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“What you, Brigadeführer Streckenbach, and your people, have done in the Government General must not be forgotten; and you need not be ashamed of it.”

That testifies, does it not, to quite a different attitude toward Streckenbach and his people?

FRANK: And it was not forgotten either.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I have no further questions to put to the defendant.

THE PRESIDENT: Does that conclude the cross-examination?

MR. DODD: I have only one or two questions, if Your Honor pleases.

[Turning to the defendant.] In the course of your examination I understood you to say that you had never gathered to yourself any of the art treasures of the Government General. By that I do not suppose you to mean that you did not have them collected and registered; you did have them collected and registered, isn’t that so?

FRANK: Art treasures in the Government General were officially collected and registered. The book has been submitted here in Court.

MR. DODD: Yes. And you told the Tribunal that before you got there one Dürer collection had already been seized—before you took over your duties.

FRANK: May I ask you to understand that as follows:

These were the Dürers which were removed in Lvov before the civilian administration was set up there. Herr Mühlmann went to Lvov at the time and took them from the library. I had never been in Lvov before that. These pictures were then taken directly to the Führer headquarters or to Reich Marshal Göring, I am not sure which.

MR. DODD: They were collected for Göring, that is what I am driving at. Is that not a fact?

FRANK: State Secretary Mühlmann, when I asked him, told me that he came on orders of the Reich Marshal and that he had taken them away on orders of the Reich Marshal.

MR. DODD: And were there not some other art objects that were collected by the Reich Marshal, and also by the Defendant Rosenberg, at the time you told the Tribunal you were too busy with war tasks to get involved in that sort of thing?

FRANK: I know of nothing of that sort in the Government General. The Einsatzstab Rosenberg had no jurisdiction in the Government General; and apart from the collection of the composer Elsner and a Jewish library from Lublin I had no official obligation to demand the return of any art treasures from Rosenberg.

MR. DODD: But there were some art treasures in your possession when you were captured by the American forces.

FRANK: Yes. They were not in my possession. I was safeguarding them but not for myself. They were also not in my immediate safekeeping; rather I had taken them along with me from burning Silesia. They could not be safeguarded any other way. They were art treasures which are so widely known that they are Numbers 1 to 10 in the list in the book—no one could have appropriated them. You cannot steal a “Mona Lisa.”

MR. DODD: Well, I merely wanted to clear that up. I knew you had said on interrogation there were some in your possession. I am not trying to imply you were holding them for yourself, if you were not. However, I think you have made that clear.

FRANK: I should like to remark in this connection, since I attach particular importance to the point, that these art treasures with which we are concerned could be safeguarded only in this way. Otherwise they would have been lost.

MR. DODD: Very well. I have one other matter I would like to clear up and I will not be long.

I understood you also to say this morning that you had struggled for some time to effect the release of the Kraków professors who were seized and sent to Oranienburg soon after the occupation of Poland. Now, of course, you are probably familiar with what you said about it yourself in your diary, are you?

FRANK: Yes, I said so this morning. Quite apart from what is said in the diary, what I said this morning is the truth. You must never forget that I had to speak among a circle of deadly enemies, people who reported every word I said to the Führer and Himmler.

MR. DODD: Well, of course, you recall that you suggested that they should have been retained in Poland, and liquidated or imprisoned there.

FRANK: Never—not even if you confront me with this statement. I never did that. On the contrary, I received the professors from Kraków and talked to them quietly. Of all that happened I regretted that most of all.

MR. DODD: Perhaps you do not understand me. I am talking about what you wrote in your own diary about these professors, and I shall be glad to read it to you and make it available to you if you care to contest it. You are not denying that you said they should either be returned for liquidation in Poland, or imprisoned in Poland, are you? You do not deny that?

FRANK: I have just told you that I did say all that merely to hoodwink my enemies; in reality I liberated the professors. Nothing more happened to them after that.

MR. DODD: All right.

Were you also talking for special purposes when you gave General Krüger, the SS and Higher Police official, that fond farewell?

FRANK: The same applies also in this case. Permit me to say, sir, that I admit without reservation what can be admitted; but I have also sworn to add nothing. No one can admit any more than I have done by handing over these diaries. What I am asking is that you do not ask me to add anything to that.

MR. DODD: No, I am not asking you to add anything to it; rather, I was trying to clear it up, because you’ve made a rather difficult situation, perhaps, for yourself and for others. You see, if we cannot believe what you wrote in your diary, I don’t know how you can ask us to believe what you say here. You were writing those things yourself, and at the time you wrote them I assume you didn’t expect that you would be confronted with them.

THE PRESIDENT: Does he not mean that this was a record of a speech that he has made?

MR. DODD: In his diary, yes. It is recorded in his diary.

THE PRESIDENT: When he said, “I did that to hoodwink my enemies”?

MR. DODD: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: I presume that that particular record is a record of some speech that he made.

MR. DODD: It is. It is entered in the diary.

FRANK: May I say something about that. It wasn’t that I put myself in a difficult position; rather the changing course of the war made the situation difficult for every administrative official.

MR. DODD: Finally, do you recall an entry in your diary in which you stated that you had a long hour and a half talk with the Führer and that you had...

FRANK: When was the last conference, please?

MR. DODD: Well, this entry is on Monday, the 17th of March 1941. It’s in your diary.

FRANK: That was probably one of the very few conferences; whether I was alone with him, I don’t know.

MR. DODD: ...in which you said you and the Führer had come to a complete agreement and that he approved all the measures, including all the decrees, especially also the entire organization of the country. Would you stand by that today?

FRANK: No, but I might say the following: The Führer’s approval was always very spontaneously given, but one always had to wait a long while for it to be realized.

MR. DODD: Was that one of the times you complained to him, as you told us this morning?

FRANK: I constantly complained. As you know, I offered to resign on 14 occasions.

MR. DODD: Yes, I know; but on this occasion did you make many complaints and did you have the approval of the Führer, or did he turn down your complaints on this occasion of the 17th of March, 1941?

FRANK: The Führer took a very simple way out at the time by saying, “You’ll have to settle that with Himmler.”

MR. DODD: Well, that isn’t really an answer. You’ve entered in your diary that you talked it out with him and that he approved everything, and you make no mention in your diary of any disappointment over the filing of a complaint. Surely, this wasn’t a speech that you were recording in your diary; it seems to be a factual entry on your conversations with the Führer. And my question is simply, do you now admit that that was the situation, or are you saying that it was a false entry?

FRANK: I beg your pardon, I didn’t say that I made false entries. I never said that, and I’m not going to argue about words. I am merely saying that you must judge the words according to the entire context. If I emphasized in the presence of officials that the Führer received me and agreed to my measures, then I did that to back up my own authority. I couldn’t do that without the Führer’s agreement. What my thoughts were, is not made clear from this. I should like to emphasize that I’m not arguing about words and have not asked to do that.

MR. DODD: Very well, I don’t care to press it any further.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Seidl, do you wish to re-examine?

DR. SEIDL: Witness, the first question put to you by the Soviet Prosecutor was whether you were the chief of the NSDAP in the Government General, and you answered “yes.” Did the Party have any decisive influence in the Government General on political and administrative life?

FRANK: No. The Party as an organization in that sphere was, of course, only nominally under my jurisdiction, for all the Party officials were appointed by Bormann without my being consulted. There is no special Führer decree for the spheres of activity of the NSDAP in the occupied territories, in which it says that these spheres of activity are directly under Reichsleiter Bormann’s jurisdiction.

DR. SEIDL: Did your activity in that sphere of the NSDAP in the territory of the Government General have anything at all to do with any Security Police affairs?

FRANK: No, the Party was much too small to play any important part; it had no state function.

DR. SEIDL: The next question: The Soviet Prosecution showed you Document USSR-335. It is the Decree on Drumhead Courts-Martial of 1943. It states in Paragraph 6: “Drumhead court-martial sentences are to be carried out at once.” Is it correct if I say that no formal legal appeal against these sentences was possible, but that a pardon was entirely admissible?

FRANK: Certainly; but, nevertheless, I must say that this decree is impossible.

DR. SEIDL: What conditions in the Government General occasioned the issuing of this decree of 2 October 1943? I am thinking in particular of the security situation.

FRANK: Looking back from the more peaceful conditions of the present time, I cannot think of any reason which might have made such a demand possible; but if one recalls the events of war, and the universal conflagration, it seems to have been a measure of desperation.

DR. SEIDL: I now come back to the AB Action. Is it true that in 1939 a court-martial decree was issued providing for considerably greater legal guarantees than that of 1943?

FRANK: Yes.

DR. SEIDL: Is it correct that people arrested in the AB Action were, on the strength of this court-martial decree, sentenced or acquitted?

FRANK: Yes.

DR. SEIDL: Is it also true that all sentences of these courts were, as you saw fit, to be passed on to the competent reprieve committee under State Secretary Bühler?

FRANK: Yes.

DR. SEIDL: The prosecutor of the United States has laid it to your charge that in Neuhaus, where you were arrested after the collapse of the German Armed Forces, various art treasures were found, not in your house, but in the office of the Governor General. Is it true that you sent State Secretary Dr. Bühler with a letter to Reich Minister Dr. Lammers, and that this letter contained a list of these art treasures?

FRANK: Yes, not only that, I at once called the attention of the head of the Pinakothek in Munich to the fact that these pictures were there and that they should at once be safeguarded against bombing. He also looked at the pictures and then they were put in a bombproof cellar. I am glad I did so, for who knows what might otherwise have happened to these valuable objects.

DR. SEIDL: And now one last question. The Prosecution has submitted Document 661-PS. This document also has a USSR exhibit number, which I don’t know at the moment. This is a document which has been made to have a bearing on the activities of the Academy for German Law, of which you were president. The document has the heading “Legal Formation of Germany’s Polish Policy on Racial-Political Lines”; the legal part serves as a tect for the Committee on the Law of Nationalities in the Academy for German Law. I’m having this document submitted to you. Please, will you tell me whether you’ve ever had this document in your hands before?

FRANK: From whom does it come?

DR. SEIDL: That is the extraordinary part; it has the Exhibit Number USA-300.

FRANK: Does it state anywhere who drew it up or something of the sort?

DR. SEIDL: The document has no author; nor does it show on whose order it was compiled.

FRANK: I can say merely that I’ve never seen the document; that I never gave an order for it to be drawn up; so I can say really nothing about it.

DR. SEIDL: It states here that it was found in the Ministry of Justice in Kassel. Was there a Ministry of Justice in Kassel in 1940?

FRANK: A Ministry of Justice in Kassel?

DR. SEIDL: Yes.

FRANK: That has not been in existence since 1866.

DR. SEIDL: I have no further questions.

THE PRESIDENT: Then the defendant can return to his seat.

DR. SEIDL: In that case, with the permission of the Tribunal, I shall call witness Dr. Bilfinger.

THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Smirnov.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Yes, Sir.

THE PRESIDENT: This document which you produced as USSR-223, which are extracts from Defendant Frank’s diary; are you offering that in evidence? Apparently some entries from Frank’s diary have already been offered in evidence; others have not. Are you wishing to offer this in evidence?

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: This document has already been submitted in evidence under two numbers; the first number is 2233-PS, which was submitted by the American Prosecution, and the second is Exhibit USSR-223, and was already submitted by us on 15 February, 1946.

THE PRESIDENT: I see. Have these entries which you have in this document been submitted under USSR-223? You see, the PS number does not necessarily mean that the documents have been offered in evidence. The PS numbers were applied to documents before they were offered in evidence; but the USSR-223 does imply that it has been offered in evidence.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: This document has already been presented in evidence.

THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Smirnov, what the Tribunal wants to know is whether you wish to offer this USSR-223 in evidence, because unless it was read before it hasn’t been offered in evidence, or it hasn’t gone into the record.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: We already read an excerpt on 15 February, and it is, therefore, already read into the record.

THE PRESIDENT: Very well.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: May I retire, Mr. President?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

[The witness Bilfinger took the stand.]

THE PRESIDENT: Will you stand up, please, and will you tell us your full name?

RUDOLF BILFINGER (Witness): Rudolf Bilfinger.

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, since when were you active in the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), and in what position?

BILFINGER: From the end of 1937 until the beginning of 1943 I was government councillor in the RSHA, and later senior government councillor and expert on legal questions, and legal questions in connection with the police.

DR. SEIDL: Is it correct that on two occasions and at different times you were head of the “Administration and Law” department attached to the commander of the Security Police and SD in Kraków?

BILFINGER: Yes. In the autumn of 1940 and in 1944 I was head of the department “Administration and Law” attached to the commander of the Security Police and SD in Kraków.

DR. SEIDL: What were the tasks you had to fulfil at different times in the Government General—in broad outline.

BILFINGER: In 1940 I had the task of taking over from the Government General a number of branches of the police administration and working in that connection under the Higher SS and Police Leader.

DR. SEIDL: What was the legal position of the Higher SS and Police Leader, and what was his relation to the Governor General? Did the Higher SS and Police Leader receive his instructions concerning the Security Police and the SD from the Governor General? Or did he receive them direct from the Reichsführer SS and Chief of the Police, that is, Himmler?

BILFINGER: The Higher SS and Police Leader from the very beginning received his instructions direct from the Reichsführer SS, Himmler.

DR. SEIDL: Is it furthermore true that the commander of the Security Police and of the SD in the Government General also received direct orders and instructions from Amt IV, the Gestapo, and from Amt V, the Criminal Police in the RSHA?

BILFINGER: Yes, the commander of the Security Police received many orders direct from the various departments of the RSHA, particularly from departments IV and V.

DR. SEIDL: Did the institution of the State Secretariat for Security, which occurred in 1942, bring about a change in the legal position of the Governor General with reference to measures of the Security Police and the SD?

BILFINGER: The appointment of a State Secretary as such did not alter the legal position of the Governor General or of the State Secretary. New spheres of activity were merely added to the State Secretariat for Security.

DR. SEIDL: Do you know of a decree of Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police, Himmler, in the year 1939, and what were its contents?

BILFINGER: I knew of a decree, probably dated 1939, dealing with the appointment of the Higher SS and Police Leader, which ruled that the Higher SS and Police Leader would receive his instructions direct from Himmler.

DR. SEIDL: The institution of the State Secretariat dated from 7 May 1942 and was based on a Führer decree. The application of this decree called forth another decree dated 3 June 1942, which dealt with the transfer of official business to the State Secretary for Security. Do you know the contents of that decree?

BILFINGER: The essential contents of the decrees which you have mentioned are known to me.

DR. SEIDL: Is it correct that on the basis of this decree the entire Political Police and the Criminal Police, as had been the case before, were again subordinated to the State Secretary for Security within the framework of the Security Police?

BILFINGER: These two branches from the very beginning were under the Higher SS and Police Leader, and later on under the State Secretary for Security. To this extent the decree did not bring about a change, but was merely a confirmation.

DR. SEIDL: Is it known to you that in Appendix B of that decree there are 26 paragraphs in which all the branches of the Security Police are transferred to the Higher SS and Police Chief as State Secretary for Security?

BILFINGER: Yes.

DR. SEIDL: Do you know that in this decree, in Appendix B, Jewish matters are also mentioned specifically?

BILFINGER: Yes.

DR. SEIDL: Do you know that in Paragraph 21 of Appendix B it is ruled:

“The special fields of the Security Police: Representation of the Government General at conferences and meetings, particularly with the central offices of the Reich, which deal with the above-mentioned special fields.”?

BILFINGER: I know that as far as the sense is concerned, such a ruling was contained therein. Whether Paragraph 21 or another paragraph was worded this way I don’t remember.

DR. SEIDL: Is it also true that on the basis of this decree the last remains of the administrative police were removed from the administration of the Government General and handed over to the State Secretary for Security, who was directly under Himmler.

BILFINGER: That was the intention and the purpose of this decree. But, contrary to the wording of that decree, only a few branches were taken away from the administration; concerning the remainder a fight ensued later. The result was, however, that all branches of the police administration were taken away.

DR. SEIDL: Witness, did the administration of the Government General have anything to do with the establishment and administration of concentration camps?

BILFINGER: To the best of my knowledge, no.

DR. SEIDL: You were with the Chief of the Security Police and SD in Kraków. When did you yourself hear of concentration camps at Maidanek, Treblinka, and Lublin for the first time?

BILFINGER: May I correct you, I was attached to the Commander of Security Police.

DR. SEIDL: Yes, the Commander of the Security Police.

BILFINGER: I heard of Maidanek for the first time when Lublin and Maidanek were occupied by the Russians; and through propaganda I heard for the first time what the name Maidanek meant, when the then Governor General Frank ordered an investigation regarding events in Maidanek and responsibility for these events.

DR. SEIDL: According to your own observation, generally speaking, what were the relations like between the Governor General and the SS Obergruppenführer Krüger, and what were the reasons for those relations?

BILFINGER: Relations between them were very bad from the beginning. The reasons were partly questions of organization and of the use of the Police, and partly essential differences of opinion.

DR. SEIDL: What do you mean by essential differences of opinion? Do you mean different opinions regarding the treatment of the Polish population?

BILFINGER: I can still recollect one example which concerned the confirmation of police court-martial sentences by Governor General Frank. In opposition to Krüger’s opinion, he either failed to confirm a number of sentences or else mitigated them considerably. In this connection I remember such differences of opinion.

DR. SEIDL: Were these sentences which were passed in connection with the so-called AB Action?

BILFINGER: I know nothing of an AB Action.

DR. SEIDL: You came to the Government General later, did you?

BILFINGER: I came to the Government General in August 1940.

DR. SEIDL: I have no further questions for this witness.

THE PRESIDENT: Do any of the defendants’ counsel want to ask questions?

DR. RUDOLF MERKEL (Counsel for Gestapo): May I put a few questions to the witness?

Witness, the Prosecution states that the State Police was a circle of persons formed in accordance with a common plan, and that membership in it was voluntary. Since you had an especially high position in the RSHA, I ask you to tell me briefly what you know about these questions?

BILFINGER: Of the members of the Secret State Police only a small part were volunteers. The former officials, the officials of the former political department of the headquarters of the Commissioner of the Police, constituted the nucleus of the membership of the Secret State Police. The various local police head offices were created from these former political departments of the central police headquarters, and at the same time practically all the officials from these former political departments were taken over. In Berlin, for example, it was Department I-A of the central police headquarters.

Apart from that, administrative officials were transferred from other administrative authorities to the Secret State Police, or were detailed to go here. As time went on people from other administrations and offices were forced to transfer to the Secret State Police. Thus, for instance, the entire frontier customs service was transferred to the Secret State Police in 1944 by order of the Führer. At about the same time the whole of the intelligence service was transferred.

In the course of the war numerous members of the Waffen-SS who were no longer eligible for active military service were detailed to the Secret State Police. In addition many people who originally had had nothing to do with police work were drafted as emergency members to the Secret State Police.

DR. MERKEL: If I summarize it by saying that the Secret State Police was a Reich authority and that the German civil service law applied to its employees, is that correct?

BILFINGER: Yes.

DR. MERKEL: Was it possible for the officials to resign from the Secret State Police easily?

BILFINGER: It was extremely difficult and, in fact, impossible to resign from the Secret State Police. One could resign only in very special circumstances.

DR. MERKEL: It has been stated here with reference to the composition of the Secret State Police personnel that there was the following proportion: executive officers about 20 percent; administrative officials about 20 percent; and technical personnel approximately 60 percent. Are these figures about right?

BILFINGER: I have no general information about the composition of the personnel; but for certain offices about which I knew more these figures would probably apply.

DR. MERKEL: Under whose jurisdiction were the concentration camps in Germany and in the occupied countries?

BILFINGER: The concentration camps were under the jurisdiction of the Economic Administration Main Office under SS Gruppenführer Pohl.

DR. MERKEL: Did the Secret State Police have anything to do with the administration of the concentration camps?

BILFINGER: No. It maybe that at the beginning certain concentration camps here and there were administered directly by the Secret State Police for a short period. That was probably the case in individual instances. But in principle even at that time, and later on without exception, the concentration camps were administered by the Economic Administration Main Office.

DR. MERKEL: Do you know at all who gave orders for the liquidations which took place in the concentration camps?

BILFINGER: No, I know nothing about that.

DR. MERKEL: Can you say anything about the grounds for protective custody? On the strength of what legal rulings was protective custody decreed after 1933?

BILFINGER: Protective custody was based on the Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of the People and the State, of February 1933, in which a number of the basic rights of the Weimar Constitution were rescinded.

DR. MERKEL: Was there later a decree by the Minister of the Interior which dealt with protective custody, at the end of 1936 or the beginning of 1937?

BILFINGER: Yes, at that time the Protective Custody Law was drawn up. The legal basis as such remained in force. At that time power to decree protective custody was confined to the Secret State Police. Before that a number of other offices, rightly or wrongly, had decreed protective custody. To prevent this, protective custody was then confined to the Secret State Police.

DR. MERKEL: Is it correct that for some time you were in France. In what capacity were you there?

BILFINGER: In the late summer and autumn of 1943 I was commander of the Security Police in France, in Toulouse.

DR. MERKEL: Do you know anything about an order from the RSHA, or from the commander of the Sipo for France, or from individual district commanders, to the effect that ill-treatment or torture was to be applied when prisoners were interrogated?

BILFINGER: No, I do not know of such orders.

DR. MERKEL: Then how do you explain the ill-treatment and atrocities which actually took place in connection with interrogations, proof of which has been given by the Prosecution?

BILFINGER: It is possible that ill-treatment did occur; in a number of cases this either took place in spite of its being forbidden, or else it was committed by members of other German offices in France which did not belong to the Security Police.

DR. MERKEL: Did you, while you were active in France, hear of any such ill-treatment either officially or by hearsay?

BILFINGER: I never heard of any such ill-treatment at the hands of members of the German police or the German Armed Forces. I heard only of cases of ill-treatment carried out by groups consisting of Frenchmen who were being employed by some German authority.

DR. MERKEL: Were there so-called Gestapo prisons in France?

BILFINGER: No, the Security Police in France did not have prisons of their own. They handed over their prisoners to the detention camps of the German Armed Forces.

DR. MERKEL: One last question: The Prosecution has given proof of a large number of crimes against humanity and war crimes which were committed with the participation of the Security Police. Can one say that these crimes were perfectly obvious and were known to all members of the Secret State Police, or were these crimes known only to a small circle of persons who had been ordered directly to carry out the measures concerned? Do you know anything about that?

BILFINGER: I didn’t quite understand the question from the beginning. Were you referring to France or to the Security Police in general?

DR. MERKEL: I was referring to the Security Police in general.

BILFINGER: No ill-treatment or torture of any kind was permitted; and, as far as I know, nothing of the kind did happen, still less was it known generally or to a larger circle of persons. I knew nothing about it.

DR. MERKEL: I have no further questions.

THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now for 10 minutes.

[A recess was taken.]

THE PRESIDENT: Does the Prosecution wish to cross-examine? Is there nothing you wish to ask arising from Dr. Merkel’s cross-examination, Dr. Seidl?

DR. SEIDL: I have only one more question to ask the witness.

Witness, in Paragraph 4 of the decree of 23 June 1942 the following ruling is made, and I quote:

“The SS and Police Leaders in the districts are directly subordinate to the governors of the districts, just as the State Secretary for Security is subordinate to the Governor General.”

Thus it does not say that the entire police organization is subordinate, but only the police leaders.

Now I ask you whether orders which had been issued by the commanders of the Security Police and the SD were forwarded to the governors or were sent directly to the district chiefs of the Security Police and the SD?

BILFINGER: These orders were always sent directly from the commander to the district chiefs of the Security Police and the SD. The commander could give no instructions to the governors.

DR. SEIDL: If I understand you correctly you mean that the Security Police and the SD had their own official channels which had absolutely nothing to do with the administrative construction of the Government General.

BILFINGER: Yes.

DR. SEIDL: I have no further questions for the witness.

THE PRESIDENT: The witness can retire.

DR. SEIDL: With the permission of the Tribunal, I call as the next witness the former Governor of Kraków, Dr. Kurt von Burgsdorff.

[The witness Von Burgsdorff took the stand.]

THE PRESIDENT: Will you state your full name?

KURT VON BURGSDORFF (Witness): Kurt von Burgsdorff.

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.]

DR. SEIDL: Witness, the Government General was divided into five districts at the head of each of which there was a governor; is that correct?

VON BURGSDORFF: Yes.

DR. SEIDL: From 1 December 1943 until the occupation of your district by Soviet troops you were governor of the district Kraków?

VON BURGSDORFF: Yes. To use the correct official term, I was...

GENERAL R. A. RUDENKO (Chief Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): Mr. President, the defense counsel has put the question of the “occupation” of this region by Soviet troops. I energetically protest against such terminology and consider it a hostile move.

DR. SEIDL: Mr. President, I have just been told that perhaps a mistake in the translation has crept in. All I intended to say was that, in the course of the year 1944, the area of which this witness was governor was occupied by the Soviet troops in the course of military action. I do not know what the Soviet prosecutor is protesting against; it is at any rate far from my intention to make any hostile statement here.

THE PRESIDENT: I think the point was, it was not an occupation; it was a liberation by the Russian Army.

DR. SEIDL: Of course; I did not want to say any more than that the German troops were driven out of this area by the Soviet troops.

Witness, will you please continue with your answer?

VON BURGSDORFF: I was entrusted with exercising the duties of a governor—that is the correct official expression. Until a few months ago I was still an officer of the Wehrmacht, and during my entire activity in Kraków I remained an officer of the Wehrmacht.

DR. SEIDL: Witness, according to your observations, what basically was the attitude of the Governor General toward the Polish and Ukrainian people?

VON BURGSDORFF: I want to emphasize that I can answer only for the year 1944. At that time the attitude of the Governor General was that he wished to live in peace with the people.

DR. SEIDL: Is it correct that already in 1942 the Governor General had given the governors the opportunity of setting up administrative committees, comprised of Poles and Ukrainians, attached to the district chiefs?

VON BURGSDORFF: There was a governmental decree to this effect. Whether that was in 1942 or not I do not know.

DR. SEIDL: Did you yourself make use of the authorization contained therein, and did you establish such administrative committees?

VON BURGSDORFF: In the district of Kraków I had such a committee established at once for every district chief.

DR. SEIDL: Witness, according to your observations what was the food situation like in the Government General, and particularly in your district?

VON BURGSDORFF: It was not unsatisfactory; but I must add that the reason for that was that, in addition to the rations, the Polish population had an extensive black market.

DR. SEIDL: According to your observations what was the attitude of the Governor General on the question of the mobilization of labor?

VON BURGSDORFF: He did not wish any workers sent outside the Government General, because he was interested in retaining the necessary manpower within the country.

DR. SEIDL: Was the Church persecuted by the Governor General in the Government General; and what basically was the attitude of the Governor General to this question, according to your observations?

VON BURGSDORFF: Again I can answer only for my district and for the year 1944. There was no persecution of the Church; on the contrary, the relations with churches of all denominations were good in my district. On my travels I always received the clergy, and I never heard any complaint.

DR. SEIDL: Did you have any personal experience with the Governor General with regard to this question?

VON BURGSDORFF: Yes. In the middle of January 1944 I was appointed District Standortführer by the Governor General, who at the same time was the Party Leader in the Government General; that is, I was appointed to a Party office for the district of Kraków. I pointed out to him, as I had pointed out to the Minister of the Interior, Himmler, before, that I was a convinced church-going Christian. The Governor General replied that he was in no way perturbed by that and that he knew of no provision in the Party program which prohibited it.

DR. SEIDL: What, according to your observations, were the relations like between the Governor General and the administration of the Government General on the one side, and the Security Police and the SD on the other side?

VON BURGSDORFF: Doubtlessly underneath they were bad, because the Police always ended by doing only what it wanted and did not concern itself with the administration. For that reason in the country districts also there was real friction between the administration offices and the Police.

DR. SEIDL: Is it correct that when you took office, or shortly after, the Governor General issued several instructions referring to the Police? I quote from the diary of the Defendant Dr. Frank, the entry of 4 January 1944: