Chapter I: N T H E (30)

THE PRESIDENT: General Rudenko, do you think it is really necessary to go through these documents in such detail? The documents, after all, speak for themselves, and they have already been presented to the Tribunal.

GEN. RUDENKO: I am finishing with this document, Mr. President.

Do you know anything about the directives of the OKW with regard to the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war?

GÖRING: I shall have to see them.

GEN. RUDENKO: If you please, Mr. President, the document has already been submitted to the Tribunal, as 338-PS.

Please look at Point A, Paragraph 3, which states that there is a broad directive concerning the use of arms against Soviet prisoners of war. The use of weapons must be considered permissible and in any incidents involved the guards are not bound to report on the matter.

This document also speaks for itself. I do not want . . .

GÖRING: Just a moment, I must read it first; there is some ambiguity in here.

GEN. RUDENKO: I should like to refresh your memory with still another subject, that is, a short comment. It is taken from an order concerning the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war. Here it is said that prisoners of war who are trying to escape should be shot without warning. The same subject is also mentioned in the memorandum concerning the treatment of the Russian prisoners of war.

GÖRING: The trouble here was the language difficulty; hence the guards were instructed to use their arms immediately against persons attempting escape. That is more or less the meaning of it, and that errors might occur in this connection can be understood.

GEN. RUDENKO: I am not talking about the purport of the document which speaks for itself. I want to know whether you knew about this document.

GÖRING: This is a document dealing with the treatment of prisoners of war, and it was passed directly to my department which was concerned with prisoners of war. I did not know of this document, neither did I know of the one which contains the opinion of the Foreign Intelligence Department on the matter.

GEN. RUDENKO: You did not know about this document? Very well. Now one other, Number 884-PS, already submitted. It deals with the extermination of political leaders and other political personalities. This is a document . . .

GÖRING: In explanation of this, I should like to point out that the Air Force did not have any camps for Soviet prisoners of war. The Air Force had only six camps in which the air force personnel of other powers were confined; but it had no camps under it with Soviet prisoners of war.

GEN. RUDENKO: I have asked you these questions and shown you these documents because as the second man in Germany, you could not possibly have been unaware of these things.

GÖRING: I apologize if I contradict you. The higher the office I held, the less would I be concerned with orders dealing with prisoners of war. From their very nature, these were departmental orders and not orders of the highest political or military significance. If I had held a much lower rank, then I might have had more knowledge of these orders. I am now looking at the document which you submitted to me—Department of Home Defense. It says on the left, “Reference: Treatment of Captured Political and Military Russian Functionaries.” That is the document I am looking at.

GEN. RUDENKO: Please look at the date of the document—12 May 1941, Führer’s Headquarters.

GÖRING: Yes.

GEN. RUDENKO: Look at Paragraph 3 of the document.

“Political leaders among the troops are not to be considered
prisoners of war and must be exterminated at the latest in the
transit camps. They must never be transported to the rear.”

Did you know about this directive?

GÖRING: May I point out that this is in no way a directive, but that it bears the heading, “Memorandum,” and is signed Warlimont. Also the distribution chart does not show any other department than the Home Defense Department, which I have mentioned. In other words, this is a memorandum.

GEN. RUDENKO: You mean to say then that you did not know about this document?

GÖRING: I say once more, this is a memorandum from the Operations Staff of the OKW; and it is not an order or a directive, but a memorandum.

THE PRESIDENT: That is not an answer to the question. You are telling us what it was, not whether you knew of it.

GÖRING: No; I did not. It had been put before me as an order, and I wanted to point out that it is not an order.

GEN. RUDENKO: Let us go on. The directives regarding the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war must have been executed also by the units of the Luftwaffe?

GÖRING: If ordered by the Führer, yes; or if ordered by me, also.

GEN. RUDENKO: Do you remember your own directives with regard to the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war?

GÖRING: No.

GEN. RUDENKO: You do not remember them?

GÖRING: The Air Force had no camps with Soviet prisoners of war.

GEN. RUDENKO: Tell me, the majority of these criminal orders and directives of the OKW, were they not issued even before the beginning of the war against the Soviet Union and as part of the preparations for that war? Does this not show that the German Government and the OKW already had a prepared plan for exterminating the Soviet population?

GÖRING: No. It does not prove it at all. It only shows that we considered a struggle with the Soviet Union would be an extremely bitter one, and that it would be conducted according to other rules as there were no conventions.

GEN. RUDENKO: These rules of warfare are well known to us. Please tell me, do you know about Himmler’s directives given in 1941 about the extermination of 30 million Slavs? You heard about it from the witness Von dem Bach-Zelewski here in court. Do you remember that?

GÖRING: Yes. First of all it was not an order but a speech. Secondly, it was an assertion by Zelewski. And thirdly, in all speeches that Himmler made to subordinate leaders, he insisted on the strictest secrecy. In other words, this is a statement from a witness about what he had heard, and not an order. Consequently, I have no knowledge of this nonsense.

GEN. RUDENKO: You did not know about it. Very well. Tell me, in the German totalitarian state was there not a governing center, which meant Hitler and his immediate entourage, in which you acted as deputy? These directives must have concerned Keitel and Himmler also. Could Himmler of his own volition have issued directives for the extermination of 30 million Slavs without being empowered by Hitler or by you?

GÖRING: Himmler gave no order for the extermination of 30 million Slavs. The witness said that he made a speech in which he said that 30 million Slavs must be exterminated. Had Himmler issued such an order _de facto_, if he kept to regulations, he would have had to ask the Führer—not me, but the Führer—and the latter would probably have told him at once that it was impossible.

GEN. RUDENKO: I did not say it was an order; I said it was a directive from Himmler. You therefore admit, or you state rather, that Himmler could have issued instructions without discussing them with Hitler?

GÖRING: I emphasize that such instructions could not have been given by Himmler, and I know of no instructions; also no directive has been mentioned here.

GEN. RUDENKO: I shall repeat the question once more: Is it not true that the directives and the orders of the OKW with regard to the treatment of the civilian population and prisoners of war in the occupied Soviet territories were part of the general directives for the extermination of the Slavs? That is what I want to know.

GÖRING: Not at all. At no time has there been a directive from the Führer, or anybody I know of, concerning the extermination of the Slavs.

GEN. RUDENKO: You must have known about the mass extermination of the Soviet citizens from the occupied territories of the Soviet Union with the help of the SD and the Security Police. Is it not true that the Einsatz Kommandos and their activities were the result of the plan prepared in advance for the extermination of Jews and other groups of Soviet citizens?

GÖRING: No. Einsatz Kommandos were an internal organ which was kept very secret.

GEN. RUDENKO: I shall have several other questions. Perhaps it is better to adjourn now.

THE PRESIDENT: How long do you think it will take, General Rudenko?

GEN. RUDENKO: I think not more than another hour.

THE PRESIDENT: All these documents which you have been putting to the witness, as I have pointed out to you, are documents which have already been put in evidence and documents which seem to me to speak for themselves. I hope, therefore, that you will make your cross-examination as short as you can. The Tribunal will now adjourn.

[_The Tribunal adjourned until 22 March 1946 at 1000 hours._]

EIGHTY-EIGHTH DAY
Friday, 22 March 1946

_Morning Session_

DR. SERVATIUS: Mr. President, yesterday I received the translation of Document D-728. It is the document which was objected to yesterday as being incorrect.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

DR. SERVATIUS: I request to have this retranslated, since this translation is considerably different from the original wording and, in particular, fails to make clear where the mistakes are which led to the objection against the document. On the first page of that document there are about 20 to 30 objections to be made. The translator, since he could not realize the importance of the document, translated it quickly without emphasizing the decisive points. A careful translation ought to be made, which would enable us to get an idea of the original document. I am fully aware of what the difficulties are.

THE PRESIDENT: Certainly, the translation shall be checked by a different translator, or, if you like, by two different translators.

DR. SERVATIUS: May I ask to have a new translation made for comparison, since the version which we have here is also evidence of the fact that the original already contains considerable mistakes.

THE PRESIDENT: Certainly, it shall be checked and retranslated.

DR. SERVATIUS: Then, I request further that the opinion of an expert on the German language be obtained. This opinion will ascertain that the author of this document does not have full control of the German language and that it must have been drawn up by someone who was a foreigner. I do not want to give detailed reasons, but I would like to make this motion in writing.

THE PRESIDENT: I think you must certainly make a written application about that.

DR. SERVATIUS: I shall submit it in writing.

GEN. RUDENKO: Defendant Göring, in your statement you said that the attack on Poland was perpetrated after the bloody happenings in the town of Bromberg.

GÖRING: I said that the date for the attack was set due to the bloody events which included, in addition to many other incidents, also the Bloody Sunday at Bromberg.

GEN. RUDENKO: Do you know that these events happened on 3 September 1939?

GÖRING: I might have made a mistake regarding the date of Bromberg; I would have to see the documents about that. I merely quoted that as one example among a lot of others.

GEN. RUDENKO: It is understandable. The attack was perpetrated on 1 September, and the events in the town of Bromberg, which you just mentioned to the Tribunal, happened on 3 September 1939. I submit to the Tribunal the document evidence issued by the High Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, which is duly certified in accordance with Article 21 of the Charter. From this testimony it is clear that the events about which the Defendant Göring is testifying here happened on 3 September 1939, that is to say, on the third day after the attack by Germany on Poland.

THE PRESIDENT: You can put the document to the witness, if you want.

GEN. RUDENKO: I have no German text. I have it in English and in Russian. I just received this document. It is dated 19 March, and I will submit it to the Tribunal as conclusive evidence to prove this fact.

THE PRESIDENT: I do not think this is the appropriate time to put in documents in that way.

Very well, you can put in the document now if you like.

GEN. RUDENKO: Thank you, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: It must be translated into German, of course.

GEN. RUDENKO: I have no German translation of this document.

THE PRESIDENT: It has to be translated into German in order that defendant’s counsel may see it.

GEN. RUDENKO: We will do that without fail.

DR. STAHMER: Mr. President, may I ask to have the document read now? It is only a short memorandum; so we can hear immediately what it contains.

THE PRESIDENT: Very well. Will you read it into the record, General Rudenko?

GEN. RUDENKO: Yes, Sir. It is very short:

“Certificate Based on the Investigation Performed by the Polish
Legal Authority.

“The High Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in
Poland certifies that the so-called Bloody Sunday in the town of
Bromberg took place on 3 September 1939, that is to say, 3 days
after the time when Poland was subjected to the German attack.

“On 3 September 1939, at 1015 in the morning, German Fifth
Columnists attacked Polish troop units retreating from Bromberg.
During the fighting 238 Polish soldiers and 223 German Fifth
Columnists were killed. As a consequence of the events after the
entrance of the German troops into the town of Bromberg, they
began mass executions, arrests, and deportations of Polish
citizens to concentration camps, which were performed by the
German authorities, the SS, and the Gestapo. There were 10,500
murdered, and 13,000 exterminated in the camps.

“This certificate is an official document of the Polish
Government and is submitted to the International Military
Tribunal in accordance with Article 21 of the Charter of 8
August 1945.

“Stefan Kurovsky, member of the High Commission for the
Investigation of German Crimes in Poland.”

I should like to prove by this document that the events regarding which the Defendant Göring gave testimony happened after the attack by Germany on Poland.

GÖRING: I am not sure whether we are both referring to the same event.

GEN. RUDENKO: I am speaking about the events in the town of Bromberg. You spoke about them.

GÖRING: Perhaps two different events took place in Bromberg.

GEN. RUDENKO: It is quite possible.

I pass on to the following question: It is known to you that there was an order by the OKW regarding the branding of Soviet prisoners of war, and what do you think about that?

GÖRING: That order is not known to me, and no representative of the Air Force was present at this preliminary discussion as I have ascertained here from the records.

GEN. RUDENKO: I am interested as to whether you knew about this or not. The orders are quite clear.

GÖRING: No.

GEN. RUDENKO: Do you know that the German High Command ordered that Soviet war prisoners and Soviet citizens had to be used for clearing mine fields and transporting bombs that had not exploded, _et cetera_? Do you know about that?

GÖRING: I know that Russian prisoners of war who were engineers had to clear the mines which they had laid. To what extent the civilian population was employed for that purpose I do not know, but it was possible.

GEN. RUDENKO: It is quite clear.

Do you know about an order regarding the destruction of the towns of Leningrad, Moscow, and other towns of the Soviet Union?

GÖRING: In my presence the destruction of Leningrad was discussed only in the document which was mentioned yesterday, in the sense that the Finns, in case of the capture of Leningrad, would have no use for such a big city. Of the destruction of Moscow I know nothing at all.

GEN. RUDENKO: Do you remember the minutes of the meeting? This document was presented to you yesterday—the minutes of the meeting of 16 July 1941. You were present at this meeting. They state that the Führer declared . . .

GÖRING: I have just mentioned and confirmed that.

GEN. RUDENKO: Did you speak about this same document? But, besides this statement, there were also official orders.

GÖRING: Would you be good enough to put them before me, then I would be able to ascertain whether they are correct and whether they were known to me.

GEN. RUDENKO: I have no intention of submitting these documents to you. They have already been submitted to the Tribunal. I am interested only as to whether you were aware of these orders.

GÖRING: I received no order to destroy Leningrad or Moscow in the sense which you have indicated.

GEN. RUDENKO: All right. You were told only about the important happenings. But orders for the destruction of cities, and murder of millions of men, _et cetera_, went through so-called service channels.

GÖRING: If a town was to have been destroyed by bombing, then that order would have been given by me directly.

GEN. RUDENKO: On 8 March, here in the Tribunal, your witness Bodenschatz stated that you told him in March 1945 that many Jews were killed and that for that you will have to pay dearly. Do you remember this testimony of your witness?

GÖRING: This testimony, in the form in which it was translated now, I do not recollect at all. The witness Bodenschatz never said it that way. I ask that the record of the session be brought in.

GEN. RUDENKO: How did Bodenschatz say that? Do you remember?

GÖRING: That if we lost the war we would have to pay dearly.

GEN. RUDENKO: Why? For the murders which you had perpetrated?

GÖRING: No, quite generally, and after all, we have experienced just that.

GEN. RUDENKO: Quite generally. I have a few concluding questions to put to you. First of all, regarding the so-called theory of the master race. I should like to put to you only one question in this connection and I should like you to reply directly to it. Were you in accord with this principle of the master race and education of the German people in the spirit of it, or were you not in accord with it?

GÖRING: No, and I have also stated that I have never used that expression either in writing or orally. I definitely acknowledge the differences between races.

GEN. RUDENKO: But do I understand you correctly that you are not in accord with this theory?

GÖRING: I have never expressed my agreement with the theory that one race should be considered as a master race, superior to the others, but I have emphasized the difference between races.

GEN. RUDENKO: You can answer this question; it seems, you do not consider it right?

GÖRING: I personally do not consider it right.

GEN. RUDENKO: The next question: You have stated here to the Tribunal that you did not agree with Hitler regarding the question of the annexation of Czechoslovakia, the Jewish question, the question of war with the Soviet Union, the value of the theory of the master race, and the question of the shooting of the British airmen who were prisoners of war. How would you explain that, having such serious differences, you still thought it possible to collaborate with Hitler and to carry out his policy?

GÖRING: That was not the way I worded my answers. Here, too, we must consider separately various periods of time. As to the attack against Russia, there were no basic differences but differences as to the date.

GEN. RUDENKO: You have told that already. Excuse me; I do not want you to be lengthy on this theme. Will you reply directly?

GÖRING: All right. I may have a different opinion from that of my Supreme Commander, and I may also express my opinion clearly. If the Supreme Commander insists on his opinion and I have sworn allegiance to him, then the discussion comes to an end, just as it is the case elsewhere. I do not think I need to elaborate on that.

GEN. RUDENKO: You are not just a simple soldier, as you stated here; but you have presented yourself also as a statesman?

GÖRING: There you are right. I am not only a simple soldier, and just because I am not a simple soldier but occupied such a prominent position, I had to set an example for the ordinary soldier by my own attitude as to how the oath of allegiance should be adhered to strictly.

GEN. RUDENKO: In other words, you thought it possible, even with the presence of these differences, to collaborate with Hitler?

GÖRING: I have emphasized it and I maintain that it is true; My oath does not hold good only in good times but also in bad times, although the Führer never threatened me and never told me that he was afraid for my health.

GEN. RUDENKO: If you thought it possible to co-operate with Hitler, do you recognize that, as the second man in Germany, you are responsible for the organizing on a national, scale of murders of millions of innocent people, independently of whether you knew about those facts or not? Tell me briefly, “yes” or “no.”

GÖRING: No, because I did not know anything about them and did not cause them.

GEN. RUDENKO: I should like to underline again, “whether you were informed of these facts or not.”

GÖRING: If I actually do not know them, then I cannot be held responsible for them.

GEN. RUDENKO: It was your duty to know about these facts.

GÖRING: I shall go into that.

GEN. RUDENKO: I am questioning you. Reply to this question: Was it your duty to know about these facts?

GÖRING: In what way my duty? Either I know the fact or I do not know it. You can ask me only whether I was negligent in failing to obtain knowledge.

GEN. RUDENKO: You ought to know yourself better. Millions of Germans knew about the crimes which were being perpetrated, and you did not know about them?

GÖRING: Neither did millions of Germans know about them. That is a statement which has in no way been proved.

GEN. RUDENKO: The last two questions: You stated to the Tribunal that Hitler’s Government brought great prosperity to Germany. Are you still sure that that is so?

GÖRING: Definitely until the beginning of the war. The collapse was due only to the war’s being lost.

GEN. RUDENKO: As a consequence of which, you brought Germany, as a result of your politics, to military and political destruction. I have no more questions.

THE PRESIDENT: Does the Chief Prosecutor for France wish to cross-examine?