Read The Nuremberg Interviews Online
Authors: Leon Goldensohn
“I met Molotov when I was in Russia. He reminded me of my old teacher of mathematics. He’s the type of man who makes sure to cross his
t
’s and dot his
i
’s. He likes meticulousness. He is a legal expert, a hard worker, and rather stubborn. But I don’t know if he has much imagination. Like all Russians he will obey Stalin’s orders unwaveringly. He wasn’t present at that particular meeting, but our people in Moscow reported that Molotov did not say a word to Ribbentrop at the conference. On the contrary, Stalin, like Hitler, did all the talking. But don’t misunderstand me — Stalin was infinitely wiser and more balanced than Hitler.
“I met the Soviet representative Maksim Litvinov at Geneva. He was a very clever ambassador.
3
I think he had been an insurance agent in London before he took up diplomacy. He was the businessman type of diplomat. He spoke English well, but with a heavy Russian accent. He has an English wife. He is an excellent debater at the council table.
“In 1927 we were on excellent terms with the Soviet delegations because, like ourselves, they were opposed to the Treaty of Versailles. There was a silent understanding that we would work together. I was called in once to interpret but there was little need for it because English and French were the official languages of the League.”
We went on to a discussion of Schacht. “He’s a very intelligent fellow, but a man who is after short-term effects. If you consider his financial policy, in which he banned foreign loans — he forgot that the money that would have flowed into Germany came as short-term loans. His chief fault was a lack of foresight. He thought that foreign loans were bad and
forgot the disadvantages of short-term loans. Schacht was a man of expedience. He was not an outstanding person who could carry weight and take a reasoned line of policy for a long time to come.
“But Schacht was infinitely more reasonable than the Nazis. He was fundamentally a dynamic, changeable person. In the beginning, therefore, it was quite logical that he should be attracted by the dynamic, dramatic, short-term ideas of the Nazis. As I said, Schacht has intelligence, but is not particularly a man of principle, although I think he believes he is. But it is reasonable to assume that later on he differed with the Nazis. He was too intelligent to go along to the extremes, which they pursued in their folly.
“Our foreign policy was an improvisation. Like Schacht’s financial policy, it lacked foresight. The Nazis kept talking about a thousand-year Reich, but they couldn’t think ahead for five minutes!”
Einsatzgruppe:
Action group
Gestapo: Geheime Staatspolizei (Secret State Police, also called Staatspolizei or Stapo)
Kripo: Kriminalpolizei (Criminal Police, plainclothes detectives)
Luftwaffe:
Air force
Nazi: Nationalsozialist, or National Socialist
NSDAP: National Socialist German Workers Party, or Nazi Party
OKW: Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (Supreme Command of the Armed Forces)
RSHA: Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Main Office, founded in 1939 as the umbrella organization for the Gestapo, Kripo, SD, and other police groups)
SA: Sturmabteilung (the Nazi “Brown Shirts,” or Storm Troopers)
SD: Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service of the Nazi Party)
Sipo: Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police, founded in 1936 as the umbrella organization of the Gestapo and Kripo)
SS: Schutzstaffel, Himmler’s “Black Shirts”
Wehrmacht:
Armed forces
WVHA: Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt (Economic and Administrative Main Office, a branch of the SS created as the umbrella organization to administer the concentration camps)
1.
Quoted in the excellent study by Arieh J. Kochavi,
Prelude to Nuremberg: Allied War Crimes Policy and the Question of Punishment
(Chapel Hill, 1998), 36. See also Richard Overy,
Interrogations: The Nazi Elite in Allied Hands, 1945
(New York, 2001), 8–9.
2.
This document, along with many others, is reprinted in the very useful book by Michael R. Marrus,
The Nuremberg Trial, 1945–46: A Documentary History
(Boston, 1997), 20–22.
3.
Kochavi,
Prelude to Nuremberg
, 73–74.
4.
See Winston S. Churchill,
The Second World War: Closing the Ring
(Cambridge, Mass., 1951), 373–74.
5.
According to Elliott Roosevelt, FDR had used the figure of 49,500 that evening; cited in Michael Beschloss,
The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler’s Germany, 1941–1945
(New York, 2002), 27.
6.
Churchill,
Closing the Ring
, 374.
7.
Sections from Morgenthau’s and Stimson’s memoranda are conveniently reprinted in Marrus,
Nuremberg Trial
, 24–27.
8.
Quoted in full in Kochavi,
Prelude to Nuremberg
, 88.
9.
Kochavi,
Prelude to Nuremberg
, 91.
10.
Kochavi,
Prelude to Nuremberg
, 65.
11.
See Gerd R. Ueberschär, “Die sowjetischen Prozesse gegen deutsche Kriegsgefangene 1943–1952,” in Gerd R. Ueberschär, ed.,
Der Nationalsozialismus vor Gericht: Die alliierten Prozesse gegen Kriegsverbrecher und Soldaten 1943–1952
(Frankfurt am Main, 2000), 245.
12.
The American position on the criminality of Nazi organizations was presented to the tribunal on February 28, 1946, and was later published separately. See Robert H. Jackson,
The Nürnberg Case
(New York, 1947), 95–119.
13.
See Bradley F. Smith,
Reaching Judgment at Nuremberg
(New York, 1977), 27.
14.
Overy,
Interrogations
, 8.
15.
See Beschloss,
The Conquerors
, 246.
16.
For the draft memorandum of Cordell Hull, Henry Stimson, and James Forrestal (November 11, 1944) and the memorandum of Henry Stimson, new secretary of state Edward R. Stettinius Jr., and U.S. attorney general Francis Biddle (January 22, 1945), see Marrus,
Nuremberg Trial
, 28–32.
17.
Copies of the agreement and charter are published in
Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression
(Washington, 1946), 1:1–12.
18.
See the useful account and especially Table 3, which charts the various estimates of the death toll, in Richard Overy,
Russia’s War
(New York, 1998), 288.
19.
Soviet judge Major Iona T. Nikitchenko, quoted in Overy,
Interrogations
, 18.
20.
See Telford Taylor,
Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials: A Personal Memoir
(Boston, 1992), 64. Taylor was a member of the prosecution staff at the trials.
21.
The full indictment and many other important documents are reprinted in the series
Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression
(Washington, 1946); here see 1:15.
22.
For an excellent account of the origins of the concept “genocide” and the role of Raphael Lemkin, in particular, who both invented the word and worked tirelessly to have it adopted by the United Nations after 1945, see Samantha Power,
A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide
(New York, 2002), 1–60.
23.
For a useful analysis of the terms, see Omer Bartov, “Antisemitism, the Holocaust, and Reinterpretations of National Socialism,” in Michael Berenbaum and Abraham J. Peck, eds.,
The Holocaust and History: The Known, the Unknown, the Disputed, and the Reexamined
(Bloomington, 1998), 75–98. This volume contains many other useful essays.
24.
Interestingly enough, historians tended to adopt one or the other of these two positions, which later became known in the field, by the 1960s and beyond, as the debate between the “intentionalists” and the “functionalists” or “structuralists.” This point is made by Michael Biddiss, “Nuremberg Trials,” in I. C. B. Dear, ed.,
The Oxford Companion to World War
II (Oxford, 1995), 824–28.
25.
Marrus,
Nuremberg Trial
, v.
26.
Most libraries have copies of these volumes. I have used the German edition, which is generally more accurate. It is also still in print and available in a paperback reprint. A photo reproduction of the original volumes is published as a
Sonderausgabe
by KOMET MA-Service und Verlagsgesellschaft GmbH, Frechen, as
Der Prozess gegen die Hauptkriegsverbrecher vor dem internationalen Militärgerichtshof
(Nuremberg, 1946–47). Most libraries have copies of these volumes. The English edition publishes the testimony and cross-examinations in the first half of its series in English. Unfortunately, however, the important documentary half of the series remains available only in the original German. Nevertheless, a selection of some of these documents is published in a separate series of volumes, as
Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression
(Washington, 1946). Eight volumes of the latter series, as well as the English-language edition of the trial at Nuremberg — that is, the testimony and cross-examinations of the major war criminals — can now be found on the Internet. The transcripts of the trial can be located by searching for “The Avalon Project at the Yale Law School.” These transcripts can also be found by searching the Internet for “The Nizkor Project.” Both sites have many other useful documents and provide numerous additional links.
27.
See Robert E. Conot,
Justice in Nuremberg
(New York, 1983), 19.
28.
Overy,
Interrogations
, 16–17.
29.
See Overy,
Interrogations
, which also provides a useful account of the general conditions in which prisoners were held. For a more complete account, see Ulrich Schlie, ed.,
Albert Speer: “Alles, was ich weiss”: Aus unbekannten Geheimdienstprotokollen vom Sommer 1945
(Munich, 1999). This volume also includes a report by Dr. Karl Brandt about “women around Hitler.” For the general background see Joseph E. Persico,
Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial
(New York, 1994). Although this book is generally well researched, it does not mention Dr. Leon Goldensohn and it is unlikely the author was aware of Goldensohn’s interviews.
30.
The phrase is recalled by Dr. G. M. Gilbert in the introduction to Florence R.
Miale and Michael Selzer,
The Nuremberg Mind: The Psychology of the Nazi Leaders
(New York, 1975), xii. The authors study the results of the Rorschach tests administered to the Nazis by Dr. Gilbert.
31.
Persico,
Nuremberg
, 91.
32.
Persico,
Nuremberg
, 103.
33.
See the article by Soviet journalist Arkadi Poltorak reprinted in Steffen Radlmaier,
Der Nürnberger Lernprozess: Von Kriegsverbrechern und Starreportern
(Frankfurt am Main, 2001), 125–26.
34.
Douglas M. Kelley,
22 Cells in Nuremberg: A Psychiatrist Examines the Nazi Criminals
(New York, 1947).
35.
G. M. Gilbert,
Nuremberg Diary
(New York, 1947).
36.
A medical doctor assigned to Nuremberg recently published an interesting memoir of the trial. It provides new details, particularly about the executions that followed. See Roy A. Martin,
Inside Nürnberg: Military Justice for Nazi War Criminals
(Shippensburg, Pa., 2000).
37.
See Gitta Sereny,
Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth
(New York, 1995).
38.
Albert Speer,
Spandau: The Secret Diaries
(New York, 1977), 2–3.
39.
I used a wide array of references and sources, but found the following to be especially helpful: Robert Wistrich, ed.,
Who’s Who in Nazi Germany
(New York, 1982); Israel Gutman et al., eds.,
Enzyklopädie des Holocaust
, 4 vols. (Munich, 1995). A parallel edition of this encyclopedia was also published in English. Also useful is Erich Stockhorst, ed.,
5000 Köpfe: Wer war was im 3. Reich
(
Sonderausgabe
, Kiel, 2000).
40.
The opening address and many more important documents are published in Jackson,
Nürnberg;
see 54 for the exact statistics and 97 for the figure of 5 million.
41.
Wilhelm Hoettl Affidavit (November 26, 1945), Document PS-2738. See
Der Prozess gegen die Hauptkriegsverbrecher vor dem internationalen Militärgerichtshof
(Nuremberg, 1946–47), 31:85–87.
42.
I have calculated the figures based on the difference between the 1939 and 1945 Jewish populations in each state involved in the Holocaust. The figure is based on Raul Hilberg,
The Destruction of the European Jews
, rev. ed., 3 vols. (New York, 1985); here see 3:1048, Table 11-1, “Jewish Population Loss.”
43.
Hilberg,
Destruction of the European Jews
, 3:894, shows that approximately 1 million Jews lost their lives at Auschwitz. He estimates that another 250,000 people, mostly Poles, also died there, as well as many Gypsies. There is general agreement in Franciszek Piper, “Auschwitz Concentration Camp: How It Was Used in the Nazi System of Terror and Genocide and in the Economy of the Third Reich,” in Berenbaum and Peck, eds.,
Holocaust and History
, 327–86. Piper estimates about 1 million Jews lost their lives in the camp; 140,000 to 150,000 Poles; 20,000 Gypsies; 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war; and between 10,000 and 25,000 people of other nationalities.
44.
See the account of a member of the British War Crimes Executive Team, who was assigned (among other things) to hear what was very contradictory evidence concerning the criminality of various organizations, including the Gestapo, in Airey Neave,
On Trial at Nuremberg
(Boston, 1978).
45.
For an introduction, see Robert Gellately, “The Third Reich, the Holocaust, and Visions of Serial Genocide,” in Robert Gellately and Ben Kiernan, eds.,
The
Specter of Genocide: Mass Murder in Historical Perspective
(Cambridge, 2003), 241–64.
46.
See Conot,
Nuremberg
, 233.
47.
The
Einsatzgruppen
were originally created in 1938 at the time of the annexation of Austria as special police units. Six such units, each comprising smaller commandos (of 120 to 150 members), were used during the invasion of Poland in September 1939. The members of the
Einsatzgruppen
were drawn from the SS, the SD or the Sipo (Security Police, that is, the Gestapo and Criminal Police). However, it was during the invasion of the Soviet Union (beginning June 22, 1941) that the
Einsatzgruppen were
most active and became full-blown death squads. There were four such groups (A to D), drawn from similar personnel, particularly from the RSHA, but with the addition of men from other police forces, with each
Einsatzgruppe
divided into various “special commandos.” The
Einsatzgruppen
varied in size between 600 and 1,000 men, and each of them was initially led by highly educated officers. One estimate suggests that as many at 6,000 people served at one time or another in these
Einsatzgruppen
, but the groups and commandos were generally small. They operated behind the lines of the advancing German forces into the USSR, from the north (initially led by Franz Walter Stahlecker, in Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia), to the center (led by Arthur Nebe in White Russia), to the south (led by Otto Rasch in Ukraine), and into the southeast (led by Otto Ohlendorf in southern Ukraine and the Caucasus). Leaders of the
Einsatzgruppen
were tried in case nine of the follow-up trials at Nuremberg in 1949; four of them were sentenced to death. The main tasks of the
Einsatzgruppen
had been to murder Jews and others who were defined as enemies and “security threats” behind the lines. The
Einsatzgruppen
also deported Jews to the death camps.
It is most difficult to estimate the total number of murders committed by the
Einsatzgruppen
. Many (not all) of their written activity reports survive. These documents show that at a minimum, and not even for the entire period of their operation, these groups — overwhelmingly the victims were Jews — operated as follows: Einsatzgruppe A shot 240,410; Einsatzgruppe B shot 71,555; Einsatzgruppe C shot 105,988; Einsatzgruppe D shot 91,678.
For a complete account, see Helmut Krausnick and Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm,
Die Truppe des Weltanschauungskrieges: die Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD 1938–1942
(Stuttgart, 1981); here see 618–19.
48.
For the role of many battalions of the regular, uniformed police, many of them composed of non-Nazi Germans, see the chilling accounts of Christopher R. Browning,
Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland
(New York, 1992), and Daniel Jonah Goldhagen,
Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust
(New York, 1996).
49.
This account is in Conot,
Nuremberg
, 233.
50.
The test was carried out by Dr. Gilbert and can be found in Gilbert,
Diary
, 34.
51.
Albert Speer,
Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs
(New York, 1970), 509.
52.
For useful information and a convenient list of the defendants, charges, and verdicts in the twelve follow-up trials, see Whitney R. Harris,
Tyranny on Trial: The Trial of the Major German War Criminals at the End of World War II at Nuremberg, Germany, 1945–1946
, rev. ed. (Dallas, 1999), 550–58.
53.
For a general overview, including the statistics on the number and type of all the
postwar trials, see Adalbert Rückerl,
The Investigation of Nazi Crimes 1945–1978: A Documentation
(Hamden, Conn., 1980).