-55- |
11 Jan. 46 |
order for skulls from Oranienburg the 55 men would say, 'We will try to get you some with good teeth'. So it was dangerous to have good skin or good teeth. "10. Transports arrived frequently in Dachau from Struthof, Belsen, Auschwitz, Mauthausen and other camps. Many of these were 10 to 14 days on the way without water or food. On one transport which arrived in November 1942 I found evidence of cannibalism. The living persons had eaten the flesh from the dead bodies. Another transport arrived from Compiegne in France. Professor Limousin of ClermontFerrand who was later my assistant told me that there had been 2,000 persons on this transport when it started. There was food available but no water. Eight hundred died on the way and were thrown out. When it arrived after 12 days, more than 500 persons were dead on the train. Of the remainder most died shortly after arrival. I investigated this transport because the International Red Cross complained, and the SS men wanted a report that the deaths had been caused by fighting and rioting on the way. I dissected a number of bodies and found that they had died from suffocation and lack of water. It was mid-summer and 120 people had been packed into each car. "11. In 1941 and 1942 we had in the camp what we called invalid transports. These were made up of people who were sick or for some reason incapable of working. We called them 'Himmelfahrt Commandos.' About 100 or 120 were ordered each week to go to the shower baths. There four people gave injections of phenol, evipan, or benzine, which soon caused death. After 1943 these invalids were sent to other camps for liquidation. I know that they were killed, because I saw the records and they were marked with a cross and the date that they left, which was the way that deaths were ordinarily recorded. This was shown on both the card index of the Camp Dachau and the records in the registry office of Dachau. One thousand to two thousand went away every 3 months, so there were about five thousand sent to death in this way in 1943, and the same in 1944. In April 1945 a Jewish transport was loaded at Dachau and was left standing on the railroad siding. The station was destroyed by bombing, and they could not leave. So they were just left there to die of starvation. They were not allowed to get off. When the camp was liberated they were all dead. "12. Many executions by gas or shooting or injections took place right there in the camp. The gas chamber was completed in 1944, and I was called by Dr. Rascher to examine the first |
IMT V |
172 |
-56- |
Blaha was a Czech who signed a confession in German written by a U.S. Army Officer |
11 Jan .46 |
The French Prosecution, I am informed, will deal with this matter in greater detail. Moreover, the French and Soviet Prosecution will submit evidence showing that Defendant Funk actively participated in the program for the criminal looting of the resources of occupied territories. MR. DODD: May it pleaee the Tribunal, we would like to call at this time the witness, Dr. Franz Blaha. [The witness, Blaha, took the stand.] THE PRESIDENT [To the witness]: Is your name Franz Blaha? [The witness repeated the oath.] THE PRESIDENT: You can sit down if you wish. MR. DODD: You are Dr. Franz Blaha, a native and a citizen of Czechoslovakia, are you not? BLAHA: [In Czech.] Yes. MR. DODD: I understand that you are able to speak German, and for technical reasons I suggest that we conduct this examination in German, although I know your native tongue is Czech. Is that right? BLAHA: [ In Czech.] In the interest of the case I am willing to testify in German for the following reasons: 1. For the past 7 years, which are the subject of my testimony, I have lived exclusively in German surroundings; 2. A large number of special and technical expressions relating to life in and about the concentration camps are purely German inventions, and no appropriate equivalent for them in any other language can be found. MR. DODD: Dr. Blaha, by education and training and profession you are a doctor of medicine? BLAHA: [In German.] Yes. MR. DODD: And in 1939 you were the head of a hospital in Czechoslovakia? BLAHA: Yes. MR. DODD:. You were arrested, were you not, by the Germans in 1939 after they occupied Czechoslovakia? BLAHA: Yes. MR. DODD: And were you confined in various prisons between 1939 and 1941? BLAHA: Yes. |
IMT V |
167 |
-57- |
... here he says he didn't write it, he just signed it. |
11. Jan. 46 |
DR. SAUTER: You were interrogated also the day before yesterday? BLAHA: Yes. DR. SAUTER: Did you, at that time, also make these statements about Funk? . BLAHA: I said the same thing at the interrogat,ion conducted by the Prosecution. DR. SAUTER: Is that also in the record which I believe you signed? BLAHA: I signed no record. DR. SAUTER: You signed no record? BLAHA: No; I simply signed what was read by the Prosecution. DR. SAUTER: Well, that is a record. BLAHA: Yes, but in that record there is no mention of these visits. DR. SAUTER: Why then didn't you mention these visits the day before yesterday? BLAHA: I was asked about it orally, and the prosecutor told me that these matters would be taken up orally in the courtroom. DR. SAUTER: Were you then also told where the defendants sit in the courtroom? BLAHA: No. Before the military court I was shown all the pictures . . . DR. SAUTER: Aha! BLAHA: And I was asked to identify to the court the various people. I identified the three of whom I said today that I had seen them in person. Funk and others I did not name. DR. SAUTER: You did not name Funk? BLAHA: I did not say that I had personally seen him or that I could identify him. DR. SAUTER: But when the pictures were shown to you did you see the defendants in the pictures? BLAHA: Yes. DR. SAUTER: Now, if I understand you correctly, you knew today where, for instance, Funk or Frick or anyone else was sitting? BLAHA: Funk I do not know personally, because I did not see him at that ·time. DR. SAUTER: Were you not told when the pictures were shown to you at Dachau, "This is Funk; look at him; do you know him"? |
IMT V |
189 |
, . " |
-58- |
11 Jan. 46 |
1941 to 1945. They were mostly Italians, Russians, and Frenchmen. These people were just starved to death. At the time of death they weighed 50 to 60 pounds. Autopsies showed their internal organs had often shrunk to one-third of their normal size. -The facts stated above are true. This declaration.is made by me voluntarily and without compulsion. After reading over the statement I have si gned and executed same at Nuremberg, Germany, this 9th day of January 1946." * -Signed-"Dr. Franz Blaha. - "Subscribed and sworn to before me this 9th day of January 19-16 at Nuremberg, Germany. 2d Lieutenant Daniel R. Margolies." MR. DODD: [Continuing the. interrogation]: Dr. Blaha, will you state whether or not visitors came to the camp of Dachau while you were there? . BLAHA: Very many visitors came to our camp so that it sometimes seemed to us that we were not confined in a camp but in an exhibition or a zoo. At times there was a visit or an excursion almost every day from schools, from different military, medical, and other institutions, and also many members of the Police,. the SS, and the Armed Forces; also ... THE PRESIDENT: Will you pause so as to give the interpreter's words time to come through; do you understand? BLAHA: Yes. Also some State personalities came to the camp. Regular inspections were made month by month by the Inspector General of Concentration Camps, Obergruppenführer Pohl; and by SS Reichsführer Professor Grawitz, Inspector of Experimental Stations; Standartenführer Dr. Lolling; and. other personalities. J,lR. DODD: The presiding Justice has suggested that you pause, and it would be helpful if you paused in the making of your answers so that the interpreters can complete their interpretation. BLAHA: Yes. MR. DODD: Are you able to state how long these visits lasted on an average? BLAHA: That depended on the sort of visits being made. Some were inside for half an hour to an hour, some for 3 or 4 hours. MR. DODD: Were there prominent Government people who visited the camp at any time while you were there? |
.IMT V |
175 |
-59-
14 Jan. 46
THE PRESIDENT: Have copies been given to the defendants?
MR. DODD: Yes. They have been sent to the defendant’s counsel information room.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
MR. DODD: I have one other matter that I should like to take up very briefly before the Tribunal this morning. It is concerned with a matter that arose after I had left the courtroom to return to the United States.
On the 13 th of December we offered in evidence Document Number 3421-PS, and Exhibit Numbers USA-252 and 254. They were, respectively, the Court will recall, sections of a human skin taken from human bodies and preserved; and a human head, the head of a human being, which had been preserved. On the 14 th day of December, according to the Record, counsel for the Defendant Kaltenbrunner addressed the Tribunal and complained that the affidavit, which was offered, of one Pfaffenberger, failed to state that the camp commandant at Buchenwald, one Koch, along with his wife, was condemned to death for having committed precisely these atrocities, this business of tanning the skin and preserving the head. And in the course of the discussion before the Tribunal the Record reveals that counsel for the Defendant Bormann, in addressing the Tribunal, stated it is highly probable that the Prosecution knew that the German authorities had objected to this camp commandant Koch and, in fact, knew that he had been tried and sentenced for doing precisely these things. And there was some intimation, we feel, that the Prosecutor, having this knowledge, withheld it from the Tribunal. Now, I wish to say that we had no knowledge at all about this man Koch at the time that we offered the proof; didn’t know anything about him except he had been the commandant, according to the affidavit. But, subsequent to this objection we had an investigation made, and we have found that he was tried in 1944, indeed, by an SS court, but not for having tanned skin nor for having preserved a human head but for having embezzled some money, for what – as the judge who tried him tell us – was a charge of general corruption and for having murdered someone with whom he had some personal difficulties. Indeed, the judge, a Dr. Morgen, tells us that he saw the tattooed human skin and he saw a human head in Commandant Koch;s office and that he saw a lampshade there made out of human skin. But there were no charges at the time that he was tried for having done these things.
I would also point out to the Tribunal that, we say, the testimony of Dr. Blaha sheds further light on whether or not these exhibits Numbers USA-252 and 254, were isolated instances of that atrocious
IMT V
200
-60-
…thus shifting the burden of proof onto the defense.
14 Jan 46
kind of conduct. We have not been able to locate the affiant. We have made an effort to do so, but we have not been able to locate him thus far.
THE PRESIDENT: Locate whom?
MR. DODD: The affiant Pfaffenberberger, the one whose affidavit was offered.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, Mr. Dodd.
DR. KURT KAUFFMANN [Counsel for Defendant Kaltenbrunner]: The statement just made is undoubtedly significant, but it would be of importance to have the documents which served to convict the commandant and his wife at the time. Kaltenbrunner told me that it was known in the whole SS that the commandant Koch and his wife had been taken to account also – I emphasize “also” – on account of these things and that it was known in the SS that one of the factors determining the severity of the sentences imposed had been this proved inhuman behavior.
THE PRESIDENT: Wait a minute. As you were the counsel who made the allegation that the commandant Koch had been put to death for his inhuman treatment, it would seem that you are the party to produce the judgment.
DR. KAUFFMANN: I never had the judgment in my hand. I depended on the information which Kaltenbrunner gave me personally and orally.
THE PRESIDENT: It was you who made the assertion. I don’t care where you got it from. You made the assertion; therefore it is for you to produce the document.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Yes.
COLONEL H.J. PHILLIMORE: (Junior Counsel for the United Kingdom): May it please the Tribunal: Briefs and document books have been handed in. The documents in the document book are in the order in which I shall refer to them, and the references to them in the briefs are also in that order. On the first page of the brief is set out the extract from Appendix A of the Indictment, which deals with the criminality of this defendant.
THE PRESIDENT: Are you dealing first of all with Raeder or with Dönitz?
COL. PHILLIMORE: With Dönitz. My learned friend, Major Elwyn Jones, will deal with Raeder immediately after. Reading at Page 1 of the brief…
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn for 10 minutes.
[A recess was taken.]
COL. PHILLIMORE: My Lord, may I proceed?
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
IMT V
201