Читать книгу The Nuremberg Trials: Complete Tribunal Proceedings (V. 12) - International Military Tribunal - Страница 12

“I should like to emphasize one thing. We must not be too soft-hearted when we hear that 17,000 have been shot. These persons who have been shot are also victims of the war.... Let us now remember that all of us who are meeting together here figure in Mr. Roosevelt’s list of war criminals. I have the honor of being Number 1. We have thus, so to speak, become accomplices in terms of world history”.

Your name is second on the list of those present at the conference. Do you not consider that Frank must have had sufficient grounds to number you among the most active of his accomplices in crime?

BÜHLER: About such statements of the Governor General I have already said all that is necessary.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Then you ascribe this to the Governor General’s temperament?

THE PRESIDENT: Witness, that is not an answer to the question. The question was, do you consider yourself to be one of those criminals?

BÜHLER: I do not consider myself a criminal.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: If you do not consider yourself a war criminal, will you perhaps recollect who personally—I emphasize the word “personally”—actively participated in one of Frank’s most cruel orders with regard to the Polish population? I am talking about the decree of 2 October 1942. Were you not one of the participants?

BÜHLER: Which measures? Which decree? I should like to be shown it.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I am talking about the decree signed 2 October and published 9 October 1943, Exhibit Number USSR 335, (Document Number USSR-335), the decree about the creation of the so-called courts-martial conducted by the Secret Police.

BÜHLER: The draft of this decree did not come from my office.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Does this mean that you deny participation in rendering that cruel decree effective?

BÜHLER: Yes, the decree comes from the Police.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: The passage I should like to quote, Mr. President, is on Page 35, of our document book, and in Paragraph 4 of the English translation.

[Turning to the witness.] Did you not, together with Dr. Weh, at a time when even Frank was undecided about signing, succeed in persuading him to do so and bring into force a decree of a frankly terrorist nature to legalize tyranny by the Police?

I quote Page 142 of the minutes on the conference with State Secretary Dr. Bühler (he evidently means you) and with Dr. Weh, concerning the order issued by Dr. Weh for combating attacks on the German work of reconstruction in the Government General:

“After some brief statements by the State Secretary Dr. Bühler and Dr. Weh, the Governor General withdraws his objections and signs the drafted decree.”

Was it not you?

BÜHLER: I request the interpreter to repeat the question.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I am asking you: Was it you who persuaded Frank to sign that decree as quickly as possible?

BÜHLER: No.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Does that mean that the entry is false?

BÜHLER: No.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: In that case, how am I to understand you, if this is “no” and the other is “no”?

BÜHLER: I can explain that to you exactly. The draft for this decree had been submitted to the Governor General by SS Oberführer Bierkamp who had recently been assigned to the Government General. The Governor General...

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Will you please...

THE PRESIDENT: [Interposing] He is in the middle of his answer. You must let the man answer. What were you saying? You were saying the draft had been made by somebody?

BÜHLER: This draft had been submitted to the Governor General by Bierkamp who had just recently come to the Government General. The Governor General returned this draft and had it revised in the legislative department. When it was presented to the Governor General, the Governor General’s doubts were whether the legislative department had revised it or not. I do not assume material responsibility for this draft, and I did not have to.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: You simply explained to Frank that the project of the decree had been sufficiently worked over by the competent technical department?

BÜHLER: Yes, by the legislative department.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: And after that the Governor General signed the decree?

BÜHLER: Obviously.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Were you not the person who, at the meeting of 23 October 1943, when a letter from Count Ronikier, a person evidently known to you, was discussed, referred to the practical interpretation of this cruel decree of 2 October and stated that the application of the decree would in the future favor the camouflaging of the murder of hostages by giving the shootings of hostages the semblance of a legal sentence? Were you that person?

BÜHLER: I ask that the question be repeated. I understood only part of it.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Were you the person who, at the meeting of 23 October 1943, stated that the application of the decree of 2 October would, in the future, favor the camouflaging of the shooting of hostages, since it would give them the semblance of a legal sentence?

BÜHLER: It is not quite clear to me. May I repeat what I understood?

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: If you please.

BÜHLER: You want to ask me whether I was the one who, on the occasion of a conference on the 23rd of October 1944...

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: 1943.

BÜHLER: 1943—who, on the occasion of a conference on 23 October 1943 stated—stated what?

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: You stated that the application of the decree of 2 October would help to camouflage the shooting of hostages.

BÜHLER: No.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: The place which I wish to quote now, Your Honors, is on Page 26 of the English translation of Exhibit Number USSR-223, (Document Number 2233-PS), Paragraph 4. I shall now quote your own words to you:

“State Secretary Dr. Bühler considers it advisable that all those Poles who are to be shot should first be tried by regular court-martial proceedings. In the future one should also refrain from referring to such Poles as hostages, for the shooting of hostages is always a deplorable event and merely provides foreign countries with evidence against the German leadership in the Government General”.

BÜHLER: I said that, and thus I objected, and wanted to object, to the shooting of hostages and to executions without court-martial proceedings.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: So you consider that a court consisting of high-ranking, police officials represents justice and is not a travesty of the very idea of justice?

BÜHLER: To which court do you refer? I pleaded for courts-martial.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: That is the very court I am talking about, the “Standgericht” or summary court-martial, composed of Gestapo officials centralized in the Government General, according to the decree of 2 October.

BÜHLER: I can give you information about the reasons which may have led to this stiffening of the summary court-martial order of 2 October, so that you may understand how, psychologically, such a decree came about.

MR. COUNSELLOR. SMIRNOV: I am not interested in psychology. I am interested in knowing if a court, composed of secret police officials and considered to be a court, is not in fact sheer mockery of the very idea of a court of justice?

BÜHLER: The summary courts-martial had to be appointed exactly in accordance with the decree. I am not of the opinion that a summary court-martial, simply because it is composed exclusively of police, should not be considered a court. But I did not make these statements which you have held against me now in reference to this decree of 2 October; rather I demanded, in general, sentences by courts-martial, and termed the shooting of hostages a regrettable fact.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: You are not giving me a direct answer to my question. Perhaps you will remember Paragraph 3 of the decree which stipulates how these courts were to be composed. Show the witness Paragraphs 3 and 4. I am reading Paragraph 4 into the record:

“The summary courts-martial of the Security Police are to be composed of one SS Führer of the office of the commander of the Security Police and the SD, and of two members of these organizations”.

Would a court of this composition not testify a priori to the nature of the sentence which the court would impose?

BÜHLER: Did you ask me?

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Yes, yes.

BÜHLER: Whether I consider a summary court-martial a court? I think, you are asking me about things which have nothing to do with my field of activity. I do not know what reasons were given for composing these courts in this fashion. I cannot therefore say anything about it.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Perhaps you will look at the signature to that decree. It is signed by Frank, and it was you who persuaded Frank to sign that decree.

BÜHLER: I thought that I had corrected that error before. I did not persuade Herr Frank to sign that order. Rather, I told him that that order had been worked out in the legislative department. As before, I must now deny any responsibility for this order, because it did not belong to my sphere of activity.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I shall pass on to another series of questions. Do you recollect the following subparagraph of that decree, particularly the report of Obergruppenführer Bierkamp at the conference of 27 October 1943 in Kraków?

BÜHLER: I cannot remember without notes.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Please show him the passage which I wish to quote. The passage I wish to quote, Your Honors, is on Page 26 of our document, the last paragraph of the text. I quote the passage in question:

“Pursuant to the decree of even date, the Security Police have detained many people who since 10 October have committed criminal acts. They have been condemned to death and will be shot as an expiation for their crimes. Their names will be made known to the population by means of posters, and the population will be told that such and such people may expect a pardon, provided there are no further murders of Germans. For every murdered German, 10 Poles will be executed....”

Does it not testify to the fact that from the very first days of the enforcing of Frank’s decree, it merely served to mask mass executions of hostages?

BÜHLER: No.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Then to what does it testify if, for each slain German, 10 Poles entirely unconnected with the crime were to be executed in accordance with these so-called “verdicts”?

BÜHLER: In my opinion it testifies that 10 Poles would be shot who had committed crimes punishable by death, and who had been sentenced to death.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: For each German killed?

BÜHLER: It is possible that these Poles were called hostages. That is possible.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: That means that the decree camouflaged the system of taking hostages?

BÜHLER: No, it was rather that real shootings of hostages no longer occurred. Real shootings of hostages occur when people who are not criminals, who are innocent, are shot because of an act committed by someone else.

THE PRESIDENT: Do you think this will be a convenient time to break off?

[The Tribunal recessed until 1400 hours.]