. NMT05-T0682
Volume V · Page 682
| TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENT FRANK 17 FRANK DEFENSE EXHIBIT 16 |
|
| AFFIDAVIT OF SS STANDARTENFUEHRER KURT BECHER, 12 JUNE 1947, ON HIS AND FRANK'S ATTITUDE TOWARD JEWS | |
| AFFIDAVIT | |
| I, Kurt Becher, at present
witness’ quarters, Nuernberg, have been warned that I render myself liable
to punishment if I make a false affidavit. I declare upon oath that my
statement is true and was made in order to be submitted as evidence before the
Military Tribunal II, Palace of Justice, Nuernberg, Germany.
Concerning my person. I was born on 12 September 1909 in Hamburg. Before the war I worked there with a firm of grain and fodder merchants, as a "Prokurist." In August 1934, I joined a cavalry unit [Reitersturm] of the General SS; last rank held; SS Unterscharfuehrer. At the outbreak of the war, I was drafted from a police reinforcement unit to the Waffen SS, by emergency measures of the State. Last rank held in the Waffen SS, Standartenfuehrer in the Reserve. I was, therefore, although a member of the SS, not a member of an organization declared a criminal one, by the IMT, Nuernberg. Concerning the subject. Approximately in the summer of 1942, as "Referent" [expert] for the Inspectorate "Riding and Driving" [Reitand Fahrwesen] in the SS Operational Main Office, I was asked by my boss, then SS Standartenfuehrer Hermann Fegelein, to negotiate with the "Oppenheim" family, Cologne, with the purpose of transferring the ownership of the stud farm "Schlenderhan" to the Waffen SS. This commission was based on a decision of Hitler, who had decreed that the owners, the not "pure Aryan" family of "von Oppenheim," were not permitted to remain owners. Fegelein told me that Himmler intended to requisition the property or expropriate the owners. I would like to mention that the object in question was worth eight million. I strongly dissuaded Fegelein from expropriating the family, pointing out what the repercussions would be in German and international racing circles, quite apart from the moral side of such a step which would severely endanger his personal reputation. He subsequently managed to get Himmler's permission to enter into normal negotiations, with the carrying out of which I was then commissioned by him. Immediately after my first meetings with Dr. Pferdmenges, a partner of the Oppenheim Bank, I got in touch with Frank, then Gruppenfuehrer, chief of a department in the Economic and Administrative Main Office, as he was competent for financial questions, and as he, too, had to conclude the deal in the name of |
|
