DR. KAUFFMANN: Mr. President, I am going to leave out the section headed “Renaissance, Subjectivism, French Revolution, Liberalism, National Socialism.” The gist of those remarks can be summarized in two or three sentences and I merely beg you to take cognizance of them. I have pointed out that the course of all these disastrous movements is the spiritual attitude which Jacques Maritain described as anthropocentric humanism.
The clamor of the great struggle between the Middle Ages and modern times has filled the last centuries until this very hour. Its victims include since 1914, for the first time, the women; since 1939, for the first time, the children. The apocalyptic battle is in full progress for the 2,000-year-old meaning of the Occident, the motherland of the material as well as the personal culture of humanity. Its object is the steadily growing anthropocentric humanism which makes the human being the measure of all things, the secularization of religion. It announces itself in the Renaissance, becomes completely clear in the enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and in the intellectual movements of the nineteenth century. However good the reasons and motives were, the way over the Renaissance and the schism of the sixteenth century proved to be wrong. At its very end stands, for the present, the ideology of National Socialism. In the heads of its most extreme champions National Socialism culminated in the radical demand for the fight unto death against Christianity. Therefore this ideology was in its last analysis a philosophy without love; and because of this, it extinguished the light of reason in those addicted to it. To that extent the head himself of this heresy proclaimed a truth.
Goethe expressed this problem by saying: “World history is the struggle between belief and unbelief.” And I maintain, based on the declarations of the greatest minds in all camps of religious faiths, that the history of the nations, just as previously it was a struggle for the natural divine right of man, for 2,000 years has been a striving of human intellect for the Christian soul in man. These precepts are in fact such that one may not doubt them even for a short moment without the mind beginning to reel and vacillate helplessly between truth and error. It is cause for reflection that Hitler rejected the wonderful characteristic of a truly kind man that we call humility because he had decided in favor of Machiavelli and Nietzsche and that now the fate of the Germans is humiliation without precedent. One may also reflect upon the fact that Hitler denied the virtues of pity and mercy and that now millions of women and children wail with sorrow, while the law, seemingly extinct, again assumes enormous proportions, whereas Hitler surrounded himself with lawlessness. The real and last root of these calamitous modern movements which threaten state, society, and Christianity, is rootless liberalism in the meaning of that anthropocentric humanism, as Maritain calls it. Man and his autonomous reason become the criterion of everything. The question should impose itself upon every thinking person, why from the turn of the nineteenth century until the present such catastrophes of humanity have occurred which in history, I should almost like to say, find their parallel only in cosmic catastrophes. Two world wars, with revolutions in their wake, are never an accidental development but rather a predetermined evolution of the human race founded on some intellectual-religious error. Coming from England, rationalism found its way to France and on arrival there changed its physiognomy. I believe that the paganism of the ancient times knew hardly anything like Voltaire. No sooner had rationalism become the state religion of France, when the French Revolution burst into flames and wrote the idea of the emancipated human rights with flaming letters into the sky of Europe. In spite of the proclamation of the human rights, mankind waded through blood as if this was the way to freedom. Sarcastic and scornful laughter at everything sacred went through the raving masses. When the French Revolution had put into practice its state founded on reason, the new institutions did not prove quite so reasonable. The “brotherhood” was, compared with the glamorous promises of the rationalists, a bitterly disappointing caricature. Soon these ideas also conquered Germany; for Germanylooked with amazement and awe toward France in this century. The manifestation of religion became a religion of pure humanity. The last step was taken by Kant; he drew the last consequence from the principle of free science. Hegel abolished the personal God and replaced him by the absolute reason. The state is everything; it is God, its will is God’s will, in all relations to it there are no natural rights; it creates religion, law, and morality by virtue of its own sovereignty. Hitler once more placed the sovereignty in the people as a race. Hegel’s disciples destroyed the last vestige of the moral fundaments of society, state, and law. Only the genius of a man like Leibnitz, in whom the intellect of the German nation seemed to concentrate for the last time, stood alone in a sea of the rational ideology. Voltaire ridiculed the German thinker, not only in France, but also in Berlin. The last stages are connected with the names of Nietzsche and others. Nietzsche has, as no other modern man, reasoned modern ideologies out to the end and proclaimed with dauntless logic whither the present development would inevitably lead. Thus the road leads from Caligula and Julian Apostate through many a genius, glorified by the whole world but truly destructive in their effects, directly to Hitler.
Ancient paganism or modern paganism, which of them is worse? As Donoso Cortes so wisely puts it, there will be no more hope for a society which has exchanged the stern cult of Christian quest of truth for the idolatry of reason. After the sophisms come the revolutions, and behind the sophist walk the executioners.
When Hitler, returning from the first World War, decided, as he said, to become a politician, he declared that he had found the powers which could free Germany with its national and social elements from its misery. But fundamentally his ideology was only another step along the well-worn road to complete autonomy of so-called natural common sense, to which he so often referred. Naturally he had his teachers. The apotheosis of his own people traces back to Fichte, the ideal of the master-man to Nietzsche, the relativity of morals and right to Machiavelli, the cult of race to Darwin. We have witnessed their practical effect; for this road leads straight into the concentration camps, to the destruction of other races, to the persecution of Christians. But the outside enemies of National Socialism succumbed to the same ominous idea of “natural common sense” by killing with their bombs millions of noncombatant women and children and destroying so many dwellings in German villages and cities. The victor, even in a defensive war, must not try to excuse these events with “military necessities” in the meaning of the Charter. The cultural values of this very city in which this Tribunal is sitting, or of Dresden, Frankfurt, and many other cities, were the cultural property of the entire Occident. All this, and the terrible misery of the flood of refugees from the East, and the fate of the prisoners of war, is part of the theme of the intellectual and cultural analysis of National Socialism.
In the midst of this whole spiritual situation stands the figure of the Defendant Dr. Kaltenbrunner. The fatherland was already bleeding from a thousand wounds dealt at its sensitive soul and its gigantic power. Is this man guilty? He has denied his guilt and yet admitted it. Let us see what the truth is.
As I have already emphasized, up to the year 1943 Kaltenbrunner was, by comparison with the other defendants at this Trial, hardly known in Germany; at any rate, he had hardly any associations with either the German public or the high officials of the regime. In those days, when the military, economic, and political fate of the German people was already swinging with great velocity toward the abyss, hate and abhorrence of the executive powers were at their peak, the more so as the paralyzing sensation of the hopelessness of any resistance against the terror of the regime began to disappear, for people had by then finally turned away fromthe legend of invincibility preached by propaganda. Up to that point Kaltenbrunner had led a retired life and, in spite of the Austrian Anschluss, his record was clear of offenses against international law. I should like to say here that he was an Austrian—I might almost say, a bona fide Austrian. Suddenly, so to speak, and not on account of any special aptitude, much less through any efforts of his own, he was drawn into the net of the greatest accomplices of the greatest murderer. Not of his own free will; on the contrary, he repeatedly attempted to resist and to have himself transferred to the fighting front.
I can well understand that I might be told that I should, in view of the sea of blood and tears, refrain from illuminating the physiognomy of this man’s soul and character. But deep in my heart—and I beg you not to misunderstand me—while exercising my profession as counsel, even of such a man, I am moved by the universal thesis of the great Augustine, which is hardly intelligible to the present generation: “Hate error, but love man.” Love? Indeed, insofar as it should pervade justice; because justice without this virtue becomes simple revenge, which the Prosecution explicitly disavows. Therefore, for the sake of justice, I must show you that Kaltenbrunner is not the type of man repeatedly described by the Prosecution, namely, the “little Himmler,” his “confidant,” the “second Heydrich.”
I do not believe that he is the cold-hearted being which the witness Gisevius described in such unfavorable terms, although only from hearsay. The Defendant Jodl has testified before you that Kaltenbrunner was not among those of Hitler’s confidants who always gathered around him after the daily situation conferences in the Führer’s headquarters. The witness Dr. Mildner, on the basis of direct observation, made the following statement, which was not shaken by the Prosecution:
“From my own observation I can confirm this: I know the Defendant Kaltenbrunner personally. His private life was irreproachable. In my opinion he was promoted from Higher SS and Police Leader to Chief of the Security Police and of the SD because Himmler, after the death of his principal rival Heydrich in June 1942, did not want any man near him or under him who might have endangered his own position. The Defendant Kaltenbrunner was no doubt the least dangerous man for Himmler. Kaltenbrunner had no ambition to bring his influence to bear through special deeds and ultimately to push Himmler aside. He was not hungry for power. It is wrong to call him the ‘little Himmler.’ ”
“From my own observation I can confirm this: I know the Defendant Kaltenbrunner personally. His private life was irreproachable. In my opinion he was promoted from Higher SS and Police Leader to Chief of the Security Police and of the SD because Himmler, after the death of his principal rival Heydrich in June 1942, did not want any man near him or under him who might have endangered his own position. The Defendant Kaltenbrunner was no doubt the least dangerous man for Himmler. Kaltenbrunner had no ambition to bring his influence to bear through special deeds and ultimately to push Himmler aside. He was not hungry for power. It is wrong to call him the ‘little Himmler.’ ”
The witnesses Von Eberstein, Wanneck, and Dr. Hoettl have expressed themselves in a similar manner.
And yet this man took over the Reich Security Main Office; indeed, he took it over to the fullest extent, despite his agreement with Himmler. I know that today this man is suffering a great deal in thinking of the catastrophe that has overtaken his people and from the uneasiness of his conscience; nothing is more understandable than that Dr. Kaltenbrunner, knowingly, can no longer face the fact that he actually was in charge of an office under the burden of which the very stones would have cried out if that had been possible. The personality and character of this man must be judged differently from the way the Prosecution has judged it.
For the psychologist the question arises how a man, with, let us say, a normal citizen’s virtues, could take under his control an office which became the very symbol of human enslavement in the twentieth century, as far as Germany is concerned. Yet there may have been two reasons for taking over this office, nevertheless. One is based on the fact that Dr. Kaltenbrunner, although closely connected with the political and cultural interests of his Austrian homeland, supported National Socialism in its larger sense. For before he turned into the side path with its secrets, he marched with thousands and hundreds of thousands of other Germans, who desired nothing else than delivery from the unstable conditions prevailing at that time, on that wide road into which the eyes of the entire world had insight. Therefore, for example, he was without a doubt a disciple of anti-Semitism, however, only in the sense of the necessity of putting an end to the flooding of the German race with alien elements; but he condemned just as emphatically the mad crime of the physical annihilation of the Jewish race, as Dr. Hoettl definitely assures us.
Certainly Kaltenbrunner also admired Hitler’s personality as long as it did not, little by little, give expression to its absolutely misanthropic and therefore un-German nature. Also, he approved in principle, as he himself admitted during his interrogation, of measures which implied more or less severe compulsion, for example, the organization of labor training camps. For this reason no sensible person will want to question the fact that he deemed the establishment of concentration camps fundamentally quite proper, at least as a provisional measure during the war, as had been the case for a long time beyond the German borders.Sine ira et studio.
The establishment of concentration camps, or whatever one wishes to call those places at the mention of which the listener involuntarily is reminded of the words of Dante, is unfortunately not unknown in many states. History knows of their existence in South Africa some decades ago, in Russia, England, and America during this war, for the admission, among others, of persons who for reasons of conscience do not want to serve with arms. InBavaria, in the land in which the Tribunal at present sits, this sort of camp is also known; also known is the so-called “automatic arrest” category for certain groups of Germans. Under the heading “Political Principles,” in Point B-5 of the text of the mutual declaration of the three leading statesmen on the Potsdam Conference of 17 July 1945, the statement is contained that, among others, all persons who are a threat to the occupation or its aims shall be arrested or interned.
The apparent necessity for camps of this sort is thereby recognized. I myself detest those institutions of human slavery; but I state openly that these institutions also lie on the road which, when followed to the end, can and does bring suffering to persons holding different views to those desired by the state. By this the crimes against humanity in the German concentration camps are not in the least to be minimized.
As far as Kaltenbrunner is concerned, this man, in view of his character and attitude as apparent since 1943, according to my conviction and as can be affirmed by many witnesses, is basically a National Socialist leader who noted only with repugnance the general trend of the continually growing wave of terror and enslavement in Germany. For this reason I deem it important to point to the statement of the witness Eigruber to the effect that the claim of the Prosecution that Kaltenbrunner established Mauthausen is wrong.
The second reason lies in the subject of the two conversations with Himmler, about which Kaltenbrunner testified. According to that Kaltenbrunner was prepared to take over the offices of the Domestic and Foreign Intelligence Service in the Reich Security Main Office with the promise of Himmler that he would be allowed to expand this service into a central agency, with the aim of absorbing the Political Intelligence Service and joining it with the hitherto military one of Admiral Canaris. No doubt it is true, as the witnesses Wanneck, Dr. Hoettl, Dr. Mildner, and Ohlendorf, and also the defendant himself have testified, that Himmler, with Kaltenbrunner’s wish in mind, after the murder of Heydrich, intervened in the executive realm so that nothing of any importance took place in any executive field in Germany without Himmler having the final word and thus issuing the decisive order.
The witness Wanneck confirmed the subject of those two conversations of Kaltenbrunner with Himmler in the following words, which I shall quote because of their importance:
“When material problems arose Kaltenbrunner frequently remarked that he had come to an understanding with Himmler to work rather in the field of the Foreign Political Intelligence Service and that Himmler himself wanted to exertmore influence in executive functions. To my knowledge Himmler agreed to these adjustments all the more since he believed that he could depend on Kaltenbrunner’s political instinct in foreign affairs, as was apparent from various remarks made by Himmler.”
“When material problems arose Kaltenbrunner frequently remarked that he had come to an understanding with Himmler to work rather in the field of the Foreign Political Intelligence Service and that Himmler himself wanted to exertmore influence in executive functions. To my knowledge Himmler agreed to these adjustments all the more since he believed that he could depend on Kaltenbrunner’s political instinct in foreign affairs, as was apparent from various remarks made by Himmler.”
Various witnesses have testified that Kaltenbrunner, predominantly and from inner conviction, did dedicate himself to the Domestic and Foreign Intelligence Service and more and more approached the influence on domestic and foreign politics he was hoping for. I call attention again to Wanneck and Dr. Hoettl, and then also to the Defendants Jodl, Seyss-Inquart, and Fritzsche. Dr. Hoettl testified:
“In my opinion Kaltenbrunner never was completely master of the large Reich Security Main Office and, from lack of interest in police and executive problems, occupied himself far more with the Intelligence Service and with exerting influence on politics as a whole. This he considered his real domain.”
“In my opinion Kaltenbrunner never was completely master of the large Reich Security Main Office and, from lack of interest in police and executive problems, occupied himself far more with the Intelligence Service and with exerting influence on politics as a whole. This he considered his real domain.”
From the testimony by General Jodl I stress the following sentences:
“Before Kaltenbrunner took over the Intelligence Service from Canaris he already sent to me, from time to time, very good reports from the southeastern territory, through which I first noticed his experience in the Intelligence Service ... I had the impression that this man knew his business; I now received constant reports from Kaltenbrunner, just as earlier from Canaris; not only the actual reports from agents, but from time to time he sent to me, I might almost say, a political survey on the basis of his individual reports from agents. I noticed these condensed reports on the entire political situation abroad especially, because they revealed, with a frankness and sobriety never possible under Canaris, the seriousness of our entire military position.”
“Before Kaltenbrunner took over the Intelligence Service from Canaris he already sent to me, from time to time, very good reports from the southeastern territory, through which I first noticed his experience in the Intelligence Service ... I had the impression that this man knew his business; I now received constant reports from Kaltenbrunner, just as earlier from Canaris; not only the actual reports from agents, but from time to time he sent to me, I might almost say, a political survey on the basis of his individual reports from agents. I noticed these condensed reports on the entire political situation abroad especially, because they revealed, with a frankness and sobriety never possible under Canaris, the seriousness of our entire military position.”
The results therefore, which I must deduce from the evidence, are as follows: Kaltenbrunner, on the basis of the separation of the Intelligence Service from the executive police function in the Reich Security Main Office as desired by him, actually held a position, the main interest of which was the Intelligence Service and its continuous development. I should add that this Intelligence Service covered more than Europe; it went from the North Cape to Crete and Africa, from Stalingrad and Leningrad to the Pyrenees. Kaltenbrunner was the most zealous of all those in Germany who wished to feel the pulse of the enemy nations.
That was the lifework of this man as he himself wished it to be for the duration of the war. Personally he lived in modestcircumstances, and it is the truth when I say that he leaves the stage of political life just as poor as when he first entered it. The witness Wanneck once quoted a statement by Kaltenbrunner which is characteristic of him: That he, Kaltenbrunner, would retire completely from office after the war and return to the land as a farmer.
Only with deep regret will the spectator see that under the pressure of political and military events this man did not observe the limitations desired by himself. His obedience to Hitler, and therefore also Himmler, submitted to the apparent necessity, in the years 1943-45, of guaranteeing the stability of conditions inside Germany through police compulsion. Thereby he became involved in guilt; for it is clear that he might count on a milder judgment on his guilt before the conscience of the world only if he could produce evidence that he actually effected a sharp separation from the unholy Amt IV of the Secret Police, if he had in no way participated in the ideas and methods, which I believe, eventually led to the institution of this whole Trial. I cannot deny that he did not undertake this separation. Nothing is clearly proved in this direction; even his own testimony speaks against him. Thus his statement at the beginning of his examination before the Tribunal may be explained, which I should like to define as the thesis of his guilt:
“Question: ‘You realize that a very special accusation has been brought against you. The Prosecution accuses you of Crimes against Peace as well as of your role of an intellectual principal or of a participant in committing Crimes against Humanity and against the rules of war. Finally the Prosecution has connected your name with the terrorism of the Gestapo and with the cruelties in the concentration camps. I now ask you: Do you assume responsibility for these points of accusation as they are outlined and familiar to you?’ ”
“Question: ‘You realize that a very special accusation has been brought against you. The Prosecution accuses you of Crimes against Peace as well as of your role of an intellectual principal or of a participant in committing Crimes against Humanity and against the rules of war. Finally the Prosecution has connected your name with the terrorism of the Gestapo and with the cruelties in the concentration camps. I now ask you: Do you assume responsibility for these points of accusation as they are outlined and familiar to you?’ ”
And Kaltenbrunner answers:
“First of all I should like to state to the Court that I am fully aware of the serious nature of the accusations brought against me. I know that the hatred of the world is directed against me, since I am the only one here to answer to the world and to the Court, because a Himmler, a Müller, a Pohl are no longer alive ... I want to state at the very beginning that I assume responsibility for every wrong which from the time of my appointment as Chief of the Reich Security Main Office was committed within the jurisdiction of that office as far as it occurred under my actual command, and I thus knew or should have known of these occurrences.”
“First of all I should like to state to the Court that I am fully aware of the serious nature of the accusations brought against me. I know that the hatred of the world is directed against me, since I am the only one here to answer to the world and to the Court, because a Himmler, a Müller, a Pohl are no longer alive ... I want to state at the very beginning that I assume responsibility for every wrong which from the time of my appointment as Chief of the Reich Security Main Office was committed within the jurisdiction of that office as far as it occurred under my actual command, and I thus knew or should have known of these occurrences.”
Thus the duty of the Defense is automatically delineated by asking the questions:
(1) What did Kaltenbrunner do, good and evil, after his appointment as Chief of the Reich Security Main Office on 1 February 1943?
(2) To what extent is the statement justified that in the essential points he did not have sufficient knowledge of all the Crimes against Humanity and against the rules of war?
(3) In how far can his guilt be established from the viewpoint that he should have known about the serious crimes against international law in which Amt IV of the Reich Security Main Office (Secret State Police) was directly or indirectly involved?
What has Kaltenbrunner done? In this connection I am passing over the accusation brought against him by the Prosecution for his participation in the events surrounding the occupation of Austria and Czechoslovakia, for no matter with what energy he followed his goal of seeing his Austrian homeland incorporated into the German Reich and used the SS forces under his command for the realization of this end, this aim cannot have been a criminal one according to the world’s conscience. Just as little could one reach a verdict of criminal guilt because of the forcible means employed at that time to accomplish the annexation of Austria, which was the outcome of history and desired by millions. Kaltenbrunner was still much too insignificant a man for that. Economic distress—Anschluss movement—National Socialism: That was the path followed by the majority of the Austrian people, not the National Socialist ideology; for Hitler himself was, from the standpoint of Austrianism, a spiritual and political renegade. Yet the Austrian Anschluss movement was a people’s movement before National Socialism had reached any importance in Germany. Austria wanted to protect herself against the Versailles and St. Germain ruling, which forbade the Anschluss, by holding a plebiscite in each province. After 90 percent had voted in Tyrol and Salzburg, the victorious powers threatened to discontinue the shipment of food supplies. Hitler’s seizure of power paralyzed the desire for Anschluss among those not sympathizing with the Party, but the distress in Austria became still more acute and isolated the Dollfuss-Schuschnigg regime. Incorporation into the economic sphere of Greater Germany, where the removal of mass unemployment seemed to be the source of hope, appeared to the greatly distressed Austrian people as the only way out. The wave of enthusiasm which on 12 and 13 March 1938 went through all Austria was real. To try to deny this today would be to falsify history. The Anschluss, not the Dollfuss-Schuschnigg Government, was based on democracy.
Just as little can one, I believe, according to the reasons mentioned above, reach a verdict of guilt for Kaltenbrunner because of his alleged activity in the question of Czechoslovakia. In my opinion, the question of guilt and expiation arises only for the timeafter 1 February 1943. The indignation of the German people over one of the most infamous terroristic measures, the imposition of protective custody, had already become immense before this date. Is it correct to say that Kaltenbrunner himself, of whom many orders for protective custody bearing his signature are in evidence before the Court, inwardly abhorred this type of suppression of human liberties?
May I refer to just a few sentences from his interrogations:
“Question: ‘Did you know that protective custody was at all permissible and was used frequently?’“Answer: ‘As I have stated, I discussed the idea of “protective custody” with Himmler already in 1942. But I believe that already before this time I had corresponded quite extensively on this subject with him, as well as once also with Thierack. I consider protective custody as applied in Germany only in a smaller number of cases to be a necessity of state, or better, a measure such as is justified by war. For the rest I often voiced my opinion, well founded in legal history, against this conception and against the application of protective custody in principle. I had several discussions about it with Himmler and with Hitler also. I publicly took my stand against it at a meeting of public prosecutors, I think in 1944, because I have always been of the opinion that a man’s freedom is one of his highest possessions and only the lawful sentence of a regular court of justice founded on the Constitution may limit or take away this freedom.’ ”
“Question: ‘Did you know that protective custody was at all permissible and was used frequently?’
“Answer: ‘As I have stated, I discussed the idea of “protective custody” with Himmler already in 1942. But I believe that already before this time I had corresponded quite extensively on this subject with him, as well as once also with Thierack. I consider protective custody as applied in Germany only in a smaller number of cases to be a necessity of state, or better, a measure such as is justified by war. For the rest I often voiced my opinion, well founded in legal history, against this conception and against the application of protective custody in principle. I had several discussions about it with Himmler and with Hitler also. I publicly took my stand against it at a meeting of public prosecutors, I think in 1944, because I have always been of the opinion that a man’s freedom is one of his highest possessions and only the lawful sentence of a regular court of justice founded on the Constitution may limit or take away this freedom.’ ”
Here the same man expresses the right principles, the observance of which would have spared the German people and the world untold suffering, and the nonobservance of which constitutes the guilt of this man who in spite of his right views, suited his actions to the so-called necessity of state. He thereby, against his own will and knowledge, became subject to the principle of hatred, which sooner or later will always shake or shatter the foundations of the strongest state. “Right is what benefits the people,” Hitler had proclaimed. I well know that Kaltenbrunner today deeply regrets having adhered too long to that false maxim without putting up sufficient resistance ...
Although the Prosecution has not been able to produce even one single original signature of Kaltenbrunner in connection with orders for protective custody, and I do not think it incredible when Kaltenbrunner deposes that he himself never put into effect such an order for protective custody by his signature, nevertheless, in view of the tragic results due to so many of these orders, I do not need to say even one word as to whether he is entirely blameless or is much less to blame because these orders had perhaps been signed withouthis knowledge; although of course the question arises immediately how this was possible in an office however large. Be that as it may; in affairs of such depth and such tragic outcome one’s feelings are inclined to make hardly any distinction between knowledge and ignorance due to negligence, because one wants to hold everyone occupying a post in an office responsible for what happens there. This recognition is also the meaning of Kaltenbrunner’s statement, cited above, regarding his fundamental responsibility. Where the happiness and fate of living men are involved, it is impossible to retreat under the pretext of ignorance in order to avoid punishment; at best mitigation of sentence can be asked for. The defendant knows this too. Orders for protective custody were the ominous harbingers of the concentration camp. And I am not revealing a secret when I say that the responsibility for issuing orders for protective custody includes the beginning of responsibility for the fate of those held in the concentration camps. I could never admit that Dr. Kaltenbrunner may have known of the excesses suffered by the thousands who languished in the camps; for, as soon as the gates of the concentration camps were closed, there began the exclusive influence of that other office, the frequently mentioned Central Office for Economy and Administration. Instead of referring to many statements of witnesses regarding this point, I refer only to the one of the witness Dr. Hoettl who, when asked about subordination in rank replied:
“The concentration camps were exclusively under the command of the SS Central Office for Economy and Administration, hence not under the Reich Security Main Office, and therefore not under Kaltenbrunner. In this sphere he had no authority of command and no competency.”
“The concentration camps were exclusively under the command of the SS Central Office for Economy and Administration, hence not under the Reich Security Main Office, and therefore not under Kaltenbrunner. In this sphere he had no authority of command and no competency.”
Other witnesses have said that of necessity Kaltenbrunner should have had knowledge of the sad conditions in the concentration camps, but there is no doubt that the commandants of the concentration camps themselves deliberately concealed criminal excesses of the guards even from their superiors. It is furthermore a fact that the conditions found by the Allies upon their arrival were almost exclusively the results of the catastrophic military and economic situation during the last weeks of the war, which the world mistakenly identified with general conditions in former times as well. The above statement is fully verified by the statements of the camp commandant of Auschwitz, Hoess, who because of his later activity in the Concentration Camp Department of the Central Office for Economy and Administration, had an accurate over-all picture. Hoess has no ulterior motive whatsoever to give false testimony. A person like him, who sent millions of men to their deaths, nolonger comes under the authority of human judges and considerations. Hoess stated:
“The so-called ill-treatment and tortures in the concentration camps were not, as assumed, a policy. They were rather excesses of individual leaders, subleaders, and men who laid violent hands upon the inmates.”
“The so-called ill-treatment and tortures in the concentration camps were not, as assumed, a policy. They were rather excesses of individual leaders, subleaders, and men who laid violent hands upon the inmates.”
These people themselves were, according to the statement of Hoess, taken to task for that. I believe I need not go into any more details of how, according to various witnesses, visitors to concentration camps were impressed and surprised by the good condition, cleanliness, and order in the camps; and therefore no suspicion was aroused as to special sufferings of the inmates. But it would be in the worst taste if I contested the fact that a chief of the Intelligence Service, if only on the basis of foreign news of atrocities, should not have felt a responsibility, in the interest of humanity, to clear up any doubts arising in that sphere.
The lack of knowledge seems to be confirmed by the statement of Dr. Meyer of the International Red Cross, since the permission to allow the International Red Cross to visit the Jewish Camp at Theresienstadt and to allow food and medical supplies to be sent in, coming from Kaltenbrunner, seems to be proof of the bad conditions in the camps during the last months of the war; nobody, however, would allow neutral or foreign observers to have insight into the camps if it had been known that crimes against humanity were, so to speak, scheduled daily in the camps, as is asserted by the Prosecution.
In no case, therefore, do I come to the conclusion that Kaltenbrunner had full knowledge of the so-called “conditions” in the concentration camps, yet I do conclude that it was his duty to investigate the fate of those who were imprisoned. Kaltenbrunner might have found out then that a considerable number of the inmates were sent to the camps because they were criminals and that a much smaller portion was there because of their political or ideological viewpoints or because of their race but that he would then have found out about those primitive offenses against humanity, about those excesses and all the distress of these people—that I contest, in agreement with Kaltenbrunner.
The way to arrive at the truth was immensely complicated in Germany, and even the Chief of the Reich Security Main Office found nearly insurmountable obstacles in the hierarchy of jurisdiction and authority of other offices and persons. The alleviation of the sad lot of the internees was, after 1943, a problem which could have been solved only through the dissolution of such camps. A Germany of the last 12 years without any concentration campswould, however, have been a utopia. On the whole, Kaltenbrunner was but a small cog in this machinery.
Earlier I spoke about the orders for protective custody and of their effect. Dr. Kaltenbrunner has affirmed the necessity for work education camps, owing to—as stated by him during his examination—the conditions then prevailing in the Reich, to the shortcomings of the labor market, and to other reasons. And if I am not mistaken, no convincing proof was submitted of ill-treatment and cruelties in such camps. The reason may well lie in the fact that these camps were in some respects only related to, but not on equal footing with, concentration camps.
With all available means of evidence, Kaltenbrunner has opposed the accusation of having confirmed orders of execution with his signature. The witnesses Hoess and Zutter stated that they saw such orders in isolated cases. The Prosecution, however, does not seem to me to have proved that any such orders were issued without judicial sentence or without reasons justifying death, with the exception of a particularly serious case reported from hearsay by the witness Zutter, adjutant of the camp commandant of Mauthausen. According to him, a teletype signed by Kaltenbrunner is said to have authorized the execution of parachutists in the spring of 1945. An original signature by Kaltenbrunner is entirely lacking. I add that Kaltenbrunner has contested having any knowledge or information about this matter. I think I may safely claim that he did not sign any such orders concerning life and death, because he was not authorized to do so. Dr. Hoettl as a witness stated:
“No, Kaltenbrunner did not issue such orders and could not, in my opinion, give such orders”—for killing Jews—“on his own initiative.”
“No, Kaltenbrunner did not issue such orders and could not, in my opinion, give such orders”—for killing Jews—“on his own initiative.”
And Wanneck explicitly asserted the following:
“It is known to me that Himmler personally decided over life and death and other punishment of inmates of concentration camps.”
“It is known to me that Himmler personally decided over life and death and other punishment of inmates of concentration camps.”
Thus the exclusive authority of Himmler in this sad sphere may be considered proved. I am not seriously disposed to deny the guilt of Kaltenbrunner completely on this point. If such orders were carried out against members of foreign powers, for example, based on the so-called “Commando Order” of Hitler of 18 October 1942, then there arises the question of the responsibility of that person whose signature was affixed to these orders, because misuse of his name by subordinates was possible. It is certain that Kaltenbrunner never exerted the least influence in originating the “Commando Order.” It can, however, hardly be doubted that this decree constituted a violation of international law. The development of thesecond World War into a total war inevitably created an abundance of new stratagems. Insofar as genuine soldiers were employed in their execution, even a motive of bitterness, humanly quite understandable—and I am now speaking about the conduct of the Commando troops concerned in violation of the laws of warfare and other things—could not justify the order. Fortunately but very few people fell victims to this order of Hitler, as the Defendant Jodl has testified.
Perhaps one might ask me whether it is my duty, or whether I am permitted, to reiterate such points of incrimination as I have just done, since this seems to be the task of the Prosecution. To this I reply: If the Defense is so liberal as to admit the negative side of a personality, it surely is apt to be heard more readily when it approaches the Tribunal with the request to appraise the positive side in its full significance. However, is there a positive side at all in the case before us? I believe that I may answer that question in the affirmative. I already pointed out several facts which are connected with the time of the assumption of office by Kaltenbrunner. During his short 2 years of activity this man has made himself a bearer of decidedly fortunate and humane ideas. I wish to remind you of his attitude toward the lynch order of Hitler with respect to enemy aviators who were shot down. The witness, General of the Air Force Koller, described the decent conduct of Kaltenbrunner, which led to a total sabotage of this order. After first describing the contents of Hitler’s order and Hitler’s threat, pronounced during the situation conference at that time, namely, that any saboteur of this order should himself be shot, Koller goes on to repeat the statements of Kaltenbrunner. Permit me to quote a few sentences of the deposition of Koller. Koller says that Kaltenbrunner said:
“The tasks of the SD are always given a wrong interpretation. Such matters are not the concern of the SD. Moreover, no German soldier will do what the Führer commands. He does not kill prisoners; and if a few fanatic partisans of Herr Bormann try to do so, the German soldier will interfere ... Furthermore, I myself, too, will do nothing in this matter ...”
“The tasks of the SD are always given a wrong interpretation. Such matters are not the concern of the SD. Moreover, no German soldier will do what the Führer commands. He does not kill prisoners; and if a few fanatic partisans of Herr Bormann try to do so, the German soldier will interfere ... Furthermore, I myself, too, will do nothing in this matter ...”
Koller and Kaltenbrunner, therefore, were fully agreed on that matter. This positive action of Kaltenbrunner, important for the judgment of the actual nature of his personality, does not stand alone. Dr. Hoettl confirmed the fact that, in questions of the future fate of Germany, Kaltenbrunner went, if not beyond, at least up to the borderline of high treason. This witness, for example, confirms that Kaltenbrunner in March 1944 caused Hitler to moderate the plans concerning the Hungarian question and succeeded in preventing the entry of Romanian units into Hungary, that with hissupport also the planned Hungarian National Socialist Government was not set up for a long time.
Dr. Hoettl then says literally:
“Since 1943 I told Kaltenbrunner that Germany must attempt to end the war by a peace at any price. I informed him of my connections with an American authority in Lisbon. I also informed him that I had taken up new contacts with an American authority abroad by way of the Austrian resistance movement. He declared that he was prepared to go to Switzerland with me and there to take up personally negotiations with the American representative, in order to prevent further useless bloodshed.”
“Since 1943 I told Kaltenbrunner that Germany must attempt to end the war by a peace at any price. I informed him of my connections with an American authority in Lisbon. I also informed him that I had taken up new contacts with an American authority abroad by way of the Austrian resistance movement. He declared that he was prepared to go to Switzerland with me and there to take up personally negotiations with the American representative, in order to prevent further useless bloodshed.”
The depositions of the witness Dr. Neubacher run along the same lines. But over and beyond that, this witness testified to a significant humane deed of Kaltenbrunner. Upon being questioned whether Kaltenbrunner had assisted the witness in moderating, as much as possible, the terror policies in Serbia, Dr. Neubacher answered; and I quote:
“Yes, in this field I owe much to the assistance of Kaltenbrunner. The German Police agencies in Serbia knew from me and from Kaltenbrunner that in his capacity as Chief of the Foreign Intelligence Service he uncompromisingly supported my policies in the southeastern territory. Thereby I succeeded in exerting influence on the police offices. Kaltenbrunner’s assistance was of value in my efforts to abolish the then prevailing system of collective responsibility and reprisals with the aid of intelligence officers.”
“Yes, in this field I owe much to the assistance of Kaltenbrunner. The German Police agencies in Serbia knew from me and from Kaltenbrunner that in his capacity as Chief of the Foreign Intelligence Service he uncompromisingly supported my policies in the southeastern territory. Thereby I succeeded in exerting influence on the police offices. Kaltenbrunner’s assistance was of value in my efforts to abolish the then prevailing system of collective responsibility and reprisals with the aid of intelligence officers.”
I further mention the relief work of the Geneva Red Cross, which is due to the initiative of Kaltenbrunner. The activity of the defendant with respect to this was portrayed by the witnesses Professor Burckhardt, Dr. Bachmann, and Dr. Meyer. As a consequence many thousands were able to exchange their captivity for liberty.
I should like to draw your attention to a few words stated by the Defendant Seyss-Inquart on two points. He mentioned that Kaltenbrunner advocated the complete autonomy of the Polish state as well as the reintroduction of the independence of both Christian Churches, and I might add that Dr. Hoettl testified that Kaltenbrunner defended his activity very energetically and met with most bitter resistance by Bormann. Kaltenbrunner tried to realize his humane intentions not only in this field. Therefore, it seems to me to be of significance also to point out his efforts to make the Austrian Gauleiter understand that any resistance against the troops of the Western powers would be senseless and that in viewof this, irresponsible orders for resistance were not to be issued. This was confirmed by the witness Wanneck. The Prosecution held Kaltenbrunner responsible for the evacuation and planned destruction of certain concentration camps. I believe this evidence may not only be considered as inconclusive, but that the contrary has in fact been proved. Upon the question, addressed to Dr. Hoettl, whether Kaltenbrunner had instructed the commandant of the concentration camp Mauthausen to surrender the camp to the advancing troops, Dr. Hoettl answered:
“It is correct that Kaltenbrunner issued such an order. He dictated it in my presence for transmission to the camp commandant.”
“It is correct that Kaltenbrunner issued such an order. He dictated it in my presence for transmission to the camp commandant.”
As a supplement Kaltenbrunner, during his personal examination, declared very logically: If the camp of Mauthausen, filled with criminals, could not be evacuated by his orders, an order to evacuate Dachau would have been devoid of any basis by reason of its—compared with Mauthausen—harmless inmates. According to the testimony of Freiherr Von Eberstein, the destruction of the concentration camp Dachau with its two secondary camps was the goal of the then Gauleiter of Munich, Giesler.
Finally the witness Wanneck confirmed the fact that such an order of Kaltenbrunner had not become known to him; that, however, due to his position with Kaltenbrunner, he would have known if such an order had been issued by the latter or even the issuance of such an order considered. Who actually issued these orders can no longer be established with certainty. The witness Hoess, in his examination, mentioned an order of evacuation by Himmler, as well as one directly by Hitler.
In this connection it seems appropriate to me to refer to Kaltenbrunner’s participation in the sad case of Sagan as charged by the Prosecution. With reference to Kaltenbrunner’s statement, confirmed by the examination of the witness Wielen, it appears to me to be a proven fact that this matter came to Kaltenbrunner’s attention for the first time only several weeks later, after the conclusion of this tragedy.
It also appears doubtful to me whether the so-called Einsatzgruppen, introduced on the basis of Hitler’s “Commissar Order” of 1941, were still in existence and functioning after the appointment of Kaltenbrunner. Some facts speak for it, others against it. Kaltenbrunner denied the existence of these groups during his term as Chief of the Reich Security Main Office. I do not want to lose myself in details, but I should like to draw the attention of the Tribunal to these doubts. The same applies, for example, to the so-called “Bullet Decree.” Document 1650-PS confirms that it wasnot Kaltenbrunner but Müller, the infamous Chief of Amt IV, who issued the instructions involved, while Document 3844-PS mentions personal signatures of the defendant. It appears to me that the first document deserves preference. May I finally draw your attention to those documents which are of less value as evidence because they are based upon indirect observation. I believe that the Tribunal possesses sufficient experience in evaluating evidence so that I need not argue this any further.
I have thus far openly conceded the negative, so that I may be the more justified in emphasizing the positive in Kaltenbrunner’s personality. How far, however, shall I be justified in stating that Kaltenbrunner had actually insufficient knowledge of many War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity which were committed with some kind of participation of Amt IV in the course of the last 2 years of the war? Would such a defense offer the prospect of essentially exculpating the Chief of the Reich Security Main Office?
Dr. Kaltenbrunner admitted during his examination that it was only very late, in some cases as late as 1944 or 1945, that he obtained knowledge of orders, instructions, and directives, despite the fact that they originated much earlier—in some instances several years before he took office. And here I add—and I wish to emphasize this particularly at this point—that these orders, which are contrary to international ethics and humanity, all go back to a time during which Dr. Kaltenbrunner was still in Austria.
I will not at this moment try to prove in detail all these statements of Kaltenbrunner’s. The Prosecution is interested exclusively in whether such orders, decrees, directives, and so forth, were also executed during the period of time in which the defendant was in office as Chief of the Reich Security Main Office. It is also often very difficult for a defense counsel to follow a defendant along the secret channels of his knowledge or his ignorance. Perhaps the defense counsel also sometimes lacks the necessary distance for a free and just judgment, in view of the hecatombs of victims spread out across a whole continent, and he is unfair to his client. Thus he leaves the nature of the defendant’s character to the later judgment of history, for even the defense counsel is not infallible when it comes to drawing a picture of the soul of his own client.
During his examination before the Tribunal Kaltenbrunner once explained the difficult position he was in when he took over his office on 1 February 1943, and I hope that nobody will misjudge this situation. The Reich was still fighting, and even in 1943 was still dangerous for any adversary colliding with it. But it was already a fight for a goal obviously remote and out of reach. Whoever tries to hold back the spokes of the wheels on a vehicle rolling into an abyss at top speed will perish all too easily. Coupledwith these conditions, from which there was no way of escaping, there was an uncreative officiousness, caused by nervous insecurity, in all areas of private and public life. Kaltenbrunner said with regard to this situation: