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THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Seidl.

DR. SEIDL: Mr. President, I shall dispense with the hearing of the witness Struve, Chief of the Central Department for Agriculture and Food in the Government General. With the permission of the Tribunal I am now calling witness Dr. Joseph Bühler.

[The witness Bühler took the stand.]

THE PRESIDENT: Will you state your full name, please?

JOSEPH BÜHLER (Witness): Joseph Bühler.

THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat this oath after me: 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.]

THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down.

DR. SEIDL: Witness, how long have you known Defendant Dr. Hans Frank; and what were the positions in which you worked with him?

BÜHLER: I have known Herr Frank since 1 October 1930. I worked with him in government spheres of service from the end of March 1933. I served under him officially when he was Minister of Justice in Bavaria; later when he was Reich Commissioner for Justice; and still later when he was Minister. From the end of September 1939 Herr Frank employed me in an official capacity in the Government General.

DR. SEIDL: In what capacity did you serve in the Government General at the end?

BÜHLER: From about the second half of 1940 I was state secretary in the government of the Government General.

DR. SEIDL: Were you yourself a member of the Party?

BÜHLER: I have been a Party member since 1 April 1933.

DR. SEIDL: Did you exercise any functions in the Party or any of the affiliated organizations of the Party, particularly in the SA or the SS?

BÜHLER: I never held an office in the Party. I was never a member of the SA or the SS.

DR. SEIDL: I now come to the time during which you were state secretary to the chief of the government in the Government General. Will you please tell me what the relations were between the Governor General on the one side and the Higher SS and Police Leader on the other side?

BÜHLER: I might perhaps say in advance that my sphere of activity did not touch upon police matters, matters relating to the Party, or military matters in the Government General.

The relations of the Governor General to the Higher SS and Police Leader, Obergruppenführer Krüger, who was allocated to him by the Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police were, from the very beginning, made difficult by essential differences of opinion. These differences of opinion concerned the conception of the task and the position of the Police in general in an orderly state system, as well as the conception in particular of the position and tasks of the Police in the Government General. The Governor General held the view that the Police must be the servant and the organ of the executive of the state and that accordingly he and the state authorities should give orders to the Police and that this assignment of tasks involved a limitation of the sphere of activity of the Police.

The Higher SS and Police Leader Krüger, on the other hand, held the view that the Police in general had, of course, to fulfill tasks originating with the executive of the state but that in fulfilling these tasks it was not bound by the instructions of the administrative authorities, that this was a matter of technical police questions, decisions about which administrative authorities could not make and were not in a position to make.

Regarding the power to give orders to the Police, it was Krüger’s view that because of the effectiveness and unity of police activity in all occupied territories, such power to issue orders had to rest with the central authority in Berlin and that he and only he could issue orders.

As far as the duties of the Police were concerned, it was Krüger’s opinion that the Governor General’s view regarding the limitation of these duties as unfounded for the very reason that he, as Higher SS and Police Leader, was simultaneously the deputy of the Reichsführer SS in the latter’s capacity as Reich Commissioner for the Preservation of German Nationality.

As far as the relation of the Police to the question of Polish policy was concerned, it was Krüger’s view that, in connection with work in non-German territory, police considerations would have to play a predominant role and that with police methods everything could be achieved and everything could be prevented. This overestimation of the Police led, for instance, to the fact that, during later arguments between the Police and the administration regarding their respective spheres of work, matters concerning non-German groups were listed among the competences of the Police.

DR. SEIDL: Do you know that as early as 1939 Reichsführer SS Himmler issued a restricted decree, according to which the handling of all police matters was his own concern or the concern of his Higher SS and Police Leader?

BÜHLER: That this was the case became clear to me from the actions taken by the Police. I did not see a decree to this effect, but I can state this much: The Police in the Government General acted exactly as in the directives which I have described before.

DR. SEIDL: Witness, in 1942, by decree of the Führer, a State Secretariat for Security was instituted. At whose instigation was this instituted and what was the position taken by the Governor General in that connection?

BÜHLER: This decree was preceded by a frightful campaign of hatred against the person of the Governor General. The institution of the State Secretariat for Security was considered by the Police a step, an important step, in the fight for the removal of the Governor General. The matters specified in that decree, or at least the majority of them, were not being transferred to the Police now for the first time, but the actual state of affairs was—the actual course of events had already been—in conformity to the contents of this decree before it was issued.

DR. SEIDL: In the decree implementing this Führer decree and dated 3 June 1942 all the police spheres of activities which were to be transferred to the State Secretary were given in two lists; in an Appendix A, the tasks of the Regular Police; and in an Appendix B, the tasks of the Security Police. Were these police matters at that time transferred completely to the State Secretary and thus to the police sector?

BÜHLER: The administration did not like giving up these matters; so where the Police had not already got hold of them, they were given up only with reluctance.

DR. SEIDL: You are thinking first of all of the spheres of the so-called administrative police, health police, et cetera, are you not?

BÜHLER: Yes, that is to say, the police in charge of communications, health, food, and such matters.

DR. SEIDL: If I have understood your statements correctly, you mean that the entire police system, Security Police as well as SD and Regular Police, was directed by the central office, either by Himmler himself or by the Reich Security Main Office through the Higher SS and Police Leader?

BÜHLER: In general according to my observations, it was possible for the Security Police to receive orders direct from Berlin without their going through Krüger.

DR. SEIDL: And now another question: Is it correct that resettlements were carried out in the Government General, by Reichsführer SS Himmler in his capacity as Reich Commissioner for the Preservation of German Nationality?

BÜHLER: Resettlements, in the opinion of the Governor General, even if carried out decently, always caused unrest among the population. We had no use for that in the Government General. Also, these resettlements always caused a falling off of agricultural production. For these reasons, the Governor General and the Government of the Government General did not, as a matter of principle, carry out resettlements during the war. To the extent that such resettlements were carried out, it was done exclusively by the Reich Commissioner for the Preservation of German Nationality.

DR. SEIDL: Is it correct that the Governor General, because of this arbitrary resettlement policy, repeatedly had serious arguments with Himmler, Krüger, and SS Gruppenführer Globocznik?

BÜHLER: That is correct. The intention of preventing such resettlements always led to arguments and friction between the Higher SS and Police Leader and the Governor General.

DR. SEIDL: The Defendant Dr. Frank is accused by the Prosecution of the seizure and confiscation of industrial and private property. What basically was the attitude of the Governor General to such questions?

BÜHLER: The legal provisions in this sphere of the law originated with the Delegate for the Four Year Plan. Confiscation of private property and possessions in the annexed Eastern territories and in the Government General was subject to the same regulations.

The decree of the Delegate for the Four Year Plan provided for the creation of a trust office—the Haupttreuhandstelle Ost—with its central administration in Berlin. The Governor General did not want to have the affairs of the Government General administered in Berlin, and therefore he opposed the administration of property in the Government General being entrusted to the Haupttreuhandstelle Ost. Without interference by the Delegate for the Four Year Plan, he established his own rules for confiscations in the Government General and his own trust office. That trust office was headed by an experienced higher official from the Ministry of Economy of Saxony.

DR. SEIDL: What happened to the factories and works which were situated in the Government General and were formerly the property of the Polish State?

BÜHLER: Factories, as far as they were included in the armament program, were taken over by the military sector, that is to say, by the Inspector for Armaments, who was subordinate to the OKW and later to Minister Speer. Factories outside the armament sector, which had belonged to the former Polish State, the Governor General tried to consolidate into a stock company and to administer them separately as property of the Government General. The chief shareholder in this company was the Treasury of the Government General.

DR. SEIDL: That is to say, these factories were administered entirely separately by the Reich Treasury?

BÜHLER: Yes.

DR. SEIDL: The Prosecution submitted an extract from Frank’s diary in evidence under Number USA-281 (Document Number 2233(d)-PS.) This is a discussion of Jewish problems. In this connection Frank said, among other things:

“My attitude towards the Jews is based on the expectation that they will disappear; they must go away. I have started negotiations for deporting them to the East. This question will be discussed at a large meeting in Berlin in January, to which I shall send State Secretary Dr. Bühler. This conference is to take place at the Reich Security Main Office in the office of SS Obergruppenführer Heydrich. In any case Jewish emigration on a large scale will begin.”

I ask you now, did the Governor General send you to Berlin for that conference; and if so, what was the subject of the conference?

BÜHLER: Yes, I was sent to the conference and the subject of the conference was the Jewish problem. I might say in advance that from the beginning Jewish questions in the Government General were considered as coming under the jurisdiction of the Higher SS and Police Leader and handled accordingly. The handling of Jewish matters by the state administration was supervised and merely tolerated by the Police.

During the years 1940 and 1941 incredible numbers of people, mostly Jews, were brought into the Government General in spite of the objections and protests of the Governor General and his administration. This completely unexpected, unprepared for, and undesired bringing in of the Jewish population from other territories put the administration of the Government General in an extremely difficult position.

Accommodating these masses, feeding them, and caring for their health—combating epidemics for instance—almost, or rather, definitely overtaxed the capacity of the territory. Particularly threatening was the spread of typhus, not only in the ghettos but also among the Polish population and the Germans in the Government General. It appeared as if that epidemic would spread even to the Reich and to the Eastern Front.

At that moment Heydrich’s invitation to the Governor General was received. The conference was originally supposed to take place in November 1941, but it was frequently postponed and it may have taken place in February 1942.

Because of the special problems of the Government General I had asked Heydrich for a personal interview and he received me. On that occasion, among many other things, I described in particular the catastrophic conditions which had resulted from the arbitrary bringing of Jews into the Government General. He replied that for this very reason he had invited the Governor General to the conference. The Reichsführer SS, so he said, had received an order from the Führer to round up all the Jews of Europe and to settle them in the Northeast of Europe, in Russia. I asked him whether this meant that the further arrival of Jews in the Government General would cease, and whether the hundreds of thousands of Jews who had been brought into the Government General without the permission of the Governor General would be moved out again. Heydrich promised me both these things. Heydrich said furthermore that the Führer had given an order that Theresienstadt, a town in the Protectorate, would become a reservation in which old and sick Jews, and weak Jews who could not stand the strains of resettlement, were to be accommodated in the future. This information left me definitely convinced that the resettlement of the Jews, if not for the sake of the Jews, then for the sake of the reputation and prestige of the German people, would be carried out in a humane fashion. The removal of the Jews from the Government General was subsequently carried out exclusively by the Police.

I might add that Heydrich demanded, particularly for himself, his office, and its branches, the exclusive and uninterrupted competence and control in this matter.

DR. SEIDL: What concentration camps in the Government General did you know about during your activity as State Secretary?

BÜHLER: The publications in the press during the summer of 1944 called my attention to the Maidanek camp for the first time. I did not know that this camp, not far from Lublin, was a concentration camp. It had been installed as an economic establishment of the Reichsführer SS, in 1941 I think. Governor Zörner came to visit me at that time and he told me that he had objected to the establishment of this camp when he talked to Globocznik, as it would endanger the power supply of the city of Lublin; and there were objections, too, on the part of the Police with regard to the danger of epidemics. I informed the Governor General of this and he in turn sent for Globocznik. Globocznik stated to the Governor General that certain workshops for the needs of the Waffen-SS at the front had been erected on that site by him. He mentioned workshops for dressing furs but he also mentioned a timber yard which was located there.

In these workshops for dressing furs, as I heard, fur articles from the collection of furs were altered for use at the front. At any rate, Globocznik stated that he had installed these workshops in compliance with Himmler’s command.

The Governor General prohibited the erection of any further installations until all questions were settled with the police in charge of building and blueprints had been submitted to the state offices, in other words until all rules had been complied with, which apply to the construction of buildings. Globocznik never submitted these blueprints. With regard to the events inside the camp, no concrete information ever reached the outside. It surprised the Governor General just as much as it surprised me when the world press released the news about Maidanek.

DR. SEIDL: Witness, the Prosecution has submitted a document, Number 437-PS, Exhibit USA-610, which is a memorandum from the Governor General to the Führer, dated 19 June 1943. I think you yourself drafted that memorandum. On Page 35 a report of the commander of the Security Police is mentioned and quoted verbatim in part. This report of the Security Police mentions also the name of Maidanek.

Did you at that time realize that this Maidanek was identical or probably identical with that camp near Lublin?

BÜHLER: No. I assumed that, like Auschwitz, it was a camp outside the territory of the Government General, because the Governor General had repeatedly told the Police and the Higher SS and Police Leader that he did not wish to have concentration camps in the Government General.

DR. SEIDL: Under whose jurisdiction was the administration of concentration camps in the Government General?

BÜHLER: I don’t know because I did not know of the existence of the camps. In August, on the occasion of a visit to the reception camp at Pruszkow, I heard about the administration of concentration camps in general. At that time I brought instructions from Himmler to the camp commandant, according to which transport of the inhabitants of Warsaw who had been removed from the city to concentration camps was to cease forthwith.

DR. SEIDL: Was that after the uprising in Warsaw?

BÜHLER: It was during it; it must have been on or about 18 or 19 August 1944. The camp commandant, whose name I have forgotten, told me at the time that he did not know about that order, and that he could receive instructions only from the Chief of Concentration Camps.

DR. SEIDL: Do you know whether the Governor General himself ever sent a Pole, a Ukrainian, or a Jew to a concentration camp?

BÜHLER: Nothing like that ever happened, when I was present.

DR. SEIDL: Is it true that a large number of Jewish workmen who were working in the castle at Kraków were taken away by the Security Police against the wishes of the Governor General and during his absence?

BÜHLER: This Jewish workers’ colony is known to me because I lived in that castle. I also know that the Governor General always took care of the maintenance of this colony. And the chief of the Chancellery of the Government General, Ministerial Counsellor Keit, once told me that this group of Jewish workers had been taken away by force by the Police during the absence of the Governor General.

DR. SEIDL: I now come to the so-called AB Action, this extraordinary pacification action. What were the circumstances which occasioned this action?

BÜHLER: It may have been about the middle of May 1940 when one morning I was called from the government building, where I performed my official work, to visit the Governor General in the castle. I think I remember that Reich Minister Seyss-Inquart had also been called. There we met the Governor General together with some officials of the Police. The Governor General stated that, in the opinion of the Police, an extreme act of pacification was necessary. The security situation at that time, as far as I remember, was this: Certain remnants of the Polish armed forces were still roaming about in deserted forest regions, causing unrest among the population, and probably giving military training to young Poles. At that time, that is May 1940, the Polish people had recovered from the shock which they had suffered at the sudden defeat in 1939; and they began openly, with little caution and without experience, to start a resistance movement everywhere. This picture I remember clearly because of the statement given by the Police on that or some other occasion.

DR. SEIDL: May I interrupt you and quote from Frank’s diary, an entry of 16 May 1940. I quote:

“The general war situation forces us to regard the security situation in the Government General very seriously. From a number of symptoms and actions one can draw the conclusion that a large organized wave of resistance among the Poles is present in the country awaiting the outbreak of greater and violent events. Thousands of Poles are reported to have been organized secretly and to have been armed, and are being incited to carry out acts of violence of all sorts.”

Then the Governor General quoted some recent examples, as, for instance, an uprising in certain villages under the leadership of Major Huballa in the district of Radom; the murder of families of German blood in Józefów; the murder of the mayor of Grasienta, et cetera.