. NMT04-T0263
Volume IV · Page 263
| of people who had lost all their property and
who could prove that or the material and the apartments were administered by
the local commandants in their respective localities of command and were put at
the disposal of those people who were looking for apartments. Furthermore,
apart from these two lines, this report, which contains about twenty pages, is
an excellent explanation of the terror under which the German areas lived for
twenty years, and which only proves what I said yesterday, that as a rule three
male grown-up members of each family in the course of this time were taken from
the family and their fate could not be established. Q. Those who looked for accommodations were, therefore, Tartars, Ukrainians, and Ethnic Germans, etc. Witness, during what period in the war were you chief of Einsatzgruppe D? A. I was chief of the Einsatzgruppe D from June 1941 until June 1942, inclusive; however, from March 1942 to June 1942 there were considerable interruptions. Q. What was the nature of these interruptions? A. From the beginning of March until 26 April I was on leave in Berlin. At the end of April I had to go back to Berlin until the beginning of May. After the death of Heydrich on June 1942, I was called to Berlin, and I only returned in order to give over my office to my successor. Q. Did you, as the Chief of the Einsatzgruppe, operate with the Einsatzgruppe and its units in Russia independently? A. No. My official position was Representative Plenipotentiary of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD in the 11th Army. As such for the tasks which I had to carry out within the army, Einsatzkommandos had been subordinated to me as units with whom these tasks were to be carried out. Q. Will you explain to us the significance of this position in the army and the activity of the Einsatzgruppen and Einsatzkommandos? A. I was given this assignment on the basis of an agreement between the High Command of the Army and the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces on the one hand and the Security Police and the SD on the other. This decree was known as the so-called Barbarossa Decree. On the basis of this decree the institution of these mobile units had a twofold significance within the framework of the army units. On the one hand, special units were subordinated to the army for tasks which they had so far carried out on their own authority and with their own units. On the other hand, Heydrich, Chief of the Police and the SD, was sole authority to give direct instructions to these Einsatzkommandos, and, also to receive the new reports direct with the reason and |
