1947-03-24, #1: Doctors' Trial (early morning)
Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America, against Karl Brandt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 24 March 1947, 0930, Justice Beals presiding.
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the court room will please find their seats.
The Honorable, the judges of Military Tribunal 1.
Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.
There will be order in the courtroom.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Marshal, you ascertain that the defendants are all present in court.
THE MARSHAL: May it please your Honor, all defendants are present in the court.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary-General will note for the record the presence of all the defendants in court.
Counsel may proceed.
AUGUST MEINE — Resumed
MR. HARDY: Defense counsel has no further direct, your Honor. I would like to cross examine at this time.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness August Meine is still on the stand. The witness is reminded that he is still under oath.
CROSS EXAMINATION
BY MR. HARDY:
Q: Witness, the Defendant Rudolf Brandt in his capacity as chief of the office of the personnel staff to Himmler had the authority to sign letters or orders on behalf of Himmler, did he not?
A: Yes, when Himmler ordered him to.
Q: Is it true that you in your capacity in that same office had the authority to sign letters or orders in behalf of Himmler?
A: I had that only if Himmler ordered me to, in other words, when I was representing Dr. Brandt.
Q: How far did this authority of Rudolf Brandt or yourself acting instead of Rudolf Brandt, extend, that is, did Rudolf Brandt sign letters or orders on behalf of Himmler pertaining to top secret and secret matters?
A: That can't be answered in general. That depended on whether Himmler issued the necessary order. I had no right at all, for example, during Himmler's absence, to issue any orders for him and I am convinced that the Defendant Rudolf Brandt also did not have such plenipotentiary power.
Q: Now, did the Defendant Rudolf Brandt have the authority to sign Himmler's name?
A: I have just said that when Himmler was absent he did not have that right. A necessary prerequisite was an order from Himmler.
Q: You have stated in the course of your direct examination that you have perused several of the documents in evidence in this case, and no doubt you have seen many documents which contain the signature of Rudolf Brandt. These documents were in the form of orders, in many instances they followed instructions and others. Now, to what extent could Rudolf Brandt issue orders himself?
A: On his own Dr. Brandt could not issue any orders.
Q: We have in evidence, witness, several instances where Rudolf Brandt has signed orders issuing instructions to men like Dr. Rascher for instance. How do you account for such a thing as that?
A: In my testimony on Friday I tried to make it clear according to what policies Himmler did his work, and how in the technical aspect what Rudolf Brandt's work was, and what mine was when I represented him. I pointed out at the time that Himmler did not always wish to appear under his own name. It frequently happened to me that he gave me an order to transmit to another office and told me that he was not going to sign it but that I myself was to sign it, if this letter for example, was not directed to a chief of a main office.
But the essential point is that even in the case of those letters that I personally signed, the contents of the letter had been determined by Himmler. And in most of the cases he formulated these contents so precisely that I simply had to add either the salutation or the conclusion. And I believe this must also have been the case with Dr. Brandt. I have already mentioned that I was once present when he delivered a report about his mail.
Q: Witness, I believe in direct examination you stated that any of the particulars concerning the subject which is at issue here in this case were not known to you during the time that you were in the personal office. Now, as you know from the indictment the prosecution has charged that freezing and high altitude experiments were conducted at the Dachau concentration camp. Did you ever hear about those when you were working in the office of Rudolf Brandt?
A: I did know that the Reichsfuehrer-SS had given Stabsarzt [Staff Surgeon] Dr. Rascher the opportunity to carry out experiments but I did not know any of the details.
Q: You had no idea that those experiments were criminal in nature, witness?
A: No, of that I knew nothing.
Q: Do you know that they were using concentration camp inmates for these experiments?
A: Yes, that I did know and that was in fact generally known, that concentration camp inmates were being used for experiments. On Friday I named the experiment that the Dutch brothers Zahn carried out in Oraniehburg in 1937, and I also know Dr. Rascher personally — I can't remember what year it was, might have been 1942. I met him in the personnel office.
Q: Do you know about the malaria experiments at Dachau?
A: No
Q: Do you know about the Lost gas experiments, that is, mustard gas experiments which were conducted at Natzweiler?
A: No.
Q: Do you know about the sulfanilamide experiments that were conducted at the Ravensbruck concentration camp on Polish women?
A: No.
Q: In other words, you have no knowledge, specific knowledge, of any of these particular experiments that I have outlined, is that right?
A: No.
Q: Then I assume that Rudolf Brandt could well have issued these instructions, orders, and passed on the instructions of Himmler without your knowledge. Is that right?
A: That depends on the way the way the work was organized technically in the personal staff. I have already said on Friday that we of the personal staff had two main departments in our office, a secret registration and a public one, and it was the rule that the orders to maintain secrecy were most strictly observed. The secret letters were, as a rule, already sealed in the field command office of Himmler's, because they were entrusted to ordinary men for more than one night who sent them to Berlin. It was therefore the rule that these letters that I had nothing to do with, personally, were sent directly to these registry offices. Only the so-called open 'Folders with signature' were put into envelopes by clerks in our office, sealed and mailed.
Q: Now, witness, in connection with the freezing experiments at Dachau, did you know that Rascher used women for rewarming purposes?
A: No.
Q: Now, witness, I am going to ask you to look at this document.
MR. HARDY: This is Document No. 1619-PS, Your Honor, which has been admitted into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit NO-2 — pardon me — Exhibit No. 87 which will be found in Document Book No. 3 on page 20.
Q: Will you read that document, witness?
A: (reading)
To SS-:Brigadefuehrer [Brigadier General] Gluecks, Oranienburg.
SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer [Lieutenant Colonel] Dr. Brandt asks you to give instructions for the four women ordered by the Reichsfuehrer-SS to be put at the disposal of Dr. Rascher to be sent from Ravensbruck to Dachau.
Signed by myself.
Q: That is signed by you, isn't it?
A: Yes.
Q: Did you ever hear of Professor Dr. Hirth, witness?
A: Yes, I heard of Dr. Hirth.
Q: Did you ever hear of Dr. Wimmer?
A: Yes. I know that Dr. Wimmer was to assist at experiments, and I can remember that I on Dr. Brandt's orders sent an order to the SS Main Office to the effect that Dr. Wimmer should be released from his previous job and should be made available to a scientist, but I can't remember whether it was Professor Hirth.
Q: Well, now, you didn't know that Dr. Wimmer was to work with Professor Dr. Hirth in his "lost" experiments at the Natzweiler Concentration Camp?
A: No. I can not remember that.
Q: Witness, I don't know what sort of a filing system you and Rudolf Brandt had, but I can well imagine that all letters pertaining to the same subject were filed in the same folder, were they not?
A: No. As I have already said on Friday, there were two registry offices — a secret one and an open one, so that one complex matter, that had previously been filed away in the open registry office, at the moment when a secret communication arrived, this secret communication was put in the secret registry office.
That is why we were unable to know just what was going on simply from looking at the files. We could only have access to what was immediate at our grasp, and there was always a great deal of trouble for us whenever we wanted to collect the two parts, the secret part and the open part of anyone matter.
I many times made an effort to look up matters that particularly interested me, matters of a general political nature, for instance, but this, too, was very difficult, because at the moment when a military office wrote something in connection with this matter, it went to the chief adjutant, or if the police took a part in it, the letter went to the police adjutant. I already pointed out that for Himmler these difficulties were completely irrelevant. He knew the connection. He carried on the conversations and conferences personally and did not have to rely on the correspondence, and for us it was of no concern.
I once made this experiment: I pointed out to him that this system mail great difficulties for us when we wanted to get an overall picture, and that it should be possible that simply for practical purposes some change should be brought about. Himmler replied that he had previously no objections to the way his instructions were carried out and, consequently, he saw no reason for effecting any changes here. Hitler's order to maintain secrecy was known to me; it was valid for me and for every German man and woman, and so also it certainly had to be valid in his own staff.
Q: Well, now, you mentioned a letter you wrote to the SS Main Office.
ML. HARDY: That letter, Your Honor, is Document No. NO-196, Prosecute Exhibit No. 261 which is found in Document Book No. 13 on page 25.
Q: Is that the letter you wrote?
A: Yes, that is the letter.
Q: You say, the last phrase in the first paragraph, that Dr. Wimmer is to assist SS-Hauptsturmfuehrer Professor Hirth in a series of experiments. You didn't know that those were "lost" experiments on concentration camp inmates at Natzweiler, is that right?
A: No, I did not know that.
MR. HARDY: I have no further questions, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Is there any redirect examination of this witness by counsel for Rudolf Brandt?
REDIRECT EXAMINATION
DR. KAUFMANN: Kaufmann for Brandt.
BY DR. KAUFMANN:
Q: Witness, you were just asked questions regarding Document No. 1619, Exhibit No. 87. You saw this document which was concerned with the fact that four women were to be used in a concentration camp but you did not make any statement about this document at that time. You had previously said that you were given no orientation about details of experiments on human beings.
Now, this letter, this teletype, seems to contradict that. Consequently, We should like to ask you once again to state your views on this document. Do you remember this document?
A: Yes, I still remember it.
Q: What do you know of the details of this document? How did it come to this, and what did you take this document to mean?
A: I can not remember the details and the circumstances under which I received the instruction from Dr. Brandt and under which I mailed it, but it happened in so many cases that I received instructions from Dr. Brandt that I believe I can now retrospectively reconstruct what the situation must have been and why this letter is signed by me.
I have already described when I was talking about Himmler's special method of carrying on work that he limited himself to clearly formulated orders and instructions. He gave no explanations. So far as I was obliged to expand on his orders, I had to do that more or less on my own. The same was true of Dr. Brandt. I assume that here in this case Dr. Brandt received the order from Himmler to take care of these four Polish women and that a few minutes later because I was in his office, he in order to make his work easier told me orally, "Please send a teletype to Brigadefuehrer Gluecks and arrange for that."
Since I know in general that human-being experiments were being carried out, and since as a matter of principle human-being experiments continued to be arranged for, for example, in that the research workers carried out experiments on themselves, or used their collaborators for such experiments, or used personal friends of theirs for such experiments, and since, furthermore, I knew about the series of experiments in Oranienburg that the prisoners came in droves to volunteer for these experiments, because from that moment on they no longer had to work but received better food, so it was that during these years I did not become suspicious.
I was at that time not familiar with the terrible background of these experiments. Even in the formal issuing of orders for these experiments, I myself was involved, and it was only here in seeing these documents that I found out about it.
Q: Witness, you just said that you had heard that prisoners had volunteered in droves for these experiments, would you like to make that more precise?
A: In 1942, two Dutchmen, the brothers Zahn pointed out to Himmler that they believed that they had found a drug to cure T.B. Himmler gave them an opportunity to experiment in Oranienburg, but since these Dutchmen were not acquainted with German conditions and also wanted to receive some of the credit themselves, they were always very proud of being directly under Himmler, and used every occasion, even when it was only a question of minor details, such as getting their ration cards, as I say, they took over occasion to speak to Himmler personally. Since, of course, what was not possible they came to me in Berlin, because I was in charge of receiving Himmler's visitors. On these occasions the directors of the series of experiments, namely, the Zahn brothers, told me the previously mentioned details.
Q: In other words, you want to say that you did not know that these four women were to be used in any experiments on concentration camp inmates, either to be used directly or to be used in connection with experiments which were to be carried out on some third person.
A: No, I know that Stabsarzt Dr. Rascher on orders from the Luftwaffe was carrying out experiments but I knew none of the details, and I believe I have already made it clear that I had no suspicion that these women were to be used for criminal purposes.
Q: Were you ever in a concentration camp?
A: Yes, in January 1943, I was in Oranienburg on Himmler's orders, because he at that time had ascertained I had never visited a concentration camp.
Q: Let me interject a question witness. Do you know whether Rudolf Brandt ever visited a concentration camp?
A: I never spoke to him on the subject. I assumed so, but I cannot remember whether I then gave him any report on my visit, because my visit to Oranienburg brought out nothing, sensational. My observations on the whole were confined to what I had heard about concentration camps from Himmler.
JUDGE SEBRING: Just a moment, will you repeat again the date upon which you visited the concentration camp?
WITNESS: January, 1943. Let me correct what I said? It could have been the first days of February, 1943.
JUDGE SEBRING: But it was in the year 1943?
WITNESS: Yes.
MR. HARDY: That is the question I had, Your Honor.
BY DR. KAUFMANN:
Q: You only visited a concentration camp once or several times during 1943?
A: I did not visit any other concentration camp but Frequently I visited the Central Headquarters of Oranienburg, because there were good shoe and clothing shops.
Q: Now to got to the crux of this matter — did you visit the camp itself or just the manufacturing units in the camp?
A: No, I visited the whole camp. I was in barracks in which men slept in bunks two tiers high. I was in the kitchen in which the food was prepared for outside details and I myself ate this food. I went to the cement factory, bread factory, the meat factory, and all other economic units that belonged there.
Q: Is it true that Himmler ordered you specially to visit a concentration camp if you therefore had not seen one?
A: After, in the year 1941 I returned, from Russia, I spoke to Himmler on the question of concentration camps in January, 1942. This I mentioned on Friday. In the meantime one year had elapse, and he must have remembered the conversation, and when he found out again that I had still not visited a concentration camp he told me to do so, Oranienburg was very close at hand, I should not postpone this visit any longer.
Q: Now, to close let me ask you: Do you wish to state here under oath that you did not know what the situation was in relation to this document which was shown to you?
A: That I can maintain.
Q: No further questions. The witness may be withdrawn so far as I am concerned.
DR. MARX: For Schroeder and Becker-Freyseng.
BY DR. MARX:
Q: Your Honor, I ask permission to ask a few questions of this witness.
You just stated you know that Stabsarzt Dr. Rascher on orders from the Luftwaffe carried out experiments. How do you know this?
A: Rascher told me that himself.
Q: May I ask when he told you that?
A: As I remember it was 1942.
Q: Do you know the month?
A: No.
Q: Did you know that this Stabsarzt Dr. Rascher was transferred by Himmler from the Luftwaffe to the SS?
A: I found that out here from the documents.
Q: Did you know it at the tine, when Rascher gave you that information?
A: No.
Q: Did you know at that time he had already been working for quite a time in Dachau, or was he just beginning his intended work in Dachau?
A: Unfortunately I cannot tell you that.
Q: No further questions.
MR. HARDY: I have no further questions, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: If there are no further questions of this witness, the witness maybe excused.
MR. HARDY: Your Honors, before the defense of Rudolf Brandt continues, Mr. McHaney wishes to address the Court:
THE PRESIDENT: The witness is excused.
MR. McHANEY: May it please the Tribunal, I should like to raise the questions with respect to the film "I accuse" which has been requested by the defense. It arrived, in Nurnberg a week or so ago, and since that date there has been a preview shewing of it both to the defense counsel and the Prosecution — I say that this film "I accuse" has been previewed by both defense and prosecution.
I am quite confident that the film is entirely inadmissible in this suit and in this action, but I would like at this time to ask if Dr. Froeschman, or any of the other defense counsel, insist on making a formal tender of the film, the proper time for the objection would be on the occasion when it is offered, but unfortunately that would be entirely too late to be of any use, because the sound track of this film must be recorded on a disc, and then the interpreters interpret the German into English and make a running account of it in order to be able to permit the Court to follow the sound track in court when the film is exhibited, since this is a long and exceedingly dull film, which runs in the neighborhood of two hours and fifteen minutes, it will, of course, be a long and laborious job of interpreting this film, consequently I would like to raise my objection before that work is done, if there is any intention on the part of Dr. Froeschman to offer the film.
DR. FROESHMANN: I ask to be permitted to refer to these objections by the Prosecution this afternoon at the beginning of the session.
THE PRESIDENT: Tribunal will hear Council at 1:30 this afternoon about this matter, if any questions arises, one possible solution is that the Tribunal could view the film to determine its materiality. Either the entire Tribunal or portion of the Tribunal might be appointed to have a preliminary view of it. That matter may be presented to the Tribunal at 1:30 this afternoon.
MR. McHANEY: I think the Tribunal's suggestion is an excellent one because, of course, it will be impossible for you to rule on the matter, unless you wish to do so in a statement, to the Prosecution or the Defense. On the other hand it is very long, and as I think it is exceedingly dull. It is a fictional film, not a clinical film. Consequently you may wish to send a commission to view it.
THE PRESIDENT: It would give the court an opportunity to determine whether it had any probative value at all, even though it was in the German language would it not, Mr. McHaney?
MR. McHANEY: I think that you could very easily determine that Your Honor
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel for the defendant Brandt may proceed.
DR. KAUFMANN: I now ask your permission to call the defendant Rudolf Brandt.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Rudolf Brandt will take the witness stand.
JUDGE SEBRING: Please raise your right hand and be sworn:
I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.
(The witness repeated the oath.)
You may be seated.
DIRECT EXAMINATION
BY DR. KAUFMANN:
Q: When were you born?
A: 2 June 1909 in Frankfurt on the Oder.
Q: Will you please briefly describe your career?
A: For three years I attended the Mittelschule in Frankfurt. I then attended the Reform realgymnasium in my home town. This Reform realgymnasium I attended until my graduation in 1928. My intended profession was that of becoming a stenographer in the Reichstag. A closed course of study was necessary to achieve this and, in addition, sufficient stenographic speed. I studied law in Berlin and Jena, and left the University after passing my doctoral examination in the summer of 1933. The theme of my doctor's thesis was a question of the law of authorship. I come from a rather poor family. My father was, first of all, a locksmith with the German railroad and at the end he was a miner. I had to earn my way through college on a so-called working scholarship, but I have grateful memories of my parents who had considerable sacrifices on their own part and made it possible for me to attend the university and who also during my period of study gave me more pecuniary support than they were really able to. My first work on this working scholarship consisted of very laborious work as telephone stenographer in a newspaper office. From the beginning of November 1928 to the end of May 1930, I, although I was still a student, was being employed as official stenographer in the 'Ankete' Committee of the Reich Economic Council at that time.
After the examination in December 1933 I became telephone stenographer in the German Information Service but only for ten days. The Chief of the office Staff of the SS was at that time in search of a good stenographer. A friend of mine arranged the employment. My new employer had no difficulties in breaking my contract with the German Information Service (DNB). I began my new activity in the office of the Chief of Staff of the SS as clerk on the 11th of December 1933, with a monthly salary of 120 marks. About six weeks previous to that, I had entered the Allgemeine SS. I had already jointed Party in the year 1932. In January 1934 Himmler dictated a few letters to me when he was in Berlin for two or three days. Previous to that I had neither seen Himmler nor did I know anything about his personality. On the suggestion of his Adjutant, SS-Sturmbannfuehrer [Major], and later SS-Obergrupennfuehrer, [Lieutenant General] Karl Wolf, I went to the Reichsfuehrer's Headquarters in Munich, and I began my service on the 15th of February 1934 as clerk for Himmler and his three Adjutants.
When in April of 1934 Himmler took over the Gestapo and went to Berlin he took me along. It was my job to take letters for Himmler and Wolf. Moreover, in the first three months, first three or four months, I had to answer the telephone in the ante-room and to announce visitors. Gradually the staff was enlarged. Roughly, from October 1934 on I wrote only for Himmler alone. This was when I was 25 years old. I took dictation and until roughly the end of 1934, I myself typed up the letters. However, after the files became more and more, I dictated, what had been dictated to me to a stenotypist. I began my service in the SS as an SS man. In 1944 I became Standartenfuehrer [Colonel], after I had gone through all the subordinate ranks for some length of time or other.
Q: Witness, let me interrupt a moment. We want to make it clear what rank you had in the Allgemeine SS and in the Waffen SS.
A: In the Allgemeine SS I was Standartenfuehrer. This rank can be compared only in an exterior way with that of a Colonel in the Wehrmacht. And in the Waffen SS I was Oberscharfuehrer, that is to say, a rank that correspond roughly to the German Sergeant, or for that matter, the American Sergeant.
Q: Did you serve in the Waffen-SS?
A: Yes. In 1935 I went through a course of training for four or five months in the Standarte Deutschland. Then in December 1940 I went through a short term course with the Standarte Westland, and from the end of March to the Middle of May 1941 I was with the Leibstandarte in the Greek campaign.
Q: Now, please continue to describe your career in the personal staff.
A: About 1937 or 1938 for purely technical reasons I was called according to Table of Organization personal referent in the personal staff.
Q: What did this word "personal referent" mean?
A: The only reason for it was to give me some sort of title in the Table of Organization.
Q: We shall return to this, but perhaps you can make it clear already whether this word "personal referent" had at any time any meaning of advisor?
A: Neither at the beginning nor at the end did it have any meaning of personal advisor.
Q: I am going to submit a sketch to you. You are simply to say whether it is accurate. You have heard what the witness Heine said about it. You are abbreviate this sketch if you wish to. I have already given this sketch Exhibit No. 1.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, is this the chart which was numbered Exhibit 2, Counselor?
DR. KAUFMANN: It was Number 2, yes.
BY DR. KAUFMANN:
Q: Is this sketch correct?
A: Yes.
Q: Did you make this sketch? Draw it up?
A: Yes.
Q: Would you please tell us your last salary in your position as Personal Referent?
A: At the end I was paid as a civil servant, from 1940 on when I entered the civil service, and at the end I was receiving the salary of a Ministeriat (Ministerial Counsel.)
Q: How high was that salary?
A: It was somewhat more than 800 marks a month.
Q: Did you have any other income?
A: In addition I received a supplement of roughly 175 marks a month from the Personal Staff. This arrangement was made because men in the staff leaders of the Waffen-SS and also members of the police — of the same rank, but with much less work to do, were receiving more than I was.
Q: You were also appointed a Ministerialrat?
A: Yes.
Q: Now, what was your function under that capacity?
A: From 1943 on — in the summer Himmler became Minister of Interior, and after his appointment he charged me to take care of the work in the so-called Ministerial Bureau or Office. This was, for all practical purposes, the liaison office between him and Staatssekretaer [Secretary of State] Dr. Stuckardt, respectively the Ministry of the Interior, since during the war these two offices had been kept separate.
Q: You just spoke of your salary which really was too low. Now, did you have any other income?
A: I had no property except that which, like any other careful person, I had been able to save through the course of the years and that, at the end, was eleven or twelve thousand marks. But I owned no real property nor automobile nor anything else.
Q: Now, please describe the whole sphere of your work, the extent of it, and then describe any normal working day?
A: Let me add that I was never really officially appointed personal Referent. There was no document to that effect, and the position of Personal Referent it was first that of a referent, and then of a department chief, and the — of a main department chief. My tasks in this position were to tell Himmler what letters had come for him, either in the so-called "important mail" namely, the mail that he read himself — or by reporting to him what letters and come for him or through reading him a part or the whole of a letter that was addressed to him. Secondly, I had to receive his instructions, taking them down in verbatim notes or in our line, which I then provided with a salutation and conclusion and drew up in the form of a letter or a teletype. Thirdly, I had to receive instructions that were to be passed on immediately by telephone. Fourthly, I had to take care of conferences with SS men, the dependents of SS men, and with members of the civil population who had asked for an appointment with Himmler in order to present complaints, suggestions and such. The position of Personal Referent is probably not the same everywhere. It depends on the nature and character of the Personal Referent's chief.
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel, the Tribunal notes that in this chart — Rudolf Brandt's Exhibit 2 — that in the fourth block from the left, in the lower Brandt is described as "Personal Department" (PERSONAL). In the 9th block from the left we find "Department Chief of Personal Staff" spelled the same way. In the tenth block we have again "personal Department". Now, in English we have two words "personal" and "personnel" which have a different meaning. The Tribunal would like to be enlightened as to whether the words contained in Brandt's Exhibit 2 — if any one of them should be construed as "personnel" or if they are all properly translated in the word "personal".
MR. HARDY: May it please Your Honor, during my examination of the witness Meime I made a note in my chart that the ninth block and tenth block were to be changed to "personnel".
THE PRESIDENT: I made the same note myself but I am not altogether sure that counsel for both parties would agree that that is correct.
BY DR. KAUFMANN:
Q: Mr. Brandt, did you hear what the court just said?
A: Yes.
Q: Do you know what they are talking about?
A: Yes.
Q: Can you then, in a few sentences, clear this matter up. Would you like to have the sketch?
A: Thank you, I have it. The tenth block there is designated "Personnel Department". That was the department that took care of all personnel matters in the Personal Staff. The department in the block just ahead corresponds roughly to my job or to my specialty. Here are included the Personal Referent in the Personal Staff. In other words, the person who took care of personal matters involving the Personal Staff.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal now understands that Block 4, Rudolf Brandt, means Personal Staff, and that in Block 10, the word should properly be translated as "Personnel Department". In the German text of the chart before the Tribunal different words are used. The translators will doubtless take note the different words — one translated "personal" and one translated "personnel".
BY DR. KAUFMANN:
Q: Thank you.
Please continue in your description of your position and of a normal word day.
A: All right. I just said that the Personal Referent depended on the nature and character of his immediate boss. At any rate, this designation was not chosen for myself nor did I have it introduced because my position was be important as to make it absolutely necessary. If that had been the case, then Himmler should have had to appoint me officially as his Personal Referent. Moreover, it would have been necessary, as in the case of all other Person Referents, for me to draw up my own letter-head with the expression "Reichsfuehrer SS" and underneath that the words "Personal Referent. Neither I nor any one else in the staff gave any thought to such an idea because nothing was changed in what I was doing. Moreover, both at that time and later I was aware of my limitations.
It was my job to take care of visits, complaints, congratulations, thanks, and so forth, that were directed to Himmler from the population and from the SS itself. Witness Heine has already testified that Himmler had given the senior 15,000 SS men the right to avoid regular channels and to turn to him directly, but independently of that there were enumerable visits from all members of the SS. I was also responsible for taking care of the congratulations and birthday presents, Christmas presents, Easter presents, presents when somebody was born, that Himmler sent out, also his regular gifts of books to higher SS men and later to some of the Wehrmacht generals. Furthermore, I had to supervise the numerous welfare measures that Himmler arranged for in various local branches of the SS, particularly in connection with the deaths in SS men's families. These were the things that fell under my real job. Mostly applications on the part of the SS men and civilians were not yet ready for an immediate decision on Himmler's part. It was necessary to ask questions, to inquire into details, or to find the attitude that the superior or some official office had toward any particular matter. Himmler instructed me only to submit all such letters to him after all doubtful matters had been cleared up. Also the correspondence in connection with Himmler's many God children took a great deal of my time. Also letters to congratulate mothers of SS men who were having their second, third, or fourth child during the war. I sent the mothers of these children, on Himmler's orders, a telegram of congratulations, and also told them that they would receive as a gift from Himmler a box containing fruit juices for the mothers themselves, and that the children themselves would receive a porcelain candlestick. In almost all of these cases/these of children this one letter of congratulation led to the development of a copious correspondence. The mothers, whose husbands were most of them at the front, were greatly pleased by Himmler's show of interest.
Q: Witness, let me interrupt for a moment. I believe you could be a little more brief in this and could concentrate on telling us what further fields you had to take care of in this job and then to emphasize to what extent you really finished off these matters and what function you had and what function Himmler had.
A: Himmler reserved for himself the right to decide also on matters which concerned the individual main offices. The witness Meine has already mentioned that there were twelve main offices and he also said with the exception of four of then correspondence from the other main offices went through my office to Himmler. The four exceptions were the SS Supreme Main Office (Fuehrungshauptamt), SS Judges Department, the Main Office Order Police (ORPO), and Security Police; whereas, the correspondence which I just mentioned was really my main field of work, I should like to characterize this second group of mail as the official and office nail. Then as a third category there is also the so-called alien nail, if I may so characterize it. That mail included all natters of a strictly technical nature. For instance, reports and letters from the Chief of the Fernmeldewesen [Telecommunications], other technical reports, letters, reports, suggestions from the Reichsarzt [Reich Physician] SS, and other Physicians in all fields of medicine, and also as regards experiments and research. All of these were natters that were completely alien to what went on in my actual field of work and were also alien to the regular inter-office nail. And in point of view of numbers of these natters I have just mentioned were negligible in connection with the others.
In this connection I should like to describe the normal correspondence with the WVHA and the Ahnenerbe [Ancestral Heritage], which is frequently mentioned and which occurs in the documentation of this case. I should like to do this in order to prove that the letters were, in the first Place, very few in number, as compared with the other regular correspondence, and that also they formed an exception to the general rule. For example, correspondence was carried on with the WVHA on such subjects as how to prepare fruit juices.
Q: Witness, I have to interrupt you again. Please limit yourself to telling us to what extent you participated in the correspondence that was really a part of your office, and to what extent you had anything to do with the research and experiments.
I think it is correct that you should tell the Court just what your relation was to these various departments or branches.
A: In this connection I should like to mention a collection of statistics in order to make this situation more or less clear. Among the documents of the Prosecution I listed roughly 113 matters that are associated with either Himmler's name or my own. Of these 33 were directed to Himmler and written by him. Directed to me and written to me were 64. Moreover, six of the documents are in there which I received from other offices for my attention. The other 10 must be separated from the 113 because they were not any special matters but copies of Himmler's letters which I had to submit on his orders. If one has heard during the course of these proceedings from the prosecution how one occurrence after the next is brought into association with me, and then after one read the documents one would get the impression that in these events and occurrences that these matters were the central point of my work, as if that was the only thing I concerned myself with. However, the opposite is the truth because these matters lay outside my real field, of activity. In the years 1938 and 1939 statistical data were drawn up in the personal staff in regards to matters that were worked on in the personal staff, in other words, who worked on what. It was ascertained that my department did by far most of the work with regard to mail. Even at that time the number of outgoing letters from my department was roughly three to four thousand a month, and in some months more than four thousand. The witness Meine has given statistics for the years after that.
I would like to mention only an average number of 3,500 letters a month. Compare that with the 113 documents which were here mentioned, in order that you yet a clear picture of just what the relationship is here. For the years 1941 to 1944, you can see that with this monthly average of 3,500 outgoing letters that the total rose to 160,000. Now compare this number 160,000 with the number 113. In this comparison down through the individual years you conceive more or less the following: in 1942, or rather 1941, 42,000 outgoing letters to which you must compare five documents in the document book: 70 documents in the year 1942 compared with 42,000 outgoing letters in 1942; as I said 1943, 20 documents in the document hock against 42,000 outgoing letters and the same number is true for 1944.
Now I don't want to break this down according to every month, but let us take a look at the four months during which the largest number of documents appear in the document bock. For August, 1942 we will take an average of 3,500 outgoing letters of which there are twelve documents in the document book. In April and October of 1942 a monthly average of 3,500 outgoing letter as compared with 10 documents for each month. In September of 1942 3,500 monthly average versus nine. I believe that these numbers prove how far these matters really lay from my real sphere of work and what a minimum role they played in point of view of numbers.
THE PRESIDENT: During the morning recess, counsel may advise his client as to the essential matters which are material to this inquiry and in which the Tribunal is concerned and how to state these matters as briefly as possible.
The Tribunal will now be in recess.