The Nuremberg Trials (Vol.9). International Military Tribunal

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СКАЧАТЬ in the military operations for the completion of the Anschluss policy in March 1938. On what day did the preparations begin?

      MILCH: The preparations began less than 48 hours beforehand. That I know exactly.

      DR. JAHRREISS: And when did you first learn that military preparations were to be made for the solution of this problem?

      MILCH: About 36 hours before the march into Austria.

      DR. JAHRREISS: Thank you.

      DR. KURT KAUFFMANN (Counsel for Defendant Kaltenbrunner): Witness, am I right in assuming that you were never in a position to issue orders to, that is, never had anything to do officially with either the Gestapo or with the concentration camps?

      MILCH: No, I never had anything to do with them.

      DR. KAUFFMANN: When did you first hear of the establishment of these camps?

      MILCH: Through the general announcements in 1933 that concentration camps, or rather that one concentration camp had been established.

      DR. KAUFFMANN: Did you, during the years which followed, receive more detailed information concerning further establishments of this kind?

      MILCH: Until the war ended I had heard of Dachau and Oranienburg only. I knew nothing at all about any other concentration camps. At my own request and in the company of some high-ranking officers of the Luftwaffe, I inspected Dachau in 1935. I saw no other concentration camps, nor did I know anything about what happened in them.

      DR. KAUFFMANN: During your inspection, what impression did you get of the establishment itself and the treatment of the internees, et cetera?

      MILCH: At that time there was so much talk about these camps, also in Germany in our officers’ circles, that I decided to judge for myself. Himmler gave his immediate consent to my request. At that time, I believe, Dachau was the only concentration camp in existence. There I found a very mixed assortment of inmates. One group consisted of major criminals, all habitual offenders; other groups consisted of people who repeatedly committed the same offense which were not crimes, but only offenses. There was another group of persons who had participated in the Röhm Putsch. One of the men I recognized as having seen before. He had been a high-ranking SA leader and was now an internee. The camp, run on military lines, was clean and properly organized. They had their own slaughterhouse and their own bakery. We insisted on having the food of the internees served to us. The food was good and one of the camp leaders explained that they fed the inmates very well as they were engaged on heavy work. All the inmates whom we approached explained the reason for their internment. For instance, one man told us that he had committed forgery 20 times; another, that he had committed assault and other offenses 18 times. There were many cases of this kind. I cannot, of course, say if we were shown everything in this large establishment.

      DR. KAUFFMANN: You have just mentioned that the question had been discussed in military circles, among the officers. Later, when you returned, did you convey your impressions of Dachau to anyone?

      MILCH: I scarcely mentioned them to anybody, only if my more intimate comrades broached the subject. As I have said before, I did not go alone; there were several other gentlemen with me and, no doubt, they too must have had occasion to discuss this subject in smaller circles.

      DR. KAUFFMANN: Unheard of acts of cruelty were perpetrated in the concentration camps. Did you come to hear of them and, if so, when did you first hear of them?

      MILCH: On the day on which I was captured it was revealed to me for the first time when internees from an auxiliary camp in the vicinity were led past the place where I was captured. This was the first time I saw it for myself. The rest I learned in captivity from the various documents which we were shown.

      DR. KAUFFMANN: Then it was completely unknown to you that more than 200 concentration camps existed in Germany and in the occupied territories.

      MILCH: It was completely unknown to me. I have already mentioned the two camps whose existence was known to me.

      DR. KAUFFMANN: It could be held against you that it must have been impossible not to know of these facts. Can you explain to us why it was not possible for you to obtain better information regarding existing conditions?

      MILCH: Because the people who knew about these conditions did not talk about them, and presumably were not allowed to talk about them. I understand this to be so from a document in the Indictment against the General Staff, in which Himmler—also erroneously considered as one of the high-ranking military leaders—had issued an order to this effect. This document dealt with some conference or other of high-ranking police leaders under Himmler, in 1943, I believe.

      DR. KAUFFMANN: Am I right in saying that any attempt to disclose conditions prevalent in the concentration camps was impossible unless the person in question was ready to risk his life?

      MILCH: In the first place the large number of concentration camps was unknown to everybody, as it was unknown to me. Secondly, nobody knew what went on there. This knowledge was apparently confined to a very small circle of people who were in [on] the secret. Further, the SD was very much feared by the entire population, not only by the lower classes. If anybody tried to gain access to these secrets he did so at the peril of his life. And again, how could the Germans know anything about these things, since they never saw them or heard about them? Nothing was said about them in the German press, no announcements were made on the German radio, and those who listened to foreign broadcasts exposed themselves to the heaviest penalties, generally it meant death. You could never be alone. You could depend upon it that if you yourself contravened that law, others would overhear and then denounce you. I know that in Germany a large number of people were condemned to death for listening to foreign broadcasts.

      DR. KAUFFMANN: Did it ever come to your knowledge that there had been mass deportations of Jews to the Eastern territories? When did you first hear about it?

      MILCH: I cannot give the exact date. Once, in some way or other, I can no longer remember how, the information did reach me that Jews had been settled in special ghetto towns in the East. I think it must have been in 1944 or thereabout, but I cannot guarantee that this date is exact.

      DR. KAUFFMANN: You have just mentioned ghettos. Did you know that these mass deportations were, in effect, a preliminary step to mass extermination?

      MILCH: No, we were never told.

      DR. KAUFFMANN: May I ask you further if, in this connection, you had any idea about the existence of the Auschwitz extermination camp?

      MILCH: No. I first heard of the name much later. I read it in the press after I was captured.

      DR. KAUFFMANN: So-called Einsatzkommandos were employed in the East, where they carried out large-scale exterminations, also of Jews. Did you know that these Einsatzkommandos had been created by order of Adolf Hitler?

      MILCH: No. The first I heard of these Einsatzkommandos was here in prison in Nuremberg.

      DR. KAUFFMANN: Did you know that a special campaign was launched for the extermination of Jewish citizens in the southeastern provinces of the Reich, which, according to the statement of the leader concerned, named Eichmann, caused the death of from 4 to 5 million Jews?

      MILCH: No, I know nothing at all about it. This is the first time I have heard the name Eichmann mentioned.

      DR. KAUFFMANN: Am I correct in stating that in Germany, under the regime of an absolute leader, СКАЧАТЬ