last paragraph reads:[sm type ends]
[sm type begins]“In connection with the report to the Führer,
the Chief of Prisoner of War Affairs will advise every 10 days
concerning the progress of the drive. First report on 25 July
1943, reference date: 20 July 1943.”[sm type ends]
[sm type begins]I submit this document, not because of its actual
content, which will be taken up by the defense of the Defendant Speer,
but because of its symptomatic evidential value for the answer of the
Defendant Keitel, when he stated that Hitler was particularly interested
in prisoner of war affairs and himself personally issued the principal
orders and those he considered important.[sm type ends]
[sm type begins]5) The cases also connected with this complex such as:
Terror-fliers, lynch law, Commando tasks, combat against partisans, will
be dealt with by other defense counsels. The Defendant Keitel has made
his statement regarding these individual facts during his interrogation
and cross-examination.[sm type ends]
For the subjective facts of the alleged crimes one element is of special
importance: the knowledge of them. Not only from the point of view of
guilt, but also in view of the conclusions which the Prosecution have
drawn, namely, acquiescence, toleration, and omission to take any
counteraction. The fact of knowledge comprises: (1) Knowledge of the
facts; (2) recognition of the aim; (3) recognition of the methods; (4)
conception of, or possibility of conceiving the consequences.
During the discussion of the question of how far the Defendant Keitel
could possibly have drawn any conclusion as to the intention of
realization by force from knowledge of the text of the National
Socialist Party Program and from Hitler’s book, _Mein Kampf_, I have
already demonstrated why Keitel did not have this recognition of a
realization by force.
Keitel denied any knowledge of the intended wars of aggression up to the
time of the war against Poland, and his statement is confirmed by
Grossadmiral Raeder. This comment is certainly a subjective truth
inasmuch as Keitel did not seriously believe in a war with Poland, not
to mention one involving intervention by France and England. This
belief, held by Keitel and other high-ranking officers, was based on the
fact that the military potential was insufficient, according to past
experiences, to wage a war with any chance of victory, especially if it
developed into a war on two fronts. This belief was strengthened by the
nonaggression pact signed on 23 August 1939 with the U.S.S.R.
However, that is not the core of the problem. The speeches which Hitler
delivered before the generals, beginning with the conference of 5
November 1937, at which Keitel was not present, made it increasingly
clear that Hitler was determined to attain his goal by any means, that
is, if peaceful negotiations did not succeed, he was prepared to fight,
or at least to use the Armed Forces as an agent of pressure. There is no
doubt about that. It is a debatable point whether the text of Hitler’s
speeches, of which no official record is available, is altogether
accurately reproduced. There is, however, no doubt at all that they
allow Hitler’s intentions to be clearly recognized.
A distinction must be made as to whether it was possible for his hearers
merely to gather that a definite plan was to be carried out, or whether
they could not but recognize the existence of a general aim of
aggression. If they did not recognize this, the only explanation lies in
the fact that the generals on principle did not include the question of
war or peace in their considerations. From their point of view this was
a political question which they did not consider themselves competent to
judge since, as has been stated here, they were not acquainted with the
reasons for such a decision and, as the Defendant Keitel has testified,
the generals were bound to have confidence in the leadership of the
State to the extent of believing that the latter would only undertake
war for reasons of pressing emergency. That is a consequence of the
traditional principle that although the Armed Forces was an instrument
of the politicians it should not itself take part in politics—a
principle which Hitler adopted in its full stringency. The Court must
decide whether this may be accepted as an excuse. Keitel stated on the
witness stand that he recognized the orders, directives, and
instructions which had such terrible consequences, and that he drew them
up and signed them without allowing himself to be deflected by any
consequences which they might entail.
This testimony leaves three questions undecided: (1) The question of the
methods used to carry out the orders; (2) the question of the conception
of the consequences which actually followed; (3) the question of the
_dolus eventualis_.
The Defendant Keitel, in his affidavit (Document Book Number 12), showed
with reference to the so-called ideological orders how the SS and Police
organizations influenced the conduct of the war, and how the Wehrmacht
was drawn into events. The evidence has shown that on their own
responsibility numerous Wehrmacht commanders failed to apply such
terrible orders, or applied them in a milder form. Keitel, brought up in
a certain military tradition, was unfamiliar with SS methods which made
the effects of these orders so terrible, and they were therefore
inconceivable to him. According to his testimony he did not learn of
these effects in their full and terrible extent.
The same is true of the Führer’s Night and Fog Decree which I have just
discussed. If he did not allow himself to be deflected by the “possible”
results when he transmitted the orders, the _dolus eventualis_ cannot be
affirmed in regard to the results which took place. It must be assumed
rather that if he had been able to recognize the horrible effects, he
would, in spite of the ban on resignations, have drawn a conclusion
which would have freed him from the pangs of conscience and would not
have drawn him from month to month further and further into the
whirlpool of events.
This may be an hypothesis; but there are certain indications in the
evidence which confirm it. The five attempts made by Keitel to leave his
position, and the fact that he resolved to commit suicide, which General
Jodl confirmed in his testimony, enable you to recognize the sincerity
of Keitel’s wish.
The fact that he did not succeed must be attributed to the circumstances
which I have already presented: The unequivocal and, as Keitel says,
unconditional duty of the soldier to do his duty obediently to the
bitter end, true to his military oath.
This concept is false when it is exaggerated to the extent of leading to
crime. It must be remembered, however, that a soldier is accustomed to
measure by other standards in war. When all high-ranking officers,
including Field Marshal Paulus, represent the same point of view, the
honesty of their convictions cannot be denied, although it may not be
understood.
In reply to the questions asked so often during this Trial—why he did
not revolt against Hitler or refuse to obey his orders—the Defendant
Keitel stated that he did not consider these questions even for a
moment. His words and behavior show him to be unconditionally a soldier.
Did he incriminate himself by such conduct? In general terms: May or
must a general commit high treason if he realizes that by carrying out
an order or measure he will be violating international law or the laws
of humanity?
The solution of this problem depends on whether the preliminary question
is answered as to who is the “authority” which “permits or orders” such
criminal high treason. This question seems to me important because the
source of the authority must be established—the authority which can
permit or order the general to commit high treason; which can “bind and
absolve.”
Since the existing state power, which in this case was represented by
the Chief of State, who was identical with the Supreme Commander of the
Armed Forces, can certainly not be this authority, we merely have to
decide whether an authority exists above or beyond the authority of the
particular state, which could “bind or absolve.” Since the struggle for
power between Pope and Emperor, which dominated the Middle Ages, has no
longer any significance in regard to constitutional law, such a power
can only be impersonal and moral. The German poet Schiller expresses the
supreme commandment of the unwritten eternal law in the words: “The
tyrant’s power yet one limit hath ...” That is only one of the manifold
poetical revelations in world literature, which express the deep
yearning for freedom felt by all peoples.
If there is an unwritten law which indisputably expresses the conviction
of all men, it is this, that with due consideration for the necessity of
maintaining order in the state, there is a limit to the restriction of
freedom. Where this is transgressed, a state of war will arise between
the national order and the international power of world conscience.
It is important to state that no such statute of international law has
hitherto existed. This is understandable, since freedom is a relative
conception, and the different conceptions existing in various states and
the anxiety of all states for their sovereignty are irreconcilable with
recognition of an international authority. The authority which “binds
and absolves”—which absolves us of guilt before God and the people—is
the universal conscience which becomes alive in every individual. He
must act accordingly. The Defendant Keitel did not hear the warning
voice of the universal conscience. The principles of his soldierly life
were so deeply rooted, and governed his thoughts and actions so
exclusively, that he was deaf to all considerations which might deflect
him from the path of obedience and faithfulness, as he understood them.
This is the really tragic role played by the Defendant Keitel in this
most terrible drama of all times.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Kauffmann—yes, go on, Dr. Kauffmann.
DR. KURT KAUFFMANN (Counsel for Defendant Kaltenbrunner): Mr. President,
may I first say that I have a few changes which I will announce when I
come to them. I shall take about two hours altogether, Mr. President.
May it please the Tribunal: The present Trial is world history—world
history full of revolutionary tensions. The spirits conjured up by
mankind are stronger than the cries of the tortured peoples for justice
and peace. Since man was deified and God humiliated, chaos, as an
inevitable consequence and punishment, has afflicted mankind with wars,
revolutions, famine, and despair. Whatever the guilt borne by my
country, it is now enduring—and permanently enduring—the greatest
penance ever endured by any people.
The means adopted to restore longed-for prosperity are wrong, because
they are second-rate. And none of my listeners can question the truth of
my assertion that the present Trial was not begun at the end of a period
of wrong, and in order to end it, but is surrounded by the surging waves
of a furious torrent bearing on its surface the hopeless wreckage of a
civilization guarded through the centuries, and in the demoniacal depths
of which lurk those who hate the true God, who are the enemies of the
Christian religion, and therefore opposed to all forms of justice.
The European commonwealth of peoples, of which my country, if only
because of its geographical position, was the very heart, is seriously
afflicted. It suffers from the spirit of negation and humiliation of
human dignity. Rousseau would have cursed his own maxims had he lived to
see the radical refutation of his theories in this twentieth century.
The peoples proclaimed the “liberty” of the great revolution, but in the
course of a mere 150 years they have in the name of that same liberty
created a monster of bondage, cruel slavery, and ungodliness, which
contrived to elude earthly justice, but did not escape the living God.
This Tribunal, conscious of its task and its mission, will some day have
to submit to the searching eye of history. I do not doubt that the
judges selected are striving to serve justice as they see it. But is not
this task indeed impossible of solution? The American chief prosecutor
stated that in his country important trials seldom begin until one or
two years have elapsed. I do not need to elucidate the profound core of
truth contained in this practice. Could human beings, torn between love
and hate, justice and revenge, conduct a trial immediately after the
greatest catastrophe humanity has ever known—and constantly harassed by
the statutory demands for rapid and time-saving proceedings—in such a
way as to earn the thanks of mankind when the waters of this second
deluge have withdrawn into their old bed?
Would it not have been better to allow for that very lapse of time
between crime and atonement with regard to the present proceedings?
Justice can be administered only when the Court possesses that inner
liberty and independence which owes allegiance only to conscience and to
God himself. Such a sacred activity had largely been forgotten in my
country, above all, by the governing class of the nation; Hitler had
prostituted the law. But this Tribunal intends to prove to the world
that the welfare of the peoples is based on law alone. And no conception
could arouse more joy and hope within the heart of people of good will
than that of unselfish justice.
I am not criticizing the provisions of the Charter; but I do ask whether
any justice has ever been, or ever could be, found on earth if might
submitted to reason so far as to grant its enemies regular trial, but
could not see fit to crown this tribute to reason by appointing a
genuinely international tribunal; for even though 19 nations have
approved of the legal basis of the Charter it is far more difficult to
administer the laws laid down.
The American chief prosecutor has emphatically declared that he did not
propose to hold the entire German nation guilty; but the records of this
Tribunal, which history will some day scrutinize attentively,
nevertheless contain many things which, to us Germans, appear to be
false and, therefore, painful. Unfortunately they also contain numerous
explicit questions on the part of the French Prosecution as to the
extent to which, for instance, certain Crimes against Humanity committed
both inside and outside Germany were known to the German people. Indeed,
the French Prosecution have asked explicitly: “Could these atrocities
remain, on the whole, unknown to the entire German nation, or were they
aware of them?” These and similar questions are not conducive to the
solution of such a difficult and tragic problem with even the slightest
approach to the truth. Insofar as evil, which always grows and manifests
itself organically, reigns supreme in a nation, every individual who has
reached the age of reason will bear some guilt for his country’s
disasters. Yet even this guilt, which is on the metaphysical plane,
could never become the collective guilt of a nation unless every
individual member of this nation has incurred a separate guilt. But who
would be entitled to establish the existence of such a guilt without
examining thousands of individual circumstances?
The problem, however, becomes even more difficult if one should try—and
this is the final aim—to establish the so-called national guilt for any
past crimes against peace, humanity, and so forth, committed on the part
of the omnipotent State, no matter through what agencies. One must bear
in mind most carefully the condition of the Reich before 1933. This has
been done sufficiently here and I shall not discuss it.
Hitler claimed for himself alone such far-reaching concepts as the
powerful German diligence, austerity, family affection, willingness to
make sacrifices, aristocracy of labor, and a hundred more. Millions
believed in this; millions of others did not. The best of them did not
lose hope of being able to avert the tragedy which they foresaw. They
flung themselves into the stream of events, assembled the good, and
fought, visibly or invisibly, against the evil. Can the man in the
street be blamed for not immediately refusing to believe in Hitler,
considering the latter’s ability to pass as a seeker after the truth,
and the fact that he constantly raised the palm of peace for the benefit
of the peace lovers? Who knows whether he himself was not convinced at
the outset that he could strengthen the Reich without going to war?
After the assumption of power large sectors of the German people
probably felt themselves to be at unison with many other peoples on
earth. Therefore, it is not astonishing that gradually, and with the
approval or tolerance of other countries, Hitler acquired the nimbus of
a man unique in his century. Only a German who lived in Germany during
the past few years and did not view Germany through a telescope from
abroad, is competent to report on the historical facts of an almost
impenetrable method of secrecy, the psychosis of fear, and the actual
impossibility of changing the regime, and thus to comply with Ranke’s
demand of historians to establish “how it was.”
[sm type begins]Ought the artisans, peasants, merchants, or housewives
categorically to have asked Hitler or Himmler for a change? I would be
quite willing to let the Prosecution answer this, as I am of the opinion
that there are living in my country no fewer idealistic and heroic
people than in any other country.[sm type ends]
[sm type begins]It will never be possible to ascertain how large a
number of Germans knew and approved of concentration camps, their terror
and such like. Only if one could establish knowledge and approval in the
soul of every individual German, considering general and particular
conditions prevailing in the Germany of the last 12 years, which it is
not now the moment to discuss, these, and only these, could be
considered guilty.[sm type ends]
[sm type begins]Therefore I do not think it just to put, to a larger or
smaller extent, the principle of collective guilt in the place of
individual responsibility, as it is held valid in all civilized nations;
it was unfortunately similarly applied by the National Socialist regime
to a whole people, and almost led to its complete extermination. May
there be no repetition of Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles, that
portentous document of the twentieth century.[sm type ends]
Let me say a few words about that secrecy. This Trial has shown clearly
that the State itself managed to suppress such facts as would lower its
prestige and betray its real intentions. Even the men indicted here, who
have been termed conspirators, have been the victims of that carefully
devised system of secrecy, or most of them at least.
A special place in that system of secrecy is reserved to the
plan—ordered by Hitler and executed by Himmler, Eichmann, and a circle
of the initiated—for the biological destruction of the Jewish people,
the ghastly aim of which was for years concealed by the term “final
solution”—a term not immediately self-explicable. The problem of the
Jewish question ...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Kauffmann, it seems to the Tribunal a very long
preamble to the defense of the Defendant Kaltenbrunner, who has not been
named at all yet in what you have said. Is it not time that you came to
the case of the defendant whom you represent? We are not trying a charge
against the German people. We are trying the charges against the
defendant. That is all we are trying.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Mr. President, in the next few sentences I would have
concluded that; but I ask you to appreciate that the important word
“humanity” forms the core of my case. I believe that I am the only
defense counsel who intends to go more deeply into that subject; and I
request permission to make these few statements. I shall come to the
case of Kaltenbrunner very soon.
THE PRESIDENT: On Page 8 you have a headline which is, “The Development
of the History of the Intellectual Pursuit in Europe.” That seems rather
far from the matters which the Tribunal have got to consider.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Mr. President, may I remind you that this question was
discussed by the Prosecution, and especially by M. de Menthon. I do not
believe that I can carry out my task if I take these tremendous crimes
only as facts. Some German must have an opportunity of giving a short
description of the development—and it is very short. At the end of a
few pages I return to the case of Kaltenbrunner; and my plea will in any
case be the shortest one presented here.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Kauffmann, the Tribunal proposes, as far as it can,
to decide the cases which it has got to decide in accordance with law
and not with the sort of very general, very vague and misty
philosophical doctrine with which you appear to be dealing in the first
12 pages of your speech, and, therefore, they would very much prefer
that you should not read these passages. If you insist upon doing so,
there it is; but the Tribunal, as I say, do not think that they are
relevant to the case of the Defendant Kaltenbrunner. They would much
prefer that you would begin at Page 13, where you really come to the
defendant’s case.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Mr. President, it is, of course, extremely difficult for
me to present a plea which is already very much condensed, and now to
disrupt it even more. It is really difficult. I hope that the Tribunal
will appreciate that.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, Dr. Kauffmann; there has been nothing condensed in
what you have read up to the present. It has been all of the most
general type.
DR. KAUFFMANN: In that case may I at least read a few sentences below
the headline with regard to the defense? It starts ...
THE PRESIDENT: Can you not summarize the general nature of what you wish
to say before you come to the Defendant Kaltenbrunner?
DR. KAUFFMANN: Yes, I shall try. I shall read only a few sentences, for
the sake of better understanding, from the short chapter dealing with
the task of the Defense. I say there that the defense has been
established by the Charter and ask how in the face of such excesses a
defense can still identify its task. I then go on to say:
In this Trial, error and truth are mysteriously mixed, probably more so
than ever before in any great trial. To try to find the truth raises the
counsel for the defense to the dignity of an assistant of the Court. Not
only does it entitle the Defense to doubt the credibility of the
witnesses but also that of the documents, in particular of the
Government reports. It entitles the counsel for the defense to state
that such reports, although they may be admitted by the Charter in
evidence, can only be accepted under protest, because none of the
defendants, defendants’ counsel, or neutral observers could have any
influence on the way in which they originated.
These testimonies were certainly made within the framework of the law,
but also within the framework of power.
The people, or a large part of the people, in their aspirations toward
peace and happiness elevated the representative of a heretical doctrine
to the position of their Führer, and this Führer abused the faith of his
followers so that the people, no longer possessing the strength to offer
a timely and open resistance, were engulfed in the gigantic abyss of the
annihilation of their entire racial, political, spiritual, and economic
existence. All of this is tragic in the truest sense of the word. Had
the individual man in the street, the mother at home, and her sons and
daughters, been asked to choose between peace or war, they would never
voluntarily have chosen war. The unsatisfactory element in this Trial is
the absence of the man ...
THE PRESIDENT: Are you reading now from some part of your document?
DR. KAUFFMANN: I am reading a few sentences, Mr. President. This is at
Page 7 of the German text.
THE PRESIDENT: Can you not summarize the argument you are presenting?
DR. KAUFFMANN: Mr. President, I would appreciate it if I could be told
once more whether the Tribunal does not wish me to throw any light at
all on the ideological background in the interests of an understanding
of these crimes against humanity and peace. If the Tribunal states that
it does not desire me to make any such statements, then of course I
shall follow the wishes of the Tribunal. But such a phenomenon ...
THE PRESIDENT: Well, Dr. Kauffmann, if you think it is necessary for you
to read this passage you can do so; but, as I have indicated to you, the
Tribunal think it is very remote indeed from any question which they
have to consider.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Thank you very much. Then I shall skip a few pages and
shall present only 4 or 5 pages, which will be very condensed, on the
subject which I have just mentioned. That begins with the heading,
“Outline of Intellectual Development.”
The rise of Hitler, and his downfall, unique in its extent and
consequences, may be viewed from any side—from the perspective of the
historical spectacle afforded by the course of German history, the
course of economic forces supposedly governed by irresistible laws, the
sociological divisions of the nation, the peculiarities of race and
character of the German people, or the mistakes committed in the
political sphere by the other brothers and sisters of the family of
nations living in the same house.
All this certainly completes the picture of the analysis, but it brings
to light only partial knowledge and partial truth. The deepest, and the
fatal, reason for the Hitler phenomenon lies in the metaphysical domain.
In the final analysis the second World War was unavoidable. Anyone,
however, who regards the world and its phenomena only from the
standpoint of economics may arrive at the conclusion that both world
wars could have been avoided if the resources of the earth had been
reasonably distributed. Economic factors alone can never change the face
of the earth; therefore, the change in the German people’s standard of
living, and the demoralization of the national soul by the Treaty of
Versailles, inflation, serious unemployment, and other factors formed a
foundation for the advent of Hitler. It is possible that catastrophes
may be delayed for years or decades, if certain external living
conditions make the relationship between different nations and peoples
ostensibly happier. At no time, however, can a misguided idea be
destroyed through economic measures alone, and deprived of its power to
injure the individual and the nation, unless mankind can overcome such
ideas and replace them by better ones.
“In the way in which the name of God is used by the peoples and
nations,” says the famous Donoso Cortes, “lies the solution of the
most-feared problems.” Here we have the explanation of the providential
mission of the separate nations and races, the great changes in history,
the rise and fall of empires, conquests and wars, the different
characteristics of the nations, and even their changing fortunes.
M. de Menthon has tried to make an intellectual analysis of National
Socialism. He speaks of the “sin against the spirit,” and sees the
deeper causes of this system in estrangement from Christianity.
I wish to add a few words. Hitler was not a meteor, the fall of which
was incalculable and unpredictable. He was the exponent of an ideology
which was in the last resort atheistic and materialistic.
There is every reason to reflect that, although National Socialism is
eliminated through the complete defeat of Germany, and although the
world is now free of the German threat as proclaimed by all nations,
there has been no decisive change for the better. No peace has filled
our hearts, no rest has come to any corner of human existence. It is
true that the collapse of a powerful state with all its physical and
spiritual forces will be felt for a long time, just as the sea is
stirred into motion when a rock is thrown into calm water. But something
much more is happening at present in Europe and in the world—something
quite different from the mere ebbing away of such a wave of events.
To retain the comparison, the waves rise anew from the deep; they are
fed by mysterious forces which constantly emerge anew. They are those
restless ideas, aiming at the disaster of nations, of which I spoke. And
nothing can disprove the truth of my words when I maintain that victor
and vanquished alike live in the midst of a crisis which disturbs the
conscience of individuals and of nations like a monstrous and apparently
inevitable nightmare, and which causes us to look beyond the punishment
of guilty individuals toward those ways and means which can spare
humanity an even greater catastrophe.
In the _Confessions of a Revolutionary_ the clear-sighted socialist
Proudhon wrote the memorable words: “Every great political problem
contains within itself a theological one.” He coined this phrase one
hundred years ago. It is most timely that the American General
MacArthur, at the signing of the Japanese capitulation, is said to have
repeated the essential meaning of these profound words by saying: “If we
do not create a better and greater system, death will be at our door.
The problem is, fundamentally speaking, a religious one.”
History is made by changes in religious values. They constitute the
strongest motive power in the cultural progress of humanity. Permit me
to show you in a few bold outlines the intellectual and historical
forebears of National Socialism.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Kauffmann, it is 1 o’clock, and I must say that the
last two pages which you have read seem to me to have absolutely nothing
to do with Crimes against Humanity, or with any case with which we have
got to deal. I suggest to you that the next pages, headed “Renaissance,
Subjectivism, French Revolution, Liberalism, National Socialism” are
equally completely unlikely to have any influence at all upon the minds
of the Tribunal.
The Tribunal will now adjourn.
[_The Tribunal recessed until 1400 hours._]
_Afternoon Session_
DR. KAUFFMANN: Mr. President, I am going to leave out the section headed
“Renaissance, Subjectivism, French Revolution, Liberalism, National
Socialism.” The gist of those remarks can be summarized in two or three
sentences and I merely beg you to take cognizance of them. I have
pointed out that the course of all these disastrous movements is the
spiritual attitude which Jacques Maritain described as anthropocentric
humanism.
[sm type begins]The clamor of the great struggle between the Middle Ages
and modern times has filled the last centuries until this very hour. Its
victims include since 1914, for the first time, the women; since 1939,
for the first time, the children. The apocalyptic battle is in full
progress for the 2,000-year-old meaning of the Occident, the motherland
of the material as well as the personal culture of humanity. Its object
is the steadily growing anthropocentric humanism which makes the human
being the measure of all things, the secularization of religion. It
announces itself in the Renaissance, becomes completely clear in the
enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and in the
intellectual movements of the nineteenth century. However good the
reasons and motives were, the way over the Renaissance and the schism of
the sixteenth century proved to be wrong. At its very end stands, for
the present, the ideology of National Socialism. In the heads of its
most extreme champions National Socialism culminated in the radical
demand for the fight unto death against Christianity. Therefore this
ideology was in its last analysis a philosophy without love; and because
of this, it extinguished the light of reason in those addicted to it. To
that extent the head himself of this heresy proclaimed a truth.[sm type
ends]
[sm type begins]Goethe expressed this problem by saying: “World history
is the struggle between belief and unbelief.” And I maintain, based on
the declarations of the greatest minds in all camps of religious faiths,
that the history of the nations, just as previously it was a struggle
for the natural divine right of man, for 2,000 years has been a striving
of human intellect for the Christian soul in man. These precepts are in
fact such that one may not doubt them even for a short moment without
the mind beginning to reel and vacillate helplessly between truth and
error. It is cause for reflection that Hitler rejected the wonderful
characteristic of a truly kind man that we call humility because he had
decided in favor of Machiavelli and Nietzsche and that now the fate of
the Germans is humiliation without precedent. One may also reflect upon
the fact that Hitler denied the virtues of pity and mercy and that now
millions of women and children wail with sorrow, while the law,
seemingly extinct, again assumes enormous proportions, whereas Hitler
surrounded himself with lawlessness. The real and last root of these
calamitous modern movements which threaten state, society, and
Christianity, is rootless liberalism in the meaning of that
anthropocentric humanism, as Maritain calls it. Man and his autonomous
reason become the criterion of everything. The question should impose
itself upon every thinking person, why from the turn of the nineteenth
century until the present such catastrophes of humanity have occurred
which in history, I should almost like to say, find their parallel only
in cosmic catastrophes. Two world wars, with revolutions in their wake,
are never an accidental development but rather a predetermined evolution
of the human race founded on some intellectual-religious error. Coming
from England, rationalism found its way to France and on arrival there
changed its physiognomy. I believe that the paganism of the ancient
times knew hardly anything like Voltaire. No sooner had rationalism
become the state religion of France, when the French Revolution burst
into flames and wrote the idea of the emancipated human rights with
flaming letters into the sky of Europe. In spite of the proclamation of
the human rights, mankind waded through blood as if this was the way to
freedom. Sarcastic and scornful laughter at everything sacred went
through the raving masses. When the French Revolution had put into
practice its state founded on reason, the new institutions did not prove
quite so reasonable. The “brotherhood” was, compared with the glamorous
promises of the rationalists, a bitterly disappointing caricature. Soon
these ideas also conquered Germany; for Germany looked with amazement
and awe toward France in this century. The manifestation of religion
became a religion of pure humanity. The last step was taken by Kant; he
drew the last consequence from the principle of free science. Hegel
abolished the personal God and replaced him by the absolute reason. The
state is everything; it is God, its will is God’s will, in all relations
to it there are no natural rights; it creates religion, law, and
morality by virtue of its own sovereignty. Hitler once more placed the
sovereignty in the people as a race. Hegel’s disciples destroyed the
last vestige of the moral fundaments of society, state, and law. Only
the genius of a man like Leibnitz, in whom the intellect of the German
nation seemed to concentrate for the last time, stood alone in a sea of
the rational ideology. Voltaire ridiculed the German thinker, not only
in France, but also in Berlin. The last stages are connected with the
names of Nietzsche and others. Nietzsche has, as no other modern man,
reasoned modern ideologies out to the end and proclaimed with dauntless
logic whither the present development would inevitably lead. Thus the
road leads from Caligula and Julian Apostate through many a genius,
glorified by the whole world but truly destructive in their effects,
directly to Hitler.[sm type ends]
[sm type begins]Ancient paganism or modern paganism, which of them is
worse? As Donoso Cortes so wisely puts it, there will be no more hope
for a society which has exchanged the stern cult of Christian quest of
truth for the idolatry of reason. After the sophisms come the
revolutions, and behind the sophist walk the executioners.[sm type ends]
[sm type begins]When Hitler, returning from the first World War,
decided, as he said, to become a politician, he declared that he had
found the powers which could free Germany with its national and social
elements from its misery. But fundamentally his ideology was only
another step along the well-worn road to complete autonomy of so-called
natural common sense, to which he so often referred. Naturally he had
his teachers. The apotheosis of his own people traces back to Fichte,
the ideal of the master-man to Nietzsche, the relativity of morals and
right to Machiavelli, the cult of race to Darwin. We have witnessed
their practical effect; for this road leads straight into the
concentration camps, to the destruction of other races, to the
persecution of Christians. But the outside enemies of National Socialism
succumbed to the same ominous idea of “natural common sense” by killing
with their bombs millions of noncombatant women and children and
destroying so many dwellings in German villages and cities. The victor,
even in a defensive war, must not try to excuse these events with
“military necessities” in the meaning of the Charter. The cultural
values of this very city in which this Tribunal is sitting, or of
Dresden, Frankfurt, and many other cities, were the cultural property of
the entire Occident. All this, and the terrible misery of the flood of
refugees from the East, and the fate of the prisoners of war, is part of
the theme of the intellectual and cultural analysis of National
Socialism.[sm type ends]
In the midst of this whole spiritual situation stands the figure of the
Defendant Dr. Kaltenbrunner. The fatherland was already bleeding from a
thousand wounds dealt at its sensitive soul and its gigantic power. Is
this man guilty? He has denied his guilt and yet admitted it. Let us see
what the truth is.
As I have already emphasized, up to the year 1943 Kaltenbrunner was, by
comparison with the other defendants at this Trial, hardly known in
Germany; at any rate, he had hardly any associations with either the
German public or the high officials of the regime. In those days, when
the military, economic, and political fate of the German people was
already swinging with great velocity toward the abyss, hate and
abhorrence of the executive powers were at their peak, the more so as
the paralyzing sensation of the hopelessness of any resistance against
the terror of the regime began to disappear, for people had by then
finally turned away from the legend of invincibility preached by
propaganda. Up to that point Kaltenbrunner had led a retired life and,
in spite of the Austrian Anschluss, his record was clear of offenses
against international law. I should like to say here that he was an
Austrian—I might almost say, a bona fide Austrian. Suddenly, so to
speak, and not on account of any special aptitude, much less through any
efforts of his own, he was drawn into the net of the greatest
accomplices of the greatest murderer. Not of his own free will; on the
contrary, he repeatedly attempted to resist and to have himself
transferred to the fighting front.
I can well understand that I might be told that I should, in view of the
sea of blood and tears, refrain from illuminating the physiognomy of
this man’s soul and character. But deep in my heart—and I beg you not
to misunderstand me—while exercising my profession as counsel, even of
such a man, I am moved by the universal thesis of the great Augustine,
which is hardly intelligible to the present generation: “Hate error, but
love man.” Love? Indeed, insofar as it should pervade justice; because
justice without this virtue becomes simple revenge, which the
Prosecution explicitly disavows. Therefore, for the sake of justice, I
must show you that Kaltenbrunner is not the type of man repeatedly
described by the Prosecution, namely, the “little Himmler,” his
“confidant,” the “second Heydrich.”
I do not believe that he is the cold-hearted being which the witness
Gisevius described in such unfavorable terms, although only from
hearsay. The Defendant Jodl has testified before you that Kaltenbrunner
was not among those of Hitler’s confidants who always gathered around
him after the daily situation conferences in the Führer’s headquarters.
The witness Dr. Mildner, on the basis of direct observation, made the
following statement, which was not shaken by the Prosecution:
“From my own observation I can confirm this: I know the
Defendant Kaltenbrunner personally. His private life was
irreproachable. In my opinion he was promoted from Higher SS and
Police Leader to Chief of the Security Police and of the SD
because Himmler, after the death of his principal rival Heydrich
in June 1942, did not want any man near him or under him who
might have endangered his own position. The Defendant
Kaltenbrunner was no doubt the least dangerous man for Himmler.
Kaltenbrunner had no ambition to bring his influence to bear
through special deeds and ultimately to push Himmler aside. He
was not hungry for power. It is wrong to call him the ‘little
Himmler.’”
The witnesses Von Eberstein, Wanneck, and Dr. Hoettl have expressed
themselves in a similar manner.
And yet this man took over the Reich Security Main Office; indeed, he
took it over to the fullest extent, despite his agreement with Himmler.
I know that today this man is suffering a great deal in thinking of the
catastrophe that has overtaken his people and from the uneasiness of his
conscience; nothing is more understandable than that Dr. Kaltenbrunner,
knowingly, can no longer face the fact that he actually was in charge of
an office under the burden of which the very stones would have cried out
if that had been possible. The personality and character of this man
must be judged differently from the way the Prosecution has judged it.
For the psychologist the question arises how a man, with, let us say, a
normal citizen’s virtues, could take under his control an office which
became the very symbol of human enslavement in the twentieth century, as
far as Germany is concerned. Yet there may have been two reasons for
taking over this office, nevertheless. One is based on the fact that Dr.
Kaltenbrunner, although closely connected with the political and
cultural interests of his Austrian homeland, supported National
Socialism in its larger sense. For before he turned into the side path
with its secrets, he marched with thousands and hundreds of thousands of
other Germans, who desired nothing else than delivery from the unstable
conditions prevailing at that time, on that wide road into which the
eyes of the entire world had insight. Therefore, for example, he was
without a doubt a disciple of anti-Semitism, however, only in the sense
of the necessity of putting an end to the flooding of the German race
with alien elements; but he condemned just as emphatically the mad crime
of the physical annihilation of the Jewish race, as Dr. Hoettl
definitely assures us.
Certainly Kaltenbrunner also admired Hitler’s personality as long as it
did not, little by little, give expression to its absolutely
misanthropic and therefore un-German nature. Also, he approved in
principle, as he himself admitted during his interrogation, of measures
which implied more or less severe compulsion, for example, the
organization of labor training camps. For this reason no sensible person
will want to question the fact that he deemed the establishment of
concentration camps fundamentally quite proper, at least as a
provisional measure during the war, as had been the case for a long time
beyond the German borders. _Sine ira et studio._
The establishment of concentration camps, or whatever one wishes to call
those places at the mention of which the listener involuntarily is
reminded of the words of Dante, is unfortunately not unknown in many
states. History knows of their existence in South Africa some decades
ago, in Russia, England, and America during this war, for the admission,
among others, of persons who for reasons of conscience do not want to
serve with arms. In Bavaria, in the land in which the Tribunal at
present sits, this sort of camp is also known; also known is the
so-called “automatic arrest” category for certain groups of Germans.
Under the heading “Political Principles,” in Point B-5 of the text of
the mutual declaration of the three leading statesmen on the Potsdam
Conference of 17 July 1945, the statement is contained that, among
others, all persons who are a threat to the occupation or its aims shall
be arrested or interned.
The apparent necessity for camps of this sort is thereby recognized. I
myself detest those institutions of human slavery; but I state openly
that these institutions also lie on the road which, when followed to the
end, can and does bring suffering to persons holding different views to
those desired by the state. By this the crimes against humanity in the
German concentration camps are not in the least to be minimized.
As far as Kaltenbrunner is concerned, this man, in view of his character
and attitude as apparent since 1943, according to my conviction and as
can be affirmed by many witnesses, is basically a National Socialist
leader who noted only with repugnance the general trend of the
continually growing wave of terror and enslavement in Germany. For this
reason I deem it important to point to the statement of the witness
Eigruber to the effect that the claim of the Prosecution that
Kaltenbrunner established Mauthausen is wrong.
The second reason lies in the subject of the two conversations with
Himmler, about which Kaltenbrunner testified. According to that
Kaltenbrunner was prepared to take over the offices of the Domestic and
Foreign Intelligence Service in the Reich Security Main Office with the
promise of Himmler that he would be allowed to expand this service into
a central agency, with the aim of absorbing the Political Intelligence
Service and joining it with the hitherto military one of Admiral
Canaris. No doubt it is true, as the witnesses Wanneck, Dr. Hoettl, Dr.
Mildner, and Ohlendorf, and also the defendant himself have testified,
that Himmler, with Kaltenbrunner’s wish in mind, after the murder of
Heydrich, intervened in the executive realm so that nothing of any
importance took place in any executive field in Germany without Himmler
having the final word and thus issuing the decisive order.
The witness Wanneck confirmed the subject of those two conversations of
Kaltenbrunner with Himmler in the following words, which I shall quote
because of their importance:
“When material problems arose Kaltenbrunner frequently remarked
that he had come to an understanding with Himmler to work rather
in the field of the Foreign Political Intelligence Service and
that Himmler himself wanted to exert more influence in executive
functions. To my knowledge Himmler agreed to these adjustments
all the more since he believed that he could depend on
Kaltenbrunner’s political instinct in foreign affairs, as was
apparent from various remarks made by Himmler.”
Various witnesses have testified that Kaltenbrunner, predominantly and
from inner conviction, did dedicate himself to the Domestic and Foreign
Intelligence Service and more and more approached the influence on
domestic and foreign politics he was hoping for. I call attention again
to Wanneck and Dr. Hoettl, and then also to the Defendants Jodl,
Seyss-Inquart, and Fritzsche. Dr. Hoettl testified:
“In my opinion Kaltenbrunner never was completely master of the
large Reich Security Main Office and, from lack of interest in
police and executive problems, occupied himself far more with
the Intelligence Service and with exerting influence on politics
as a whole. This he considered his real domain.”
From the testimony by General Jodl I stress the following sentences:
“Before Kaltenbrunner took over the Intelligence Service from
Canaris he already sent to me, from time to time, very good
reports from the southeastern territory, through which I first
noticed his experience in the Intelligence Service ... I had the
impression that this man knew his business; I now received
constant reports from Kaltenbrunner, just as earlier from
Canaris; not only the actual reports from agents, but from time
to time he sent to me, I might almost say, a political survey on
the basis of his individual reports from agents. I noticed these
condensed reports on the entire political situation abroad
especially, because they revealed, with a frankness and sobriety
never possible under Canaris, the seriousness of our entire
military position.”
The results therefore, which I must deduce from the evidence, are as
follows: Kaltenbrunner, on the basis of the separation of the
Intelligence Service from the executive police function in the Reich
Security Main Office as desired by him, actually held a position, the
main interest of which was the Intelligence Service and its continuous
development. I should add that this Intelligence Service covered more
than Europe; it went from the North Cape to Crete and Africa, from
Stalingrad and Leningrad to the Pyrenees. Kaltenbrunner was the most
zealous of all those in Germany who wished to feel the pulse of the
enemy nations.
That was the lifework of this man as he himself wished it to be for the
duration of the war. Personally he lived in modest circumstances, and it
is the truth when I say that he leaves the stage of political life just
as poor as when he first entered it. The witness Wanneck once quoted a
statement by Kaltenbrunner which is characteristic of him: That he,
Kaltenbrunner, would retire completely from office after the war and
return to the land as a farmer.
Only with deep regret will the spectator see that under the pressure of
political and military events this man did not observe the limitations
desired by himself. His obedience to Hitler, and therefore also Himmler,
submitted to the apparent necessity, in the years 1943-45, of
guaranteeing the stability of conditions inside Germany through police
compulsion. Thereby he became involved in guilt; for it is clear that he
might count on a milder judgment on his guilt before the conscience of
the world only if he could produce evidence that he actually effected a
sharp separation from the unholy Amt IV of the Secret Police, if he had
in no way participated in the ideas and methods, which I believe,
eventually led to the institution of this whole Trial. I cannot deny
that he did not undertake this separation. Nothing is clearly proved in
this direction; even his own testimony speaks against him. Thus his
statement at the beginning of his examination before the Tribunal may be
explained, which I should like to define as the thesis of his guilt:
“Question: ‘You realize that a very special accusation has been
brought against you. The Prosecution accuses you of Crimes
against Peace as well as of your role of an intellectual
principal or of a participant in committing Crimes against
Humanity and against the rules of war. Finally the Prosecution
has connected your name with the terrorism of the Gestapo and
with the cruelties in the concentration camps. I now ask you: Do
you assume responsibility for these points of accusation as they
are outlined and familiar to you?’”
And Kaltenbrunner answers:
“First of all I should like to state to the Court that I am
fully aware of the serious nature of the accusations brought
against me. I know that the hatred of the world is directed
against me, since I am the only one here to answer to the world
and to the Court, because a Himmler, a Müller, a Pohl are no
longer alive ... I want to state at the very beginning that I
assume responsibility for every wrong which from the time of my
appointment as Chief of the Reich Security Main Office was
committed within the jurisdiction of that office as far as it
occurred under my actual command, and I thus knew or should have
known of these occurrences.”
Thus the duty of the Defense is automatically delineated by asking the
questions:
(1) What did Kaltenbrunner do, good and evil, after his appointment as
Chief of the Reich Security Main Office on 1 February 1943?
(2) To what extent is the statement justified that in the essential
points he did not have sufficient knowledge of all the Crimes against
Humanity and against the rules of war?
(3) In how far can his guilt be established from the viewpoint that he
should have known about the serious crimes against international law in
which Amt IV of the Reich Security Main Office (Secret State Police) was
directly or indirectly involved?
What has Kaltenbrunner done? In this connection I am passing over the
accusation brought against him by the Prosecution for his participation
in the events surrounding the occupation of Austria and Czechoslovakia,
for no matter with what energy he followed his goal of seeing his
Austrian homeland incorporated into the German Reich and used the SS
forces under his command for the realization of this end, this aim
cannot have been a criminal one according to the world’s conscience.
Just as little could one reach a verdict of criminal guilt because of
the forcible means employed at that time to accomplish the annexation of
Austria, which was the outcome of history and desired by millions.
Kaltenbrunner was still much too insignificant a man for that. Economic
distress—Anschluss movement—National Socialism: That was the path
followed by the majority of the Austrian people, not the National
Socialist ideology; for Hitler himself was, from the standpoint of
Austrianism, a spiritual and political renegade. Yet the Austrian
Anschluss movement was a people’s movement before National Socialism had
reached any importance in Germany. Austria wanted to protect herself
against the Versailles and St. Germain ruling, which forbade the
Anschluss, by holding a plebiscite in each province. After 90 percent
had voted in Tyrol and Salzburg, the victorious powers threatened to
discontinue the shipment of food supplies. Hitler’s seizure of power
paralyzed the desire for Anschluss among those not sympathizing with the
Party, but the distress in Austria became still more acute and isolated
the Dollfuss-Schuschnigg regime. Incorporation into the economic sphere
of Greater Germany, where the removal of mass unemployment seemed to be
the source of hope, appeared to the greatly distressed Austrian people
as the only way out. The wave of enthusiasm which on 12 and 13 March
1938 went through all Austria was real. To try to deny this today would
be to falsify history. The Anschluss, not the Dollfuss-Schuschnigg
Government, was based on democracy.
Just as little can one, I believe, according to the reasons mentioned
above, reach a verdict of guilt for Kaltenbrunner because of his alleged
activity in the question of Czechoslovakia. In my opinion, the question
of guilt and expiation arises only for the time after 1 February 1943.
The indignation of the German people over one of the most infamous
terroristic measures, the imposition of protective custody, had already
become immense before this date. Is it correct to say that Kaltenbrunner
himself, of whom many orders for protective custody bearing his
signature are in evidence before the Court, inwardly abhorred this type
of suppression of human liberties?
May I refer to just a few sentences from his interrogations:
“Question: ‘Did you know that protective custody was at all
permissible and was used frequently?’
“Answer: ‘As I have stated, I discussed the idea of “protective
custody” with Himmler already in 1942. But I believe that
already before this time I had corresponded quite extensively on
this subject with him, as well as once also with Thierack. I
consider protective custody as applied in Germany only in a
smaller number of cases to be a necessity of state, or better, a
measure such as is justified by war. For the rest I often voiced
my opinion, well founded in legal history, against this
conception and against the application of protective custody in
principle. I had several discussions about it with Himmler and
with Hitler also. I publicly took my stand against it at a
meeting of public prosecutors, I think in 1944, because I have
always been of the opinion that a man’s freedom is one of his
highest possessions and only the lawful sentence of a regular
court of justice founded on the Constitution may limit or take
away this freedom.’”
Here the same man expresses the right principles, the observance of
which would have spared the German people and the world untold
suffering, and the nonobservance of which constitutes the guilt of this
man who in spite of his right views, suited his actions to the so-called
necessity of state. He thereby, against his own will and knowledge,
became subject to the principle of hatred, which sooner or later will
always shake or shatter the foundations of the strongest state. “Right
is what benefits the people,” Hitler had proclaimed. I well know that
Kaltenbrunner today deeply regrets having adhered too long to that false
maxim without putting up sufficient resistance ...
Although the Prosecution has not been able to produce even one single
original signature of Kaltenbrunner in connection with orders for
protective custody, and I do not think it incredible when Kaltenbrunner
deposes that he himself never put into effect such an order for
protective custody by his signature, nevertheless, in view of the tragic
results due to so many of these orders, I do not need to say even one
word as to whether he is entirely blameless or is much less to blame
because these orders had perhaps been signed without his knowledge;
although of course the question arises immediately how this was possible
in an office however large. Be that as it may; in affairs of such depth
and such tragic outcome one’s feelings are inclined to make hardly any
distinction between knowledge and ignorance due to negligence, because
one wants to hold everyone occupying a post in an office responsible for
what happens there. This recognition is also the meaning of
Kaltenbrunner’s statement, cited above, regarding his fundamental
responsibility. Where the happiness and fate of living men are involved,
it is impossible to retreat under the pretext of ignorance in order to
avoid punishment; at best mitigation of sentence can be asked for. The
defendant knows this too. Orders for protective custody were the ominous
harbingers of the concentration camp. And I am not revealing a secret
when I say that the responsibility for issuing orders for protective
custody includes the beginning of responsibility for the fate of those
held in the concentration camps. I could never admit that Dr.
Kaltenbrunner may have known of the excesses suffered by the thousands
who languished in the camps; for, as soon as the gates of the
concentration camps were closed, there began the exclusive influence of
that other office, the frequently mentioned Central Office for Economy
and Administration. Instead of referring to many statements of witnesses
regarding this point, I refer only to the one of the witness Dr. Hoettl
who, when asked about subordination in rank replied:
“The concentration camps were exclusively under the command of
the SS Central Office for Economy and Administration, hence not
under the Reich Security Main Office, and therefore not under
Kaltenbrunner. In this sphere he had no authority of command and
no competency.”
Other witnesses have said that of necessity Kaltenbrunner should have
had knowledge of the sad conditions in the concentration camps, but
there is no doubt that the commandants of the concentration camps
themselves deliberately concealed criminal excesses of the guards even
from their superiors. It is furthermore a fact that the conditions found
by the Allies upon their arrival were almost exclusively the results of
the catastrophic military and economic situation during the last weeks
of the war, which the world mistakenly identified with general
conditions in former times as well. The above statement is fully
verified by the statements of the camp commandant of Auschwitz, Hoess,
who because of his later activity in the Concentration Camp Department
of the Central Office for Economy and Administration, had an accurate
over-all picture. Hoess has no ulterior motive whatsoever to give false
testimony. A person like him, who sent millions of men to their deaths,
no longer comes under the authority of human judges and considerations.
Hoess stated:
“The so-called ill-treatment and tortures in the concentration
camps were not, as assumed, a policy. They were rather excesses
of individual leaders, subleaders, and men who laid violent
hands upon the inmates.”
These people themselves were, according to the statement of Hoess, taken
to task for that. I believe I need not go into any more details of how,
according to various witnesses, visitors to concentration camps were
impressed and surprised by the good condition, cleanliness, and order in
the camps; and therefore no suspicion was aroused as to special
sufferings of the inmates. But it would be in the worst taste if I
contested the fact that a chief of the Intelligence Service, if only on
the basis of foreign news of atrocities, should not have felt a
responsibility, in the interest of humanity, to clear up any doubts
arising in that sphere.
The lack of knowledge seems to be confirmed by the statement of Dr.
Meyer of the International Red Cross, since the permission to allow the
International Red Cross to visit the Jewish Camp at Theresienstadt and
to allow food and medical supplies to be sent in, coming from
Kaltenbrunner, seems to be proof of the bad conditions in the camps
during the last months of the war; nobody, however, would allow neutral
or foreign observers to have insight into the camps if it had been known
that crimes against humanity were, so to speak, scheduled daily in the
camps, as is asserted by the Prosecution.
In no case, therefore, do I come to the conclusion that Kaltenbrunner
had full knowledge of the so-called “conditions” in the concentration
camps, yet I do conclude that it was his duty to investigate the fate of
those who were imprisoned. Kaltenbrunner might have found out then that
a considerable number of the inmates were sent to the camps because they
were criminals and that a much smaller portion was there because of
their political or ideological viewpoints or because of their race but
that he would then have found out about those primitive offenses against
humanity, about those excesses and all the distress of these
people—that I contest, in agreement with Kaltenbrunner.
The way to arrive at the truth was immensely complicated in Germany, and
even the Chief of the Reich Security Main Office found nearly
insurmountable obstacles in the hierarchy of jurisdiction and authority
of other offices and persons. The alleviation of the sad lot of the
internees was, after 1943, a problem which could have been solved only
through the dissolution of such camps. A Germany of the last 12 years
without any concentration camps would, however, have been a utopia. On
the whole, Kaltenbrunner was but a small cog in this machinery.
Earlier I spoke about the orders for protective custody and of their
effect. Dr. Kaltenbrunner has affirmed the necessity for work education
camps, owing to—as stated by him during his examination—the conditions
then prevailing in the Reich, to the shortcomings of the labor market,
and to other reasons. And if I am not mistaken, no convincing proof was
submitted of ill-treatment and cruelties in such camps. The reason may
well lie in the fact that these camps were in some respects only related
to, but not on equal footing with, concentration camps.
With all available means of evidence, Kaltenbrunner has opposed the
accusation of having confirmed orders of execution with his signature.
The witnesses Hoess and Zutter stated that they saw such orders in
isolated cases. The Prosecution, however, does not seem to me to have
proved that any such orders were issued without judicial sentence or
without reasons justifying death, with the exception of a particularly
serious case reported from hearsay by the witness Zutter, adjutant of
the camp commandant of Mauthausen. According to him, a teletype signed
by Kaltenbrunner is said to have authorized the execution of
parachutists in the spring of 1945. An original signature by
Kaltenbrunner is entirely lacking. I add that Kaltenbrunner has
contested having any knowledge or information about this matter. I think
I may safely claim that he did not sign any such orders concerning life
and death, because he was not authorized to do so. Dr. Hoettl as a
witness stated:
“No, Kaltenbrunner did not issue such orders and could not, in
my opinion, give such orders”—for killing Jews—“on his own
initiative.”
And Wanneck explicitly asserted the following:
“It is known to me that Himmler personally decided over life and
death and other punishment of inmates of concentration camps.”
Thus the exclusive authority of Himmler in this sad sphere may be
considered proved. I am not seriously disposed to deny the guilt of
Kaltenbrunner completely on this point. If such orders were carried out
against members of foreign powers, for example, based on the so-called
“Commando Order” of Hitler of 18 October 1942, then there arises the
question of the responsibility of that person whose signature was
affixed to these orders, because misuse of his name by subordinates was
possible. It is certain that Kaltenbrunner never exerted the least
influence in originating the “Commando Order.” It can, however, hardly
be doubted that this decree constituted a violation of international
law. The development of the second World War into a total war inevitably
created an abundance of new stratagems. Insofar as genuine soldiers were
employed in their execution, even a motive of bitterness, humanly quite
understandable—and I am now speaking about the conduct of the Commando
troops concerned in violation of the laws of warfare and other
things—could not justify the order. Fortunately but very few people
fell victims to this order of Hitler, as the Defendant Jodl has
testified.
Perhaps one might ask me whether it is my duty, or whether I am
permitted, to reiterate such points of incrimination as I have just
done, since this seems to be the task of the Prosecution. To this I
reply: If the Defense is so liberal as to admit the negative side of a
personality, it surely is apt to be heard more readily when it
approaches the Tribunal with the request to appraise the positive side
in its full significance. However, is there a positive side at all in
the case before us? I believe that I may answer that question in the
affirmative. I already pointed out several facts which are connected
with the time of the assumption of office by Kaltenbrunner. During his
short 2 years of activity this man has made himself a bearer of
decidedly fortunate and humane ideas. I wish to remind you of his
attitude toward the lynch order of Hitler with respect to enemy aviators
who were shot down. The witness, General of the Air Force Koller,
described the decent conduct of Kaltenbrunner, which led to a total
sabotage of this order. After first describing the contents of Hitler’s
order and Hitler’s threat, pronounced during the situation conference at
that time, namely, that any saboteur of this order should himself be
shot, Koller goes on to repeat the statements of Kaltenbrunner. Permit
me to quote a few sentences of the deposition of Koller. Koller says
that Kaltenbrunner said:
“The tasks of the SD are always given a wrong interpretation.
Such matters are not the concern of the SD. Moreover, no German
soldier will do what the Führer commands. He does not kill
prisoners; and if a few fanatic partisans of Herr Bormann try to
do so, the German soldier will interfere ... Furthermore, I
myself, too, will do nothing in this matter ...”
Koller and Kaltenbrunner, therefore, were fully agreed on that matter.
This positive action of Kaltenbrunner, important for the judgment of the
actual nature of his personality, does not stand alone. Dr. Hoettl
confirmed the fact that, in questions of the future fate of Germany,
Kaltenbrunner went, if not beyond, at least up to the borderline of high
treason. This witness, for example, confirms that Kaltenbrunner in March
1944 caused Hitler to moderate the plans concerning the Hungarian
question and succeeded in preventing the entry of Romanian units into
Hungary, that with his support also the planned Hungarian National
Socialist Government was not set up for a long time.
Dr. Hoettl then says literally:
“Since 1943 I told Kaltenbrunner that Germany must attempt to
end the war by a peace at any price. I informed him of my
connections with an American authority in Lisbon. I also
informed him that I had taken up new contacts with an American
authority abroad by way of the Austrian resistance movement. He
declared that he was prepared to go to Switzerland with me and
there to take up personally negotiations with the American
representative, in order to prevent further useless bloodshed.”
The depositions of the witness Dr. Neubacher run along the same lines.
But over and beyond that, this witness testified to a significant humane
deed of Kaltenbrunner. Upon being questioned whether Kaltenbrunner had
assisted the witness in moderating, as much as possible, the terror
policies in Serbia, Dr. Neubacher answered; and I quote:
“Yes, in this field I owe much to the assistance of
Kaltenbrunner. The German Police agencies in Serbia knew from me
and from Kaltenbrunner that in his capacity as Chief of the
Foreign Intelligence Service he uncompromisingly supported my
policies in the southeastern territory. Thereby I succeeded in
exerting influence on the police offices. Kaltenbrunner’s
assistance was of value in my efforts to abolish the then
prevailing system of collective responsibility and reprisals
with the aid of intelligence officers.”
I further mention the relief work of the Geneva Red Cross, which is due
to the initiative of Kaltenbrunner. The activity of the defendant with
respect to this was portrayed by the witnesses Professor Burckhardt, Dr.
Bachmann, and Dr. Meyer. As a consequence many thousands were able to
exchange their captivity for liberty.
I should like to draw your attention to a few words stated by the
Defendant Seyss-Inquart on two points. He mentioned that Kaltenbrunner
advocated the complete autonomy of the Polish state as well as the
reintroduction of the independence of both Christian Churches, and I
might add that Dr. Hoettl testified that Kaltenbrunner defended his
activity very energetically and met with most bitter resistance by
Bormann. Kaltenbrunner tried to realize his humane intentions not only
in this field. Therefore, it seems to me to be of significance also to
point out his efforts to make the Austrian Gauleiter understand that any
resistance against the troops of the Western powers would be senseless
and that in view of this, irresponsible orders for resistance were not
to be issued. This was confirmed by the witness Wanneck. The Prosecution
held Kaltenbrunner responsible for the evacuation and planned
destruction of certain concentration camps. I believe this evidence may
not only be considered as inconclusive, but that the contrary has in
fact been proved. Upon the question, addressed to Dr. Hoettl, whether
Kaltenbrunner had instructed the commandant of the concentration camp
Mauthausen to surrender the camp to the advancing troops, Dr. Hoettl
answered:
“It is correct that Kaltenbrunner issued such an order. He
dictated it in my presence for transmission to the camp
commandant.”
As a supplement Kaltenbrunner, during his personal examination, declared
very logically: If the camp of Mauthausen, filled with criminals, could
not be evacuated by his orders, an order to evacuate Dachau would have
been devoid of any basis by reason of its—compared with
Mauthausen—harmless inmates. According to the testimony of Freiherr Von
Eberstein, the destruction of the concentration camp Dachau with its two
secondary camps was the goal of the then Gauleiter of Munich, Giesler.
Finally the witness Wanneck confirmed the fact that such an order of
Kaltenbrunner had not become known to him; that, however, due to his
position with Kaltenbrunner, he would have known if such an order had
been issued by the latter or even the issuance of such an order
considered. Who actually issued these orders can no longer be
established with certainty. The witness Hoess, in his examination,
mentioned an order of evacuation by Himmler, as well as one directly by
Hitler.
In this connection it seems appropriate to me to refer to
Kaltenbrunner’s participation in the sad case of Sagan as charged by the
Prosecution. With reference to Kaltenbrunner’s statement, confirmed by
the examination of the witness Wielen, it appears to me to be a proven
fact that this matter came to Kaltenbrunner’s attention for the first
time only several weeks later, after the conclusion of this tragedy.
It also appears doubtful to me whether the so-called Einsatzgruppen,
introduced on the basis of Hitler’s “Commissar Order” of 1941, were
still in existence and functioning after the appointment of
Kaltenbrunner. Some facts speak for it, others against it. Kaltenbrunner
denied the existence of these groups during his term as Chief of the
Reich Security Main Office. I do not want to lose myself in details, but
I should like to draw the attention of the Tribunal to these doubts. The
same applies, for example, to the so-called “Bullet Decree.” Document
1650-PS confirms that it was not Kaltenbrunner but Müller, the infamous
Chief of Amt IV, who issued the instructions involved, while Document
3844-PS mentions personal signatures of the defendant. It appears to me
that the first document deserves preference. May I finally draw your
attention to those documents which are of less value as evidence because
they are based upon indirect observation. I believe that the Tribunal
possesses sufficient experience in evaluating evidence so that I need
not argue this any further.