“Kempner: If the name of Mrs. Wurmann, your wife, or the name of your daughter-in-law appeared on one of these deportation lists, would you have signed it as well? Wurmann: I cannot respond to that…”
JUNA Pressestelle des Schweiz. Israel Gemeindebundes – Internal publication issued by the Swiss Press Bureau – Union of Jewish Communities. Zurich, August 4, 1948 – A detailed account of the court interrogations during the trials of Nazi war criminals then underway as part of the “Subsequent Nuremberg Trials” before the American Military Tribunal. Typewritten edition. German. Extremely rare.
Rare documentation from the “Subsequent Nuremberg Trials” (the Ministries Trial) – a series of twelve trials conducted before United States military tribunals in which officers, statesmen, industrialists, and professionals of Nazi Germany were prosecuted for war crimes. The trials were held after the end of World War II, beginning in 1946 and continuing through 1949, at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, following the conclusion of the main war criminals’ trial before the International Military Tribunal. The present documentation presents excerpts from courtroom proceedings, including: the confession of Gauleiter Bohle and his expression of remorse for having been part of the Nazi extermination program; a letter in which the director of the I.G. Farben forced labor plant near Auschwitz expresses satisfaction with the large shipments of Jews sent to work in his factory; transcripts from the interrogation of officials from the German Foreign Office who signed a document approving the deportation of 6,000 Jews with French citizenship to Auschwitz; and testimony by Albrecht von Kessel describing the satisfaction felt among Nazi Party members when, during the 1936 Olympic Games, the Olympic Committee failed to enforce the annulment of discriminatory regulations against Jewish athletes.
The report opens with the sensational confession of Ernst Wilhelm Bohle, who served as the head of the Foreign Organization of the Nazi Party throughout its entire existence. The issue presents a full transcript of his interrogation — the questions and answers posed to Bohle in court. At the time, Bohle stood on the defendants’ bench in Nuremberg and expressed remorse for his wartime crimes. During the war, he was the head of the notorious Foreign Organization (AO) of the Nazi Party (NSDAP), a fertile breeding ground for the Nazi fifth column across the globe. He also served as head of the Foreign Organization within the German Foreign Office, where he held the position of State Secretary. Among his main tasks was the continuous spread of antisemitic propaganda in foreign countries, through which he aimed, in particular, to prepare democracies for collapse and internal attack. Throughout the war, Bohle played a key role in the plunder and deportation of Jews across various European countries, as well as in the implementation of the “Final Solution” — the extermination of the Jews. As quoted in the present issue, Bohle expressed remorse for his actions and called upon the world to give Germany a chance to repent for its heinous crimes and its antisemitism. In court, Bohle confessed: “I believe that this was without a doubt one of the most tragic and fundamental errors made by all of us who held leading positions… which led to a development that ultimately resulted in such a horrific final outcome…”.
Also included in the report is the exposure of a wartime letter written by an employee at the I.G. Farben forced labor plant, constructed adjacent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. In the letter, the writer expresses satisfaction with productivity following the arrival of masses of Jews sent for forced labor, describing a human multitude that “could continuously supply Auschwitz with a fresh stream of human machines; Auschwitz no longer needed to concern itself too much with maintaining the stock it already had — even from the perspective of efficient production.” On this matter, witness Beuys testified about the deliberate starvation of Jewish laborers at the facility: “The commanding officer gave them just enough to keep them alive and functioning until replacements arrived.” Further in his testimony: “When these human machines collapsed completely, they were immediately liquidated on site. We saw for ourselves how I.G. constructed a special morgue to hold up to 40 people at once. If these human machines didn’t completely collapse but were so worn out that they were no longer useful to I.G., they were sent back to the main Auschwitz camp as waste — to be exterminated with the rest of the human refuse in the gas chambers at Birkenau. I.G. itself supplied the gas used for this purpose. The ethanol required for cremating the bodies could also be obtained from I.G. And finally, we saw how I.G. stored some of the tattered clothing used by these discarded skeletons to cover their nakedness.”
In this trial, Otto Ambros, director of the I.G. Farben operations at the Auschwitz and Ludwigshafen concentration camps, and Walter Dürrfeld, his deputy, were each sentenced to eight years in prison by the American military tribunal.
Also presented here are transcripts from the trial of the diplomats from Wilhelmstrasse — State Secretary of the Foreign Office Ernst von Weizsäcker, his successor Gustav Adolf Steengracht von Moyland, Undersecretary of State Ernst Woermann, and others. The court revealed a letter sent from the Foreign Office on March 20, 1942, to the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, confirming that “there is no objection” to the planned deportation of a total of 6,000 Jews — either French citizens or stateless Jews — to the Auschwitz concentration camp. This express letter was personally initialed by von Weizsäcker himself and contains handwritten corrections in his own hand. During his interrogation, the defendant von Weizsäcker was unable to deny his signature. In his defense, he claimed that he only became aware that Auschwitz was an extermination camp in 1943, when he was serving as the German ambassador to the Vatican.
Also included here is the transcript of the courtroom interrogation conducted by Prof. Max Wasilii Kempner, senior U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, of the defendant Ernst Woermann, Secretary of the German Foreign Office and head of its Political Department:
“Prof. Kempner: Were you, in principle, opposed to the extermination of the Jews in France?
Woermann: Of course.
Kempner: What steps did you take to make the deportation of Jews from France to Auschwitz impossible?
Woermann: I was unable to take any steps…
Kempner: Why is such a crucial step — the deportation of 6,000 Jews from France to Auschwitz — considered “unimportant, ” and why was it signed by the State Secretary and two Undersecretaries, including yourself?
Woermann: Apparently because it wasn’t as unimportant as you say.
Kempner: Are you aware that this was the first summons of Jews as part of the overall program of the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question, ” initiated in January 1942?
Woermann: No, I was not aware of that.
Kempner: If the name of Mrs. Woermann, your wife, or that of your daughter-in-law had appeared on one of these deportation lists, would you have signed it as well?
Woermann: I cannot respond to that.
Kempner: Thank you. No further questions.”
Also reported here under the heading: “A Sad Memory of the 1936 Olympics”, is the political capital the Hitler regime extracted from the fact that the Olympic Games were held in Berlin in 1936. Albrecht von Kessel, who served as a diplomatic attaché in Bern from 1935 to 1937 and later at the German consulate in Geneva from 1940 to 1943, testified as a defense witness for former State Secretary of the Foreign Office, Ernst von Weizsäcker. During his examination by defense attorney Dr. Becker, he stated:
“Von Kessel: Yes. At that time, an event occurred that deeply disturbed us, because it seemed symptomatic of the attitude of foreign countries toward the Jewish question.
Dr. Becker: What event are you referring to?
Von Kessel: I am referring to the Olympic Games held in Berlin in 1936, which became, arguably, Nazism’s greatest international triumph. All nations participated. Among the spectators was a surprisingly large number of foreigners, who not only attentively followed the competitions, but also declared that conditions in Germany were excellent, and gave Hitler thunderous applause each time he appeared. Beyond that, we were shocked by one specific event. The Olympic Committee had made Germany’s participation conditional upon the cancellation of all discriminatory regulations against Jewish athletes.
Dr. Becker: Did the National Socialists accept these conditions?
Von Kessel: Ah yes, of course — otherwise the Olympics could not have taken place. But they did not keep their promise. At the last moment, the Jews were excluded.
Dr. Becker: How did other nations respond to this last-minute breach of promise?
Von Kessel: Not at all.
Dr. Becker: Is it true that the entire outside world silently tolerated this breach and the last-minute discrimination against Jewish and half-Jewish athletes?
Von Kessel: To say it was silence would be an overstatement. The press complained, but the Olympic Committee did not resign. The delegations did not withdraw. The foreign competitors continued to participate, and the foreign spectators, as far as one could see, stayed and followed the games with enthusiasm.
Dr. Becker: Is it true that the Nazis viewed this fact as a boost to their standing?
Von Kessel: Ah yes. They said to themselves, and also to us: “You see? You can get away with anything you want — you just have to do it the right way.”
See also item 143.
8 leaves. Typewritten, stapled. Very good condition.
