http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=59859
Here is a brief biographical sketch of the man:
Ohlendorf, Prof. Dr. jur. Otto (4.2.1907-7.6.1951) [SS-Gruppenfűhrer und Generalleutnant der Polizei] -- NSDAP: 6531; SS: 880; service, Reich Security Main Office for the NSDAP Security Service (SD-Hauptamt/RSHA) (on 1 Dec 1937)-8 May 1945; chief, Reich Security Main Office Department III NSDAP Security Service Inland (RSHA Amt III Sicherheitsdienst - Deutschland) (on 1 Jan 1941); commander, Action Group D (Einsatzgruppe D) Jun 1941- Jul 1942; undersecretary in the Reich Ministry of Economics (Unterstaatssekretaer in Reichswirtschaftministerium) {testified at International Military Tribunal trial of major war criminals 3 Jan 1946 (NYT 4 Jan 1946:6:3); put on trial by an American military tribunal at Nuremberg (the "Einsatzgruppe case") on charges of mass murder arising out of the mass murders of Russian Jews, Soviet POWs and communist functionaries while he was in command of Einsatzgruppe D (LT 9 Apr 1948:4e); convicted of war crimes and sentenced to death by hanging 10 Apr 1948 (NYT 11 Apr 1948:9:1; LT 10 Apr 1948:3e; LT 12 Apr 1948:4f); clemency refused 31 Jan 1951 by General Thomas T. Handy, US armed forces commander in Europe (NYT 1 Feb 1951:1:2); executed at Landsberg-am-Lech prison 7 Jun 1951 (NYT 7 Jun 1951:1:7; LT 8 Jun 1951:6d; Encyclopedia of the Third Reich pps. 665-6; SS: Roll of Infamy p. 128; Field Men p. 93; ABR-SS; Dienstaltersliste der Schutzstaffel der NSDAP [9 Nov 1944]; Third Reich Historical Forum, "Landsberg Executions," http://www.thirdreichforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=23517).
The American military tribunal which sentenced Ohlendorf to death had this to say in its judgment:
This is Ohlendorf's later NMT testimony, taken when he was on trial for his life, from Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10. Vol. 4: United States of America v. Otto Ohlendorf, et. al. (Case 9: 'Einsatzgruppen Case'); Government Printing Office, District of Columbia: 1950, pp. 223-312. This is part 1 of 5 parts:"The evidence in this case could reveal not one but two Otto Ohlendorfs. There is the Ohlendorf represented as the student, lecturer, administrator, sociologist, scientific analyst, and humanitarian. This Ohlendorf was born on a farm, studied law and political science at the Universities of Leipzig and Goettingen, practiced as a barrister at the courts of Alfeld-Leine and Hildesheim, became deputy section chief in the Institute for Applied Economic Science in Berlin, and in 1936 became Economic Consultant in the SD. On behalf of this Ohlendorf, defense counsel has submitted several hundred pages of affidavits which speak of Ohlendorf 's efforts to make the SD purely a fact-gathering organization, of his opposition to totalitarian and dictatorial tendencies in the cultural life of Germany, of his defense of the middle classes, and of his many clashes with Himmler, the SS Chief, and Mueller, the Chief of the Gestapo. One of these affidavits declares:
"Ohlendorf did not see superior and inferior races in various peoples….He considered race only as a symbolic notion. The individual nations to him were not superior or inferior, but different. The domination of one people with its principles of life over the other he considered, therefore, wrong and directed against the laws of life. For him, the goal to be desired was a system among peoples by which every nation could develop according to its own nature, potentialities and abilities. Folk, in his view, also was not dependent on a state organization."
On the other hand, we have the description of an SS General Ohlendorf who led
Einsatzgruppe D [Action Group D] into the Crimea on a race-extermination expedition. That Otto Ohlendorf is described by that same Ohlendorf. If the humanitarian and the
Einsatz leader are merged into one person it could be assumed that we are here dealing with a character such as the described by Robert Louis Stevenson in his "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." As interesting as it would be to dwell on this possible dual nature, the Tribunal can only make its adjudication on the Ohlendorf who, by his own word, headed an organization which, according to its own reports, killed 90,000 people. The Tribunal finds as a fact from the reports, records, documents and testimony in this case that Einsatzgruppe D did kill 90,000 persons in violation of the laws and customs of war, of general International Law, and of Control Council Law No. 10.
Whatever offenses Ohlendorf may have to answer for, he will never need to plead guilty to evasiveness on the witness stand, which indeed cannot be said of all the defendants. With a forthrightness which one could well wish were in another field of activity, Otto Ohlendorf related how he received the Fuehrer-Order and how he executed it. He never denied the facts of killings and only seeks exculpation on the basis of the legal argument that he was acting under Superior Orders. Further, that, as he saw the situation, Germany was compelled to attack Russia as a defensive measure and that the security of the Army, to which his group was attached, called for the operations which he unhesitatingly admits. All these defenses have been treated in the General Opinion and need not be repeated here.
In addition to Ohlendorf's direct testimony in this present trial, he voluntarily appeared as a witness in the International Military Tribunal trial and there described under oath the entire einsatz program of extermination. With but a minor exception he confirmed in this trial the testimony presented before the IMT. Thus, that testimony, by reference, is incorporated into the record of the instant trial and forms further evidence in support of the findings reached in this judgment. Even outside the court room Ohlendorf admitted untrammeledly the activities of the Einsatzgruppe under his charge. In at least four affidavits he related how his command functioned. He told of the area covered by his Einsatzgruppe, the division of his group into smaller units, the manner and methods of execution, the collection of the valuables of the victims, and the writing and submitting of reports to Berlin.
The record of Otto Ohlendorf, the Chief of Department III of the RSHA and the Chief of the Einsatzgruppe D, is complete.
The record and analysis of the Otto Ohlendorf who was born in the country and showed great promise in the field of learning, purposeful living and sociological advancement, will need to be made elsewhere. Unfortunately it cannot form part of this judgment which can only dispose of the charges of criminality presented in the indictment. Those charges against Otto Ohlendorf have been proved before this Tribunal beyond a reasonable doubt. The Tribunal accordingly finds Otto Ohlendorf guilty under Counts I and II of the indictment. It has been argued by Dr. Aschenauer that Ohlendorf was not a member of a criminal organization as determined by the International Military Tribunal decision and Control Council Law No. 10. In support of this argument it is asserted that Ohlendorf was ordered to Russia as an employee of the Reich Group Commerce. It is impossible that Ohlendorf, as the leader of Einsatzgruppe D, should have been functioning as a member of the Reich Group Commerce. He headed Office III of RSHA before he went to Russia, and he headed it when he returned. The Tribunal finds that the defendant was a member of the criminal organizations SS and SD under the conditions defined by the Judgment of the International Military Tribunal and is, therefore, guilty under Count III of the Indictment." (Musmanno, Michael A., U.S.N.R, Military Tribunal II, Case 9: Opinion and Judgment of the Tribunal. Nuremberg: Palace of Justice. 8 April 1948. pp. 130-133 (original mimeographed copy), http://www.einsatzgruppenarchives.com/t ... ndorf.html ).}
2. EXTRACTS FROM THE TESTIMONY OF THE DEFENDANTS OHLENDORF, HAENSCH, AND BRAUNE
EXTRACTS FROM THE TESTIMONY OF DEFENDANT OHLENDORF*
DIRECT EXAMINATION
DR. ASCHENAUER (Counsel for defendant Ohlendorf) : What is your name?
DEFENDANT OHLENDORF: Otto Ohlendorf.
Q. When and where were you born?
A. On 4 February 1907, in Hoheneggelsen, District of Hannover.
Q. What was the profession of your father?
A. My father was an owner of a farm.
Q. Do you have any brothers or sisters?
A. I am the youngest of four.
Q. What is the profession of your brothers and sisters?
A. My oldest brother is a scientist; my second brother owns a farm; my sister has a business.
Q. What was the political opinion in your parents' house?
A. My father was an old National Liberal, and later he was at times a liaison official of the German People's Party.
Q. What was the religious attitude in your parents' home?
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* Complete testimony is recorded in mimeographed transcript, 8, 9, 14, 15 October 1947, pp. 475-756.
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A. My parents were both practicing protestants.
Q. Where did you spend your childhood and adolescence?
A. Up to the last school year, I lived in my home town and worked on the farm in my leisure hours.
Q. You emphasize the fact that you worked on your father's farm. Does that have any special significance in your development?
A. Unconsciously, I got to know the conditions and ways of handling a farm and got to know the human conditions in a farm district, that is, the cooperation and living together of farmers, industrial workers, peasants, merchants, tradesmen, and people of other trades. The rest of the time my professional development proceeded along with my political development. These conditions of administration, culture, religion, and education, as I got to know them in that village, always remained with me, and they became the leading motives for my own philosophy.
Q. What kind of education did you have?
A. After a few years of public school and high school, I graduated from the Gymnasium.
Q. Where and what did you study?
A. I studied in Leipzig, in Goettingen, and my fields were law and economics. Later, after my graduation, I spent one year in Italy studying the Fascist system and the Fascist philosophy of international law.
Q. Are you married?
A. Yes.
Q. Since when?
A. Since 1934.
Q. Do you have any children?
A. Yes. I have 5 children from 2 to 11 years of age.
Q. When did you become a member of the Nazi Party?
A. In 1925.
Q. How did you come to enter the Nazi Party?
A. I have been interested in politics from my earliest days on. When I was 16 years old, I was director of a youth group of the German National People's Party; but I was not sufficiently bourgeois and involved in the class system not to turn my back very quickly on this bourgeois party, since its special interests and political methods could not appeal to me. However, on the other hand, I was too closely connected with the moral, religious, and social philosophy of the traditional bourgeoisie to become a Marxist for instance. But at that time I recognized that the social demands were a truly national problem, a problem, that is to say, concerning the whole people, and I recognized that the national demands were also a truly social problem. These two points of view seemed likely to find the best solution in National Socialism
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in my opinion. In addition, I was attracted very much by the principle of achievement and the fact that active people were taken as criterion for building up the social organism, which was symbolically expressed in the term "Worker's Party". The doctrine of the national idea was also attractive to me, that is, the doctrine that peoples are independent organisms which by themselves and in themselves have to solve their own problems.
Q. What activity did you engage in in the Nazi Party?
A. In 1925 and 1926 I did everything which had to be done by every member in the relatively small organization at that time. I was head of a district group. I sold papers. I posted posters. I participated in discussions and spoke in gatherings. I went from house to house and from man to man.
Q. Were you at that time a member of the SS too?
A. From what I have just said, it can be gathered that at that time the various functions were not separated as yet. There were not yet any suborganizations of the Party. Thus, the question of participating in the functions of the SS was not a question of becoming a member. Rather, I, together with four other members of the Party, was detailed for service in the new SS functions, but since I left my home town shortly afterwards, I did not get to perform that service. I was merely crossed off the list and, therefore, never found out under what number I was registered.
Q. What was your activity in the Party after 1926?
A. In 1926 there were the first differences between myself and my superiors in the Party. I did not agree with my superiors' personal and factual views. Therefore, from 1926 to 1933 I did not work within the official party. On the other hand, on my own, especially in the years 1927 to 1931 as a student in Goettingen, I was very actively engaged in spreading national socialism by arranging gatherings by myself, by arranging discussions, and especially I conducted training courses. These courses were probably the first which were systematically started in the Party.
* * * * * * * * * *
DR. ASCHENAUER: What was your activity in the Party after 1933?
DEFENDANT OHLENDORF: After the assumption of power in 1933, I was Referendar at the district court in Hildesheim, and as such I lived in my home town once more. I led my own district group in my own town again temporarily. I directed the professional group for law at the district court at Hildesheim. Furthermore, again I conducted training courses among the officials in the clear consciousness that the influx of a lot of non-National Socialists into the Party could no longer be prevented, which made a clarification of the Fascist and Nazi doctrines all
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the more necessary. During this time this theme was the subject of my speeches, and despite the efforts, I could not prevent this influx of many non-National Socialists into the Party. This activity lasted until October 1933.
Q. When did you join the Institute for World Economics in Kiel?
A. October 1933.
Q. How did that come about?
A. My inclinations were always divided between politics and learning. Since I knew on how little National Socialism was actually based, I was very pleased to accept an offer from Professor Jessen which enabled me to combine learning and economics. He offered me a position at the Institute for World Economics in Kiel as his personal assistant, and at the same time gave me the opportunity of building up a department of National Socialism and Fascism. Thus it was our common goal to examine Fascism scientifically, and at the same time to enrich the substance of National Socialism. Personally, it was my intention to study philosophy and sociology and prepare for an academic post in economics.
Q. How long were you active as a research assistant?
A. I was with Professor Jessen from October 1933 to March 1934, and I remained at Kiel without him until the fall of 1934.
Q. How was it that your activity terminated so shortly?
A. About New Year of 1934 Professor Jessen and I had objected very strenuously against National Bolshevistic tendencies of the Party at Kiel, especially, because these National Bolshevist circles had built up an organization in almost all Reich Ministries. As the result of this fight on our part I was, in February 1934, arrested at the request of the Party with several other students. Professor Jessen evaded this arrest because he was sick. He had to leave Kiel since his opponents and my opponents, especially in the Ministry of Culture actually held the power. After Professor Jessen left, the Ministry of Culture demanded in the fall of 1934 that I be dismissed from Kiel, because I was a factor of political unrest there.
Q. What did this event mean for your scientific plans, for your scholastic plans?
A. Since the departments of the Ministry of Culture were against me, my scholastic career was at an end.
Q. What activity did you decide to engage in now?
A. Jessen and I took up the fight against these people with other groups in the Party and formulated the plan to build the commercial high school in Berlin into an economics institute in order to fight these National Bolshevist forces which were espe-
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cially active in economics, in order to oppose them with real representatives of National Socialism. Jessen was to be provost of this school, and I was to aid him in building up the school. For this purpose I went to Berlin in December 1934, but these plans fell through also because of the Party, in this case on the part of Rosenberg. In the paper, the "Voelkischer Beobachter," an article appeared against Jessen which called a book by Jessen antinational. Rosenberg objected to Jessen. The Culture Minister, Rust, did not dare to make him director of the school. Thus my scholastic plans were definitely at an end, but simultaneously my political activity was also at an end, insofar as the director of the Reich School of National Socialist Economics, Dr. Wagner, warned me, at the request of an organization in Munich, against attacking National Socialist politics in my speeches, such speeches which were especially directed against the policies of the Reich Food Office would no longer be tolerated.
Q. How long did you remain in the Institute for Applied Economic Sciences?
A. Now I was without any professional goal, directed a library in the Institute for Applied Economic Sciences and furthermore held meetings with students. I had already described them briefly, but those forces also destroyed my student meetings so that I was definitely at an end in Berlin.
Q. Are you speaking of the time 1935-1936?
A. Yes.
Q. In May 1936, you entered into the service of the SD. How did that come about?
A. This same Professor Jessen who had called me to Kiel and Berlin now offered me a post in the SD, namely, specialist on economics, a position which had been offered to him too. Until that time I was not familiar with the SD. Professor Jessen arranged a meeting with the leader of the SD, at that time Professor Hoehn, and in this discussion I told him what my political opinions were, and to my surprise he answered that these very political critical opinions concerning practical National Socialism were just what the SD was looking for. Since there was no more public criticism, this would be an organization which would have as its mission to inform the leading organizations of the Party and the state about National Socialist developments, and especially as regards wrong tendencies, abuses, etc.
Q. What was the concrete mission assigned to the SD?
A. I was told to build up an economic news service, to create an organization which would be in a position to give all the information in the field of economics which was essential for National Socialist leaders to know concerning mistaken developments. This
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was the motive which induced me to enter the SD and thus the SS in 1936.
Q. Now, before going into any more important questions concerning the charges of the prosecution, 1 would like to finish the story of your professional career. How did your position in the SD develop further?
A. The position in the SD was somewhat different from what I had expected. The chief of the SD had exaggerated to me insofar as he described an SD, which in reality did not yet exist. The whole central organization which I found consisted of about twenty young people without any typists, without any registry, without any aids at all, and with no Reich-wide organization. No one even knew what they wanted in detail. Such individual cases were dealt with, which happened to come along in such an embryonic organization. The natural interests of the chief were practically the entire content of the SD. He was a political scientist and university teacher, and thus the SD was first concerned with universities and political science. Here I began to work in the field of economics, laid the basis for an information service in which information was gathered about economic factors in Germany, and I tried to find specialists who would be in a position to analyze the economic tendencies, to evaluate them and sum them up. This work found approval, and around the turn of the years 1936-37, I became Chief of Staff of the SD Inland, that is, representative of the chief, with the special mission of transferring the system I had developed to the other fields. The basis for comprehensive information service was worked out and organized. In 1936 we already find a small scale picture of the later office III of the Reich Security Main Office. The SD Central Department II-2 had three groups which encompassed all the spheres of national life — group I, culture, learning, education, and folkdom; group II, law and administration, questions of Party and State, universities and student organizations; group III, all departments of economics.
Q. Did you have any difficulty in your work?
A. The difficulties developed very rapidly when Himmler noticed what was being developed here. The difficulties came from the cultural sphere and from the economic sphere. In the years 1936 and 1937, the development of the Four Year Plan and the success of the ideologies of the Reich Food Estate as the allegedly only National Socialist policies had gained strong influence within the middle class. Hundreds of thousands of plants were closed. I intervened in this development with my young SD. We not only tried to understand these developments and to point out the catastrophic consequences, but we also took a hand personally
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by personal conferences which we backed up with our information material so that many difficulties arose in the closing down of these plants. At the same time we tried to point out to Himmler the damaging effects of these measures. And now the first sharp difference of opinion arose, because the Reich Food Estate under Darre¹ was the actual basis and support of Himmler's ideologies, and therefore, he objected to my reports as being against Darre. He was not familiar with the factual problems. Since we also took a hand in the cultural problems and objected to the retirement of the old professors by the Party and called attention to the fact that the opportunistic young careerists were certainly not fit to replace the wisdom of the old professors, Himmler called me on the carpet for the first time. He called me a pessimist and this clung to me all the time. Besides, Himmler stated that the SD had no business in these questions, but that they were to be left to the Party. In the year 1937 the chief of the SD, Professor Hoehn, was dismissed through the intervention of Streicher.²
After the director was gone, the mission of the SD was to be changed, and therefore those persons were put on the shelf who had so far determined the line of new development. Since I was not prepared to give up my ideas on the subject as I saw it, I was myself put on the shelf and again restricted to the economic department. Since I no longer saw any chance for the development of the SD in this position and did not want to work on other tasks, I asked for my release. Heydrich refused this, but after long negotiations I succeeded, in the spring of 1938, in getting permission to leave the SD as a full-time occupation and to become an official in the economic administration.
In June 1938, I became business manager of the Reichsgruppe Handel³ and in November 1939, I became the chief business manager of this group. During this time I only worked in the SD sporadically, for after giving up my full-time work, my fellow-defendant Seibert became my deputy in the economic group and now actually directed the work.
Q. Why did you accept a position in the Reich Group Commerce?
A. I have already mentioned that the most decisive factor in
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¹ Richard Walther Darre, Reich Minister for Food and Agriculture, 1933-1945; Head of the Reich Food Estate, 1934-1945. Defendant in case of Ernst von Weizsaecker, et al. See vol. XII, XIII, and XIV.
² Gauleiter of Franconia, editor in chief of the antisemitic newspaper "Der Stuermer". Defendant before the International Military Tribunal. See Trial of the Major War Criminals. Vol.. I-XLII Nuremberg, 1947.
³ The German Economy, under National Socialist rule, was organized into seven Reich groups (Reichsgruppen) one of which was the "Reichsgruppe Handel" — Reich Group Commerce. See case of Ernst von Weizsaecker, et al., vols. XII, XIII and XIV.
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those years, 1936, 1937, and 1938, was that unemployment was not only overcome but that, as a result of the accumulation of tasks through the Four Year Plan, about one million businesses of the middle class were actually threatened. We had taken up this question since in our opinion it was the mission of National Socialism to fight collectivization but not by proletarizing the independent middle classes and, by dissolving independent plants, to increase this collectivization. In attempting to prevent this I found that only the professional representatives of commerce shared my views, and so I went to this Reich Group Commerce in order to pursue in practical policy the aims which could no longer be pursued in the SD.
DR. ASCHENAUER: Your Honor, before I proceed with questioning my witness, I would like to clarify a few mistakes which were made in the translation. A list of incorrect points becomes evident from the comparison between the English and German. I would like to point out that Ohlendorf was the staff leader of Professor Hoehn and not staff leader in the SD.
Two — it was said — alleged National Socialist policies in the Reich Food Estate * * * "alleged" was not translated.
Furthermore, leaving the SD Main Office was mentioned, not leaving the SD itself. The words "main office" were left out. These three things were incorrect.
PRESIDING JUDGE MUSMANNO: Dr. Aschenauer, your remarks, of course, will be incorporated into the record and we can assure you that the correct version will appear in the final transcript, because everything which is stated here in Court is automatically recorded on a film and from that the transcript is eventually prepared.
DR. ASCHENAUER: Yes. Thank you very much, your Honor.
Herr Ohlendorf, how did it come about that in spite of your very responsible task in the Reich Group Commerce in September 1939 you became the Chief of the Office SD Inland in the Reich Security Main Office?
DEFENDANT OHLENDORF: The SD Main Office had collapsed in 1938 because in the meantime the Gestapo, because of the complete centralization of the political police forces by the Reich Leader SS and Chief of the German Police, had by then been extended so far that apart from the immediate fighting of opponents in the executive, they also kept the information service exclusively in their own hands.
The intelligence service about opponents which had been legitimized by the Party as the SD had, in the years 1936 and 1937, been more and more restricted, and in 1938, through the decree concerning the separation of functions, which defined the com-
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petencies of the State Police and SD, it was finally dissolved.
The second reason was that the Reich Leader SS, Himmler, tried now to take up his old plans and form a State Security Corps by one decisive measure. Having delimited the functions of the Gestapo and the SD, he now wanted to include them in one new organization, the Reich Security Main Office. This was to be the first step in the founding of the State Security Corps. This idea he later extended to such an extent that even the inner administration was to be taken over into the State Security Corps. The SS, the police, the SD and the internal administration were supposed to be taken over into the State Security Corps and the SS was supposed to be responsible for all this. That was the beginning.
Now the difficulty for him was that he dared not tell the Party about his plans because the Party had legitimized the SD as an information service, because the SD was a Party affiliation through the SS but it was never prepared to grant the state the right of such an assignment and even perhaps legitimize it through the Party.
Now, of course, the information service concerning opponents had been dropped, and with it the information service which the Party had legitimized as the SD. Now there existed a double difficulty with regard to the Party. One did not want to give up the SD as an information service because the Party was already developing its own information service and would now have had the possibility of claiming this information service officially too, because the Reich Leader SS no longer had an intelligence service to offer them.
On the other hand, Himmler wanted to take over the intelligence service from the Party in order to amalgamate it with the Gestapo in the State Security Corps, but this never succeeded. Up to the collapse, the Reich Security Main Office, as an institution, was never an official agency, but the official one remained the Security Police, that is, the Gestapo and the criminal police. The Main Security Police Office was not dissolved, although in the Reich Security Main Office, the state police formed office IV and the criminal police formed office V. The SD Main Office also continued to exist as an official party institution, although internally the administration was handled in Office I and Office II of the State organization. This Reich Security Main Office, therefore, was only an internal administrative set-up of the Reich Leader SS to prepare his State Protection Corps, but it never became an official agency within the State or Party. Thus, through a decree, it was expressly forbidden to use the letterhead of "Reich Security Main Office" for any external correspondence.
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Now Himmler was confronted with the difficulty of preventing the Party from extending its own information service and on the other hand, therefore, of keeping the SD in this form as a façade towards the Party. As the information service concerning opponents was dissolved, and as Central Department II-1 of the SD, which had carried on research concerning opponents, no longer existed, all that remained in the SD were the embryonic beginnings of the sphere information service, namely Central Department II-2. As the Reich Leader SS did not really intend to extend the sphere information service which had already caused so much difficulty, and as Heydrich did not intend to develop the SD with regard to organization and personnel to the necessary extent, the solution of an external façade was sufficient for him. This was an emergency solution, insofar as the former strength of the SD had become exhausted in the long fight during the years 1936, 1937, and 1938, especially against Best, the deputy of Heydrich for the Main Security Police Office. Therefore, there was no person who on this new basis could establish anything like tolerable relations with the state police. As the SD was not taken really seriously by Himmler and by Heydrich, I remained full-time business manager of the Reich Group Commerce; in November 1939 I was even authorized to become the main business manager officially, i.e., to represent the complete organization of about 900,000 members officially with respect to all agencies of the Reich. I remained honorary leader in the SD and I only worked in the SD sporadically for a few hours now and then and I saw no possibility for the time being to create a different situation from the one I left in 1938.
Q. Making you chief of office III was, therefore, not proof of any special confidence in you on the part of Himmler and Heydrich, was it?
A. No, as I said already, it was only an emergency solution since there was no serious intention of expanding this office.
Q. How did the practical examples you have given affect your position and work in the SD Inland?
A. The work in the SD Inland formed the basis for all the difficulties and all the set-backs and defeats which came later. The SD Inland, the only branch as from September 1939 of the SD within the Reich, remained illegal. The Party had not approved this formation of the SD and it was not prepared to approve it. Himmler himself did not legitimize this SD either. He was not prepared to cover this SD, and he let it and its men down whenever they were attacked from any side. It was not possible for the contents of the business distribution plan of Central Department II-2 which I showed just now — it was not
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possible to expand Office III, which covered all the spheres of life of the German people, sufficiently for it to be able to fulfill its wide and extensive tasks. This became evident very soon, especially first of all on my own person. Although I became the chief of office III, only in September 1939, we already had the first big crisis at the beginning of November. Heydrich sent me on an official trip with Himmler, and during its course disputes arose, the consequence of which was that in Warsaw he had me informed, through his chief adjutant Karl Wolff, that I must leave his services, that agreement between us about the work was not possible.
Q. What was the reason for this disagreement with Himmler?
A. He reproached me that the members of the SD in Poland had not been able to carry out the treatment of the Jews in the form he wanted and that, he said, was the product of my training. Heydrich was very pleased by this crisis with the Reich Leader (SS) because any possibility of an overshadowing of his position had been prevented. He refused to let me leave the organization and put matters right with the Reich Leader SS. During the year 1940 there were more disagreements, because the nature of the information service he instituted aroused protests from all sides. Ley* complained to Himmler about me and asked for my dismissal because of criticism in the SD reports of his development of the DAF [German Labor Front] especially of its economic enterprises. Himmler himself criticized a number of reports because he said they were defeatist and pessimistic. They came back torn up. In the negotiations with me, Heydrich now realized that I was chief business manager of the Reich Group Commerce and was as such exempted from the draft — that means I was obligated to serve in the Reich Group Commerce during the war and that he had thus almost completely lost his power over me. And so, in 1940, the crisis with Heydrich took on a very acute form. He demanded on various occasions that I join the army. This was prevented because, meanwhile, the chief of the Reich Group Commerce had been drafted, and apart from the business management, I also took over the position of chief of the Reich Group Commerce. Therefore, he went over to demanding that I should leave the Reich Group Commerce.
PRESIDING JUDGE MUSMANNO: May I interrupt, please. Witness, would you please indicate specifically just what were these differences between you and Himmler — briefly, but specifically.
DEFENDANT OHLENDORF: The differences of opinion between Himmler and myself were differences of temperament and of
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* Leader of the German Labor Front. Indicted by the IMT but committed suicide shortly after the serving of the indictment.
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politics. I am now using his expressions: I was the unbearable, humorless Prussian, an unsoldierly type, a defeatist, and damned intellectual.
PRESIDING JUDGE MUSMANNO: Are we to understand that you mean by that, that you anticipated the defeat of Germany?
DEFENDANT OHLENDORF: The SD in its reports pointed out the many difficulties which might make the success of the war questionable, that is why he called me a defeatist.
PRESIDING JUDGE MUSMANNO: I see.
DEFENDANT OHLENDORF: What was most disagreeable to him was that in our administrative reports we wanted to bring about constitutional conditions under all circumstances. We made it quite clear to him that if the order of the state was destroyed, the demands of a major war could not possibly be met.
Now I would like to describe Himmler. I called Himmler a Bavarian because he called me a Prussian. He did not want orderly conditions. He was the representative of dualism. He tried to imitate Hitler on a small scale. Hitler himself followed the type of policy so fatal to us, of assigning tasks not to organizations but to individual persons, and wherever possible he assigned one and the same task to several individuals. This was imitated by Himmler. Although for him there was no reason whatsoever to fear that one of his functionaries would become too powerful, he believed he could prevent his individual functionaries from becoming more powerful than himself in this way. A practical example, which will also occupy the Tribunal in Case No. 8* is the handling of ethnic [Volkstum] questions. These questions were handled by five different offices without the competency for the individual tasks being made clear. When I suggested to Himmler that these questions should be dealt with as an entity, this was a further reason for his utterances in Warsaw asking for my replacement. Thus was his basic structure. He was a practical man, an opportunist of the day, who was in no way prepared to deal with matters in an organized manner — rather, he liked to employ individual people from day to day, to raise them up and to drop them again. In my opinion this was bound to destroy the whole order of a nation even in peacetime, and of course, especially in as serious a war as Germany had to wage. What separated me most from him was the wilfulness of the individual decisions not in regard to the actual tasks he assigned, but in the legitimization of people who were in part not qualified, corrupt, or so fixed in their views that they could feel no impulse of leadership — it may even be that he appointed them
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* United States vs. Ulrich Greifelt, et al. See Vols. IV and V.
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perhaps for this reason so that on the other hand, he could intervene in the decisions of an agency and thus many very important matters were never brought to a satisfactory solution. The difference between us was that I regarded politics objectively, and I wanted to make men the subject of politics while he regarded politics merely from the point of view of his own person and his tactical position, and he subordinated affairs to this tactical position. If we judge the matter from the German point of view, Himmler became a parasite of our own people, not so much because of what he did, but because of what he did not do. He had a power which has led to the terrible judgment of him and the SS, and in reality he did not exercise this power in Germany but he and his power were an empty shell, and in this we have the important element of his crime against humanity too, that through the police, through a unit like the SS, and later through his direction of the Ministry of the Interior, he had the power which would have enabled him to see the damage and would have given him the possibility to remove this damage and to create orderly conditions.
DR. ASCHENAUER: Witness, you have pointed out the difference between Himmler and yourself. How is it that in spite of this you returned to Berlin in June 1942 and took over office III?
DEFENDANT OHLENDORF: In June 1942, Heydrich died as a result of an attempt on his life. Himmler himself took over the leadership of the Reich Security Main Office with the clear intention of weakening it, because Heydrich was the only SS leader who had grown above his, Himmler's, head. Purely externally, Heydrich as the Reich Protector already ranked above Himmler on the official list of Reich agencies. When Himmler was in charge of the Reich Security Main Office, he weakened it in two important points. He took the economic authority away from the Reich Security Main Office and transferred it to Pohl,* the head of the Economic Administrative Main Office (WVHA), and he also took away the personnel authority of the Reich Security Main Office and transferred it to the SS Main Personnel Office. Everyone who knows about agencies knows what this weakening means. Himmler was not present at that time in Berlin, that is, the Reich Security Main Office had no management and no leadership. Thus he was forced to let the different offices work independently. As office III had not been given a deputy while I was in Russia, I was the only one who, during his absence from Berlin, could direct office III. Furthermore, it was a tactical measure which, in my opinion, was intended to avoid documenting his weakening measures of the Reich Security Main Office by taking away the office chief
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* Chief of the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office (WVHA). Defendant in case of Oswald Pohl, et al. See Vol. V.
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from the office and then appointing a person who had no authority, either internally or externally.
Q. What was the development of your relations with Himmler after this?
A. When I returned from Russia in July, I was ordered to report to Himmler. In August he received me in his headquarters in a very friendly manner.
PRESIDING JUDGE MUSMANNO: May we suspend just for a moment? There seems to be something wrong with the transmission here. We don't quite get all of it. I would like to speak to the interpreters here * * *.
Very well, thank you.
DR. ASCHENAUER: We were just dealing with the question of the development of your relations with Himmler.
DEFENDANT OHLENDORF: After my return from Russia, I reported at the headquarters to report to Himmler about the situation in office III. I was received in a very friendly manner. He promoted me to brigadier general of the SS [Brigadefuehrer], and he told me that he planned to make me a brigadier general of the police. This friendly manner, of course, had its ulterior motives, because he continued Heydrich's demands that I should leave the Reich Group Commerce and become an official in the Reich Security Main Office. I explained to him that I had to ask him not to make me an official of the Reich Security Main Office and not to make me a brigadier general of the police, and why the SD, office III, had to remain independent under all circumstances, that is, it had to remain a free organization, and its members had to be Party employees. I made it quite clear to him that the Party would never stand for a state organization taking over an information service in which the work of the Party would also be dealt with in any way. I also made it clear to him that the SD could only carry out the task which it had tackled if it remained quite free of any appearance of being a police organization, because this organization was collecting the most able experts of all departments. They, however, were not prepared even to give the impression that they were connected with the police in any way at all. Apart from that, through this connection with the Gestapo, the most important principle of the SD would be abandoned, namely, to be independent of any department, but to work without any individual responsibility and in no connection with other departments, completely independently. This alone would justify the SD in approaching other departments with its criticism, which, otherwise could no longer be considered objective criticism but would be regarded as the opinion of one department as against that of another. This, of course, led to a completely new disagree-
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ment. Himmler reproached me with very harsh words and asked me to not try and teach him anything. He knew exactly what best served the interests of the SS, and what meaning the State Security Corps had for him. I was dismissed in disgrace, and this was the second time in my activity of nine years in the SD that I had the chance to speak to Himmler alone. When Kaltenbrunner¹ took over the office and became Himmler's successor in January 1943, Himmler spoke of the office III and its chief with ironical words, and said they were the "guardians of the Holy Grail of National Socialism and of the SS who stood whining over the broken ideas" and thought that now everything was lost. Thus, we were again publicly denounced as nuisances, pessimists, and defeatists. But it was only now that the actual crisis of the SD started, because after Stalingrad² conditions in Germany became more and more difficult. The more difficult these conditions in Germany became, the more critical, of course, became the reports of the SD. And now, Himmler was no longer prepared to cover this activity on the part of the SD but, on the contrary, he used the complaints of his colleagues in the Reich offices and pushed them on to the SD.
I'll give you a few examples. In the spring of 1943, Goebbels had tried through an act of force — or you can call it a coup de theater — to gain the internal power in Germany. It was the famous Sports Palace rally, the famous declaration of total war. Goebbels himself asked the next morning for a report from the SD on the effects of this rally; and he got this report. In this report it was said that among the population of all Germany, in all districts, this declaration in the Sports Palace was disapproved of and disagreed with and that it was called a Punch and Judy show. This led to Goebbels’ achieving a ban on "reports from the Reich". These reports from the Reich were the summaries of reports of all spheres of the SD, which were sent by us to all Reich agencies, and in the administrative practice of the Reich were the only source of information of the departments about difficulties of the other departments. With this, the most important organ and most important functions of the SD were abolished and destroyed.
The reasons he gave were that these reports were so defeatist that not even Reich Minister Lammers³ and Goering, who,
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¹ Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Lt. General of the SS, Head of the Reich Security Main Office, Chief of the Security Police and SD. Defendant before the IMT. See The Trial of the Major War Criminals, vols. I-XLII, Nuremberg, 1947.
² The retreat of the German armies from Stalingrad in March 1943, the turning point of the Russian campaign.
³ Hans Heinrich Lammers, Chief of the Reich Chancellery, defendant in case of Ernst von Weizsaecker, et al. See Vols. XII, XIII, XIV.
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because of his pressure, were the only ones to receive these reports, and all other information received, were not able to overcome this defeatism. Gauleiter Koch, the Reich Minister in the eastern territories, had through his own information service in the Party Chancellery learned of the reports which I had issued against his policy of force in Russia. He complained to the Reich Leader SS, and the Reich Leader SS wrote a letter to Kaltenbrunner in which he instructed him to decimate office III and its subsidiary offices in the Reich to reprimand its chief and to threaten him that if these unnecessary reports did not stop, the SD would be dissolved completely and the chief arrested. Bormann * and Ley were the next people to take this direction. Ley, without informing us, forbade the holders of office and shop stewards of the German Labor Front any collaboration with the SD. Because of the unjustified work of the SD, Bormann threatened to speak to the Fuehrer, which was to have the effect that the Fuehrer would take the chief of office III where he belonged, and his people would be put to more productive work.
When, in spite of this, I continued to send out my reports, Bormann in 1944 also forbade all Party officials, Party affiliations, and Party employees, down to the charwomen to have any activity within the SD. This fight which Bormann put up continued until April 1945; and it was such a heavy fight that even Kaltenbrunner, who on the whole approved of my work, asked me urgently to stop the Reich reports, or at least to camouflage them as reports on opponents or sabotage. The reports of this time regarding the leadership situation within the Reich, which fell into the hands of the English, showed the Allies that this manner of reporting was not given up in spite of all and in spite of the threats it was still possible to submit the strongest reports about the leadership situation of the Reich, about the complete internal dissolution of leadership, and about the collapse of the air force to the Fuehrer through roundabout channels.
According to my knowledge — that is the tragedy of the SD — these were the only reports which only in the midst of the catastrophe were submitted to Hitler. I myself did not know Hitler personally nor did I ever have the possibility of submitting a report to him or even of speaking to him.
Q. How did it come about that you were appointed into the Reich Economics Ministry?
A. My professional development was conditioned by my work in the Reich Group Commerce. This work gained more importance and significance than was usual for a group in the professional
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* Chief of the Party Chancellery, defendant in absentia before the International Military Tribunal. See Trial of the Major War Criminals. Vole. I-XLII
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organization because the neighboring groups of industry, the crafts, banking, insurance companies, and transport did not have any political people in them. They were not prepared to work politically on the policy of the economic ministries, especially the Armaments Ministry, which was restricting and in part destructive for them. As I entered this policy with political arguments, my own significance in economic policy was a much bigger one than can be understood from the point of view of commerce. This was increased by the fact that even in the Economics Ministry there were no political personalities who were prepared to discuss the differences with the Party, or the political person Speer¹, who was the Fuehrer's trusted representative in defense matters. Thus in the years 1939 and 1940, from the Reich Group Commerce, we were the main consultants in the field of economic policy against all collectivistic and socialistic tendencies which were connected with the names of Speer and Bormann.
Funk² was in agreement with my activity. He especially approved of my work against the so-called self-responsibility of economy, that is, against the condition that the state authority as a state vanished, and instead of the state, economic leaders entered who took over the authority of the state, but at the same time were competitors in competition with each other. This not only opened the gates wide for corruption but created for me a basic condition for the economic loss of the war, because the competitors were no longer prepared to reveal their actual output to the competitor. Large masses of the people felt themselves confronted no longer by an objective state but individual economic hyenas and monopolists. Therefore, the differences between economy and the state were bound to become larger and larger. Funk approved of these reports of mine and, therefore, asked for my entry into the Reich Ministry of Economics.
In the spring of 1943, I was to become Second State Secretary in the Ministry of Economics. Himmler categorically refused my transfer into the Reich Ministry of Economics and for the very reason that caused Funk to ask for my transfer into the Reich Ministry of Economics. Himmler also recognized the significance of the economic development as a monopolistic capitalism such as we had never known. But in a letter to me he refused my transfer to the Ministry of Economics, giving the reason that he did not want an SS leader to be exposed in this fight against
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¹ Reich Minister for Armaments and Munition. Defendant before the International Military Tribunal See Trial of the Major War Criminals, Vols. I-XLII
² Reich Minister of Economics. Defendant before the International Military Tribunal. See Trial of the Major War Criminals, Vols. I-XLII.
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capitalism because this fight could no longer be waged within this war. After the Ministry of Economics collapsed in the summer of 1943 Funk again tried and through a tactical maneuver succeeded in anticipating a decision by Himmler; and Himmler now agreed.
Q. How was your last discussion with Himmler?
A. My relationship with Himmler was bound to deteriorate even more, because my new work in the Reich Ministry of Economics was added to the old crisis, because what our predecessors had not been able to do we now took upon us. We tried to force Pohl and the Economic and Administrative Main Office to put the cards of the SS concern on the table. We told him that we would not stand for any further expansion of this SS structure either in Germany or in foreign countries. During the course of these differences Himmler, in the summer of 1944, sent for me and Heider, State Secretary in the Ministry of Economics to come to Berchtesgaden. He explained to us why this policy must not be pursued by us in opposition to his economic activity. We refused any agreement; but he had already created an accomplished fact in Hungary by a deal with the Weiss combine,¹ securing the Weiss enterprise for the SS. As for us, the right was on our side in this case; and as normally he had nothing on us, he used the next occasion to begin a new correspondence of a very serious and slanderous character. The reason was the economic reform plan which I had drafted in the autumn of 1944. It was intended in the economic field at least to establish an orderly and constitutional administration. Himmler agreed at first, until Bormann objected, because he was preventing any consolidation of the state and furthermore he did not want a curtailment of the power and authority of the Gaue [districts] which he regarded as an anti-Party measure.
Himmler now changed his opinion and agreed with Bormann. He disavowed my reform suggestions, which he said were academical reports representing a waste of intelligence. But at the end, our relations were of a different nature. In the last fortnight before the collapse, I turned over my quarters in Flensburg and Ploen to Himmler. Only now did really serious discussions begin, and now he was more approachable. One can say that these were good discussions between us — only the end was more or less like the beginning because at the end I tried to cause him not only to dissolve the Werwolf² activities which he did, but also to dissolve the SS and turn himself over to the Allies. In trying to
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¹ Leading industrialist of Jewish origin.
² National Socialist underground organization formed shortly before the surrender of Germany for the purpose of combating the occupation by the Allies.
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cause him to do so, I put it to him that he alone could in a responsible manner explain to the Allies the tasks which he had given to the SS, and he would have to take this responsibility. He refused and escaped without saying good-by.
EXAMINATION
PRESIDING JUDGE MUSMANNO: What was the date of this discussion with Himmler when the witness recommended the dissolution of the SS and the going over to the Allies?
DEFENDANT OHLENDORF: That was 9 May, your Honor, 1945.
PRESIDING JUDGE MUSMANNO: Well, it was all over then, wasn't it?
DEFENDANT OHLENDORF: No ; it was not all over in a manner of speaking because the Flensburg government¹ was in power, and the Allies had agreed to this so-called Flensburg government. This government was actually officially in power until 23 May 1945, although only in an area the size of the territory of a Landrat (district council). Between 9 and 23 May, there were still government reshuffles. Only on that date did Himmler leave the government as Reich Minister and as the commander of the reserve army. He had been of the belief that via his officer, Schellenberg² the Allies wanted to negotiate with him and needed him as a factor for order in Europe. On these conversations of Schellenberg via Bernadotte, the Chief of the Red Cross in Sweden, with Churchill and the British Government, Himmler really relied until the day of his escape, in fact, even until the day before his death. Even after he escaped he sent me one or two orderlies every day to inquire whether Schellenberg had returned from Sweden, or whether Field Marshal Montgomery had answered the letter which he had written him on 9 May.
PRESIDING JUDGE MUSMANNO: But when you say that on 9 May you were discussing whether you should go over to the Allies, it's like the mouse discussing whether it should go over to the cat. You had already surrendered.
DEFENDANT OHLENDORF: Yes, but as I just stated, this small district of the Flensburg government, with the locality Muerwik and Gluecksburg, had not surrendered because at that place there were official negotiations between the control commission of the Allies with the government and the Chief of Government of the German Reich. I may draw your attention to the fact, your
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¹ The government set up under Admiral of the Fleet Doenitz after the announcement of the death of Hitler.
² Brigadier General of the SS Chief of the Foreign Intelligence Division of the Reich Security Main Office, Office Chief in the SD. Defendant in case of United States vs. Ernst von Weizsaecker, et al. See Vols. XII, XIII, XIV.
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Honor, that at the surrender negotiations the Allies asked Jodl,¹ Keitel,² and Friedeburg³ to certify the official position of Doenitz as head of state, and he with his government actually remained in power until 23 May 1945.
PRESIDING JUDGE MUSMANNO: But you didn't seriously believe that you could successfully hold out against the combined Allied Power after 8 May, did you?
DEFENDANT OHLENDORF: No. I think we must have misunderstood each other, your Honor, because I had only two intentions. One was to prevent SS units from being formed into underground movements. Therefore, I tried to cause Himmler to dissolve the SS officially, to order them to submit to their fate, and as far as possible to work with the Allies in a positive sense. I also tried to cause Himmler to go over to the Allies and put himself at the disposal of the Allies, so that he could tell them what the tasks of the SS were, why he had given them these tasks, and to answer for them.
Q. Were you in daily contact with Himmler following 8 May?
A. Yes.
Q. Until when? A. At least until 19 May, I believe even until the 21st through the orderlies. He had camouflaged himself and was living in a disguise under which he then was delivered into a prisoner-of-war camp.
Q. How did you submit yourself to the Allies?
A. When Himmler told me that I was afraid for myself and afraid for my own life, I told him that I had already made up my mind to put myself at the disposal of the Allies and to take my own responsibility for what I had made of the SD. I could not leave it to anybody else to take responsibility for the activities of the SD; and although I was not arrested on the afternoon when the rest of the government was arrested, after asking for it three times, I achieved the status of being arrested.
Q. When was that? What date? A. That was on the 23d of May.
Q. Then they favored you by arresting you?
A. Yes, on the 23d of May.
DR. ASCHENAUER: Witness, did you report voluntarily for the campaign in Russia?
DEFENDANT OHLENDORF: No, on the contrary. Twice I was
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¹ Chief of Staff of the OKW ; defendant before the IMT. See Trial of the Major War Criminals, Vols. I-XLII.
² Chief of the Supreme Command of the German Armed Forces, Defendant before the IMT. (Ibid.)
³ Admiral Friedeburg committed suicide.
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directed to go to Russia and twice I refused. Then I got the third order which I could no longer evade.
Q. Why didn't Heydrich from the beginning simply give orders? It was certainly not customary to negotiate with any of his subordinates?
A. He was forced to insofar as I was on call for the Reich Group Commerce — I had a note in my military passport which obligated me in case of war to be at the disposal of the Reich Group Commerce, therefore, it was necessary that this war order be superseded by Heydrich's order. This happened for the third time by order, so that the Reich Group Trade revoked the deferment. Now I was conscripted for the Reich Leader SS; the army district command received notice that I had gone to a foreign country on a secret mission for the Reich Leader SS. After that I was made available for the Reich Security Main Office. Now I was given a note in my military passport for the Chief of the Security Police and SD.
Q. Please explain the legal situation of your membership in the SD, when you were conscripted in 1941?
A. In 1936, I joined the SD when I was given the job of building up a critical military information service. When this job was taken away from me I asked for my dismissal. This was refused to me in 1938. I was merely able to give it up as a full-time occupation which it had been. The situation with the Chief of Security Police and SD was as difficult as in the other SS organizations, because one did not enter into a contract. It was merely a unilateral loyalty agreement, and in addition to a simultaneous joining of the SS, a condition of military subordination existed. One was at the same time a military subordinate. My renewed application for dismissal in November 1939 was again refused. By now the position of the Chief of Security Police and SD had become even stronger. In the meantime through a decree the Security Police and SD were listed as being on a war emergency status, and in the renewed decree it was added that even an application to leave this organization would be forbidden. This application was even punishable. In this manner it was no longer possible after 1939 even to file an application to leave. This last remark applied to a general condition, since through the wish of the Reich Leader SS, I had the possibility in November 1939 to make a renewed application. Therefore, when I was conscripted for the Russian campaign in 1941, 1 was not a voluntary member of the SD, or of the SS. I was conscripted for the campaign.
Q. How did the formation of the Einsatzgruppen and the Einsatzkommandos come about? Were they part of the agencies of the offices of the Secret Police and the SD?
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A. The Einsatzgruppen and the Einsatzkommandos were neither agencies nor parts of the organization of the Reich Security Main Office. They were mobile units set up for one single purpose which were set up ad hoc for certain assignments. The members of the Einsatzgruppen and the Einsatzkommandos were either conscripted or were taken from the members of the security police and SD. Or they were drafted to a large extent, for example, as drivers or interpreters, whereas a large membership of the Einsatzgruppen, by order of Himmler, was made available by companies of the Waffen SS or the regular police. These Einsatzgruppen and Einsatzkommandos were no agencies or authorities, but they were military units.
Q. Were the purposes and the orders of the Einsatzgruppen made known to the men and the leaders when they were drafted?
A. No. This was not done. The leaders and men were given an order to report to Dueben or Pretzsch in Saxony. They did not get any information where they were to be committed, or what tasks they were supposed to do. Even after the units had been activated, the commanders and men did not know about it.
Q. When was the area of operation made public?
A. It was made known shortly before the units left for Russia, about three days before.