International Military Tribunal - The Nuremberg Trials - Complete Tribunal Proceedings (V. 9)

BODENSCHATZ: Not from Hermann Göring’s office, but the Reich Marshal gave instructions that it should be carried out, and it was carried out.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I thought you said your assistant called up. Did Göring also call the Gestapo himself?

BODENSCHATZ: No, he did not call himself, not in this case.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: So that even though this man may have been guilty of the charge, if he belonged to the Luftwaffe he was released, on the word of the Reich Marshal?

BODENSCHATZ: He was not a member of the Luftwaffe, he was a civilian. He had previously been one of our comrades in the Richthofen Squadron. He was not in the Wehrmacht during the war.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: But your instructions were to release all persons who were Jews or who were from the Luftwaffe? Were those your instructions from Göring?

BODENSCHATZ: The Reich Marshal told me, again and again, that in such cases I should act humanely, and I did so in every case.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: How did you find out that Jews were arrested against whom there were no charges?

BODENSCHATZ: In one case, in the case of the two Ballin families in Munich, these were two elderly married couples, more than 70 years old. These two couples were to be arrested, and I was informed of this. I told the Reich Marshal about it, and he told me that these two couples should be taken to a foreign country. That was the case of the two Ballin couples who, in 1923, when Hermann Göring was seriously wounded in front of the Feldherrnhalle, and was taking refuge in a house, received him and gave him help. These two families were to be arrested.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: For what?

BODENSCHATZ: They were to be arrested because there was a general order that Jews should be taken to collection camps.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And you knew of that order?

BODENSCHATZ: I did not know of the order. It was only through these examples which were brought to my notice that it became clear to me that this evacuation was to take place. I had never read the order myself nor even heard of it, because I had nothing to do with it.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: It came to your attention that Jews were being thrown into concentration camps merely because they were Jews?

BODENSCHATZ: In this case I am not speaking of concentration camps, but it was ordered that people were to be brought to collection camps.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Not concentration camps, but special camps? Where were they going from there?

BODENSCHATZ: That I do not know.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And where was this special camp that you speak of?

BODENSCHATZ: I do not know where they were to be taken. I was told they were to be taken away.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: But neither you nor Göring had any suspicion that if they were taken to concentration camps any harm would come to them, did you?

BODENSCHATZ: I knew nothing about what took place in the concentration camps.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now did you not hear about the concentration camps, and was not the purpose of your saving these people from going to them, that the people who went there were mistreated?

BODENSCHATZ: I must reiterate that I freed people from their first arrest by the Gestapo that were not yet in the concentration camp.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: What would the Gestapo take them into custody for, if not the concentration camps?

BODENSCHATZ: What purpose the Gestapo was pursuing with these arrests I do not know.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: But you intervened to save them from the Gestapo without even finding out whether the Gestapo had cause for arresting them?

BODENSCHATZ: If the Gestapo arrested any one, then they must have had something against him.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: But you made no inquiry into that, did you?

BODENSCHATZ: I have already said it was generally known that these people were taken to collection camps, not concentration camps. It was known—many German people knew that they were to be taken away. They knew that the people were taken to work camps, and in these work camps they were put to work.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Forced labor?

BODENSCHATZ: It was just ordinary work. I knew, for instance, that in Lodz the people worked in the textile industry.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And where were they kept while they were doing that work?

BODENSCHATZ: I cannot say, for I do not know.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: They were in a camp, were they not?

BODENSCHATZ: I cannot tell you all that, for I do not know.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: You would not know about that?

BODENSCHATZ: I have no idea.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: What is the difference between a work camp and a concentration camp? You have drawn that distinction.

BODENSCHATZ: A work camp is a camp in which people were housed without their being in any way ill-treated.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And a concentration camp is where they are ill-treated? Is that your testimony?

BODENSCHATZ: Yes. I can only tell you that now because in the meantime I discovered it through the press and through my imprisonment. At that time I did not know it. I learned it from the newspapers. I was a prisoner of war in England for quite a while, and I read about it in the English press.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: You spoke of collection camps, that many people knew they were being taken to collection camps to be taken away. Where were they being taken away?

BODENSCHATZ: I do not know where they went from there.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Did you ever inquire?

BODENSCHATZ: No, I never inquired.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: You were adjutant to the Number 2 man in Germany, were you not?

BODENSCHATZ: Yes.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And you never ventured to ask him about the concentration camps?

BODENSCHATZ: No, I did not speak to him on that subject.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: The only instruction you had was to get everybody out that you could.

BODENSCHATZ: Where a request or a complaint was made, I followed those cases down, and in those cases I assisted.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: You knew that Hermann Göring was a close co-worker with Himmler, did you not?

BODENSCHATZ: I did not know that he was a fellow worker with Himmler, because he never worked with him directly. Himmler frequently came for discussions with Hermann Göring, but these were private conversations just between the two.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And you knew that he was not only a friend, but that he had aided Kaltenbrunner to his post when Kaltenbrunner came into office, did you not?

BODENSCHATZ: No, that I did not know.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: You did not know that?

BODENSCHATZ: I did not know that Reich Marshal Göring recommended Kaltenbrunner for his office. My activity was confined simply to the military sector. I was military adjutant to the Reich Marshal. I had nothing to do with these matters.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Did you have anything to do with the procedure of making full Aryans out of half-Jews?

BODENSCHATZ: On the question of mixed blood, requests concerning the Luftwaffe came to me, and in fact, officers, according to the regulations, would have to be dismissed if they were of mixed blood. In many cases the Reich Marshal gave instructions that these officers should not be dismissed.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: What was done about it?

BODENSCHATZ: In these cases the chief of the personnel office was instructed not to dismiss these officers.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And in some cases some kind of an order was made, was it not, that they were full Aryans, notwithstanding Jewish parentage?

BODENSCHATZ: At the moment I can remember no such case.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: You spoke of the requests for help from Göring coming from broad masses of the people, and those requests were submitted to his staff. Is that right?

BODENSCHATZ: Yes.