Gestapo

by Edward Crankshaw

  “In the year between June, 1941 and June, 1942 the Einsatzkommandos reported ninety thousand people liquidated.”

  “Did that include men, women and children?”

  “Yes.”

  And later, again as question and answer:

  “Did you personally supervise mass executions of these individuals?”

  “I was present at two mass executions for purposes of inspection.”

  “Will you explain to the tribunal in detail how an individual mass execution was carried out?”

  “A local Einsatzkommando attempted to collect all the Jews in its area by registering them. This registration was performed by the Jews themselves.”

  “On what pretext, if any, were they to be rounded up?”

  “On the pretext that they were to be resettled.”

  “Will you continue?”

  “After the registration the Jews were collected at one place; and from there they were later transported to the place of execution, which was, as a rule, an anti-tank ditch or a natural excavation. The executions were carried out in a military manner, by firing squads under command.”

  “In what way were they transported to the place of execution?”

  “They were transported to the place of execution in trucks, always only as many as could be executed immediately. In this way it was attempted to keep the span of time from the moment in which the victims knew what was going to happen to them until the time of their actual execution as short as possible.”

  “Was that your idea?”

  “Yes.”

  “And after they were shot what was done with the bodies?”

  “The bodies were buried in the anti-tank ditch or excavation.”

  “What determination, if any, was made as to whether the persons were actually dead?”

  “The unit leaders or the firing-squad commanders had orders to see to this and, if need be, finish them off themselves.”

  This young economist from Hohen-Egelson was proud of the orderly, shipshape, and humane manner in which his Commandos carried out their duties. He objected, for example, to what went on in the areas of some of the other Action Groups:

  “Some of the unit leaders did not carry out the liquidation in the military manner, but killed the victims singly by shooting them in the back of the neck.”

  “And you objected to that procedure?”

  “I was against the procedure, yes.”

  “For what reason?”

  “Because both for the victims and for those who carried out the executions it was, psychologically, an immense burden to bear.”

  The burden to bear, the psychological strain, was one of Ohlendorf’s obsessions. This was testified to also by his adjutant, Heinz Schubert. Schubert, twenty-five when he went to Russia straight from the Hitler Jugend, was a descendant of the great composer’s family, and a serious and earnest young man. Speaking particularly of the massacres at Simferopol, he said: “I knew that it was of the greatest importance to Ohlendorf to have the persons who were to be shot killed in the most humane and military manner possible, because otherwise the spiritual strain (seelische Belastung) would have been too great for the execution squad.” And, of course, the strain was there. Himmler, we have seen, was affected by it when he watched the sample massacres at Minsk, and cried aloud when two Jewish women were not killed outright. He told Nebe, who carried out the execution, that more humane means had better be devised, and the answer was the gas van, manufactured by the firm of Saurer in Berlin, and supplied and maintained by Rauff, the transport officer of the R.S.H.A.

  But the gas vans, when they arrived in 1942, were to cause Ohlendorf further spiritual burdens. He preferred shooting, and so did his men. The general concept was a plain van so constructed that when the motor was started up “gases were conducted into the van causing death in ten to fifteen minutes.… The vans were loaded with the victims” (Ohlendorf is speaking) “and driven to the place of burial, which was usually the same as that used for the mass executions. The time needed for transportation was sufficient to ensure the death of the victims.” The vans varied in size and could take fifteen to twenty-five people. The reason why Ohlendorf and his subordinates did not like the gas vans was not because they were inhumane—he was sure the victims did not know what was happening to them—but because “the unloading of the corpses was an unnecessary mental strain.” It was less tiresome to stand people on the edge of a ditch and shoot them down and shovel earth over their bodies. But when Ohlendorf was asked what he meant by “an unnecessary mental strain” he replied in terms which indicated quite clearly that the victims were aware of what was happening to them: “As far as I can remember the conditions at that time—the picture presented by the corpses and probably because certain functions of the body had taken place leaving the corpses lying in filth.”

  The victims, of course, were aware. We know that from other witnesses. The “death vans” became notorious, and more often than not they failed to work either quickly or humanely. When they were used in a wholesale manner at Chelmno extermination camp in Poland, before Auschwitz got into its stride, there were many complaints from their designer, Lieutenant Becker, of their improper use. Although they added their own flourish to the fantastic world inhabited not only by the Gestapo and the S.D. but by every German soldier and official behind the lines in Russia and Poland, their contribution to the number killed in Russia was really very small.

  Ohlendorf was questioned at length about his preference for what he called shooting in the military manner, and in the course of his explanation he threw some official light on the habitual form:

  “On the one hand, the aim was that the individual leaders and men should be able to carry out the executions in a military manner acting on orders and should not have to make a decision of their own; it was, to all intents and purposes, an order which they were to carry out. On the other hand, it was known to me that through the emotional excitement of the executions ill-treatment could not be avoided, since the victims discovered too soon that they were to be executed and could not therefore endure prolonged nervous strain. And it seemed intolerable to me that individual leaders and men should in consequence be forced to kill a large number of people on their own decision.”

  When questioned as to what he meant by “ill-treatment,” Ohlendorf replied:

  “If, for instance, the manner in which the executions were carried out caused excitement and disobedience among the victims, so that the Commandos were forced to restore order by means of violence … if, as I have already said, in order to carry out the liquidation in an orderly fashion it was necessary, for example, to resort to beating.”

  It is as well that we have this testimony of the gifted and highly educated commander of Einsatzgruppe D. It prepares us for the impression created by these orderly and humane operations on others.

  On October 30th, 1941, the Commissioner of the territory of Slutzk in White Russia wrote to the Commissioner General of Minsk, criticizing the actions of the Einsatzkommandos belonging to Einsatzgruppe B (commanded by our old friend Artur Nebe). Here are excerpts from his letter:

  “On October 27th, in the morning at about eight o’clock, a first lieutenant of the Police Battalion Number 11, from Kovno [i.e., an officer of Daluege’s Orpo], Lithuania, appeared and introduced himself as the adjutant of the battalion commander of the Security Police. The first lieutenant explained that the police battalion had received the assignment to effect the liquidation of all Jews here in the town of Slutzk within two days. The battalion commander with his battalion in the strength of four companies, two of which were made up of Lithuanian partisans, was on the march here, and action would have to begin immediately. I replied to the first lieutenant that I had to discuss the action in any case first with the commander. About half an hour later the police battalion arrived in Slutzk. Immediately after the arrival a conference with the battalion commander took place according to my request. I first explained to the commander that it woul
d not very well be possible to effect the action without previous preparation, because everybody had been sent to work and it would lead to terrible confusion. At least it would have been his duty to inform me a day ahead of time. Then I requested him to postpone the action one day. However, he refused this with the remark that he had to carry out this action everywhere in all towns and that only two days were allotted for Slutzk. Within two days the town of Slutzk had by all means to be cleared of Jews.”

  That was how it began. It was not one of Ohlendorf’s tidy actions. It took place in the streets of Slutzk. After further preamble the letter continues:

  “For the rest, as regards the execution of the action, I must point out, to my deepest regret, that the latter almost bordered on sadism. The town itself during the action offered a picture of horror. With indescribable brutality on the part both of the German police officers and particularly of the Lithuanian partisans, the Jewish people, and also with them White Ruthenians, were taken out of their dwellings and herded together. Everywhere in the town shots were to be heard, and in different streets the corpses of Jews who had been shot accumulated. The White Ruthenians were in the greatest anguish to free themselves from the encirclement. In addition to the fact that the Jewish people, among whom were also artisans, were barbarously maltreated in sight of the White Ruthenian people, the White Ruthenians themselves were also beaten with clubs and rifle butts. It was no longer a question of an action against the Jews. It looked much more like a revolution.…”

  It goes on to describe the looting:

  “In conclusion I find myself obliged to point out that the police battalion looted in an unheard-of manner during the action and that not only in Jewish houses but equally those of the White Ruthenians. Anything of use, such as boots, leather, cloth, gold, and other valuables was taken away. According to statements of the troops, watches were torn off the arms of Jews openly on the street and rings pulled off their fingers in the most brutal manner. A disbursing officer reported that a Jewish girl was asked by the police to obtain immediately five thousand roubles to have her father released. The girl is actually said to have run about everywhere to obtain the money.”

  The outraged official could not bring himself to stop there. He finished up on a burst of indignation:

  “I am submitting this report in duplicate so that one copy may be submitted to the Reich Minister. Peace and order cannot be maintained in White Ruthenia with methods of that sort. To have buried alive seriously wounded people, who then worked thier way out of their graves again, is such extreme beastlness that this incident as such must be reported to the Fuehrer and the Reich Marshal.”

  This was the impression made on a German official, who had already in the nature of his job seen many dreadful things, who was prepared to see the Jews of Slutzk completely liquidated provided he had a day’s warning to organize the affair in an orderly manner, but who, nevertheless, was so shocked and affronted by the reality that, after brooding about it for three days, he still could not overcome his indignation and, taking his courage in both hands, laid bare his heart to his Fuehrer, via Goering. He was an innocent, of course. The Fuehrer had ordered that these people should be killed, and did not care how.

  The Commissioner of Slutzk seems to have sat in his office and listened to the shots and heard the reports brought in by his men and the troops. We now turn to the report of another German, a civilian, an engineer belonging to the building firm of Joseph Jung, who managed the branch office at Sdolbunov in the Ukraine. He was responsible, amongst other things, for a building site in Rovno, where, during the night of July 13th, 1942, all the Jews, about five thousand of them, were liquidated. Engineer Hermann Graebe was an interested party because a number of the Jews living in the Rovno ghetto were his employees. He had heard rumors of a forthcoming action against them, and had marched his Jews out of harm’s way. Then the rumors had been officially denied by S.S. Major Puetz, commanding the Rovno Security Police and S.D. But later it was admitted, and, after a great deal of bargaining, Engineer Graebe managed to obtain a written paper, officially stamped by the Rovno Area Commissioner, that his hundred worker Jews should be spared. This is what Engineer Graebe saw, as described in his Nuremberg affidavit:

  “On the evening of this day I drove to Rovno and posted myself with Fritz Einsporn [his foreman] in front of the house in the Bahnhofstrasse in which the Jewish workers of my firm slept. Shortly after ten p.m. the ghetto was encircled by a large S.S. detachment and about three times as many members of the Ukrainian militia. Then the electric arc lights which had been erected in and around the ghetto were switched on. S.S. and militia squads of four to six men entered or at least tried to enter the houses. Where the doors and windows were closed and the inhabitants did not open at the knocking, the S.S. men and militia broke the windows, forced the doors with beams and crowbars, and entered the houses. The people living there were driven on to the street just as they were, regardless of whether they were dressed or in bed. Since the Jews in most cases refused to leave their houses and resisted, the S.S. and militia applied force. They finally succeeded, with strokes of the whip, kicks, and blows from rifle butts, in clearing the houses. The people were driven out of their houses in such haste that small children in bed had been left behind in several instances. In the streets women cried out for their children and children for their parents. That did not prevent the S.S. from driving the people along the road at running pace, and hitting them, until they reached a waiting freight train. Car after car was filled, and the screaming of women and children and the cracking of whips and rifle shots resounded unceasingly. Since several families or groups had barricaded themselves in especially strong buildings and the doors could not be forced with crowbars or beams, the doors were blown open with hand grenades. Since the ghetto was near the railroad tracks in Rovno, the younger people tried to get across the tracks and over a small river to get away from the ghetto area. As this stretch of country was beyond the range of the electric lights, it was illuminated by small rockets. All through the night these beaten, hounded, and wounded people moved along the lighted streets. Women carried their dead children in their arms, children pulled and dragged their dead parents by their arms and legs down the road toward the train.…

  “About six o’clock in the morning I went away for a moment leaving behind Einsporn and several other German workers who had returned in the meantime. I thought the greatest danger was past and that I could risk it. Shortly after I left, Ukrainian militia men forced their way into 5 Bahnhofstrasse and brought seven Jews out and took them to a collection point inside the ghetto. On my return I was able to prevent further Jews from being taken out. I went to the collecting point to save these seven men. I saw dozens of corpses of all ages and both sexes in the streets I had to walk along. The doors of the houses stood open, windows were smashed. Pieces of clothing, shoes, stockings, jackets, caps, hats, coats were lying in the street. At the corner of a house lay a baby, less than a year old, with his skull crushed. Blood and brains were spattered over the house wall and covered the area immediately around the child. The child was dressed only in a little shirt. The commander, S.S Major Puetz, was walking up and down a row of about eighty to one hundred male Jews who were crouching on the ground. He had a heavy dog-whip in his hand. I walked up to him, showed him the written permit of Stabsleiter Beck and demanded the seven men whom I recognized among those who were crouching on the ground. Puetz was very furious about Beck’s concession and nothing could persuade him to release the seven men. He made a motion with his hand encircling the square and said that anyone who was here once would not get away. Although he was very angry with Beck, he ordered me to take the people from 5 Bahn-hofstrasse out of Rovno by eight o’clock at the latest. When I felt Puetz, I noticed a Ukrainian farm cart with two horses. Dead people with stiff limbs were lying on the cart. Legs and arms projected over the side boards. The cart was making for the freight train.…”

  Engineer Graebe did not follow that fr
eight train to its destination, which was the death pit at Kostopol, so we cannot through his observant eyes follow the five thousand Jews of Rovno (it was, incidentally, Rovno’s second massacre: most of the five thousand did not belong to the place, but had been moved from other parts of Poland to the ghetto for easier handling). But a few months later, on October 5th, 1942, he was able to do the next best thing. He attended a mass execution of very similar people at Dubno in Volhynia, on a disused aerodrome where his firm had a building site. He saw the vans arriving with prisoners, and went to look; and his account, read by Sir Hartley Shawcross in his final speech at Nuremberg, filled even those who for week after week had accustomed themselves to tales of unimaginable horror with an emotion deeper than any they had yet experienced.

  “… an old woman with snow-white hair was holding this one-year-old child in her arms and singing and tickling it. The child was cooing with delight. The parents were looking on with tears in their eyes. The father was holding the hand of a boy about ten years old and speaking to him softly; the boy was fighting his tears. The father pointed towards the sky, stroked the boy’s head, and seemed to explain something to him. At that moment the S.S. man at the pit shouted something to his comrade. The latter counted off about twenty persons and instructed them to go behind the earth mound. The family I have described was among them. I well remember the girl, slim and with black hair, who, as she passed me, pointed to herself and said, ‘Twenty-three years old.’

  “I then walked around the mound and found myself confronted by a tremendous grave. People were closely wedged together and lying on top of each other so that only their heads were visible. Nearly all had blood running over their shoulders from their heads. Some of the people shot were still moving. Some lifted their arms and turned their heads to show that they were alive. The pit was already two-thirds full. I estimated that it held a thousand people. I looked for the man who did the shooting. He was an S.S. man who sat at the edge of the narrow end of the pit, his feet dangling into it. He had a tommy gun on his knees and was smoking a cigarette. The people—they were completely naked—went down some steps which were cut in the clay wall of the pit and clambered over the heads of those who were lying there to the place to which the S.S. man directed them. They lay down in front of the dead and wounded. Some caressed the living and spoke to them in a low voice. Then I heard a series of shots. I looked into the pit and saw that their bodies still twitched or that their heads lay motionless on top of the other bodies before them. Blood ran from their necks.