Goering (55 page)

GOERING: Insofar as escaped prisoners of war committed any offenses or crimes, they were of course turned over to the police, I believe. But I wish to testify before the tribunal that I never gave any order that they should be handed over to the police or sent to concentration camps merely because they had attempted to break out or to escape, nor did I ever know that such measures were taken. [
IX
,
p
. 288]

Maxwell-Fyfe surrounded him with documents which seemed to make it impossible for Goering, as Commander in Chief of the Luftwaffe, not to have known about the matter in time to take action to prevent it.

MAXWELL-FYFE: You understand that what I am suggesting to you is that here was a matter which was not only known in the O.K.W., not only known in the Gestapo and the Kripo, but was known to your own director of operations, General Forster, who told General Grosch that he had informed Field Marshal Milch. I am suggesting to you that it is absolutely impossible and untrue that in these circumstances you knew nothing about it. . . . What I am suggesting is that both you and Field Marshal Milch are saying that you knew nothing about it when you did, and are leaving the responsibility on the shoulders of your junior officers. That is what I am suggesting, and I want you to realize it.

GOERING: No, I did not wish to push responsibility onto the shoulders of my subordinates, and I want to make it clear—that is the only thing that is important to me—that Field Marshal Milch did not say that he reported this matter to me. And, secondly, that the date when Forster told Milch about this is not established. It is quite possible that, on the date when this actually happened, the Chief of Staff of the Luftwaffe might already have conferred with me about it. The important factor is—and I want to maintain it—that I was not present at the time when the command was given by the Führer. When I heard about it, I vehemently opposed it. But at the time when I did hear of it, it was already too late. [
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295—96]

He was genuinely angry that he could be thought to be involved in so dishonorable an act. “I myself,” he repeated, “considered it the most serious incident of the whole war.” He went on:

I told Himmler plainly that it was his duty to telephone me before the execution of this matter, to give me the possibility, even at this time, to use my much diminished influence to prevent the Führer from carrying out this decree. I did not mean to say that I would have been completely successful, but it was a matter of course that I, as Chief of the Luftwaffe, should make it clear to Himmler that it was his duty to ring me up first of all, because it was I who was most concerned with this matter. I told the Führer in very plain terms just how I felt, and I saw from his answers that, even if I had known of it before, I could not have prevented this decree.

MAXWELL-FYFE: Well, that may be your view, that you could not have got anywhere with the Führer, but I suggest to you that when all these officers that I mentioned knew about it, you knew about it, too, and that you did nothing to prevent these men from being shot, but co-operated in this foul series of murders.

Maxwell-Fyfe reopened the question of Goering's true motives in his dealings with Dahlerus, and his attitude concerning the violation of the neutrality of Belgium and Holland. In document after document, quoting Hitler's speeches and the memoranda of meetings at which Goering was present, the prosecutor exposed the opportunism of Hitler in the matter of aggression. He ended this phase of his cross-examination as follows:

MAXWELL-FYFE: Is it not quite clear from that that all along you knew, as Hitler stated on August 22, that England and France would not violate the neutrality of the Low Countries and you were prepared to violate them whenever it suited your strategical and tactical interests? Is not that quite clear?

GOERING: Not entirely. If the political situation made it necessary and if in the meantime the British view of the neutrality of Holland and Belgium had been obtained.

MAXWELL-FYFE: You say not entirely. That is as near agreement with me as you are probably prepared to go.

Goering next tried to fight back over the charge of German aggression in Yugoslavia, claiming that it was linked directly with hostile moves in Russia. Maxwell-Fyfe produced damaging evidence of Goering's ruthless attitude to the fight against the partisans, and then turned his attention to the concentration camps.

MAXWELL-FYFE: Are you telling the tribunal that you, who up to 1943 were the second man in the Reich, knew nothing about concentration camps?

GOERING: I did not know anything about what took place and the methods used in the concentration camps later, when I was no longer in charge.

MAXWELL-FYFE: Let me remind you of the evidence that has been given before this court, that as far as Auschwitz alone is concerned, four million people were exterminated. Do you remember that?

GOERING: This I have heard as a statement here, but I consider it in no way proved—that figure, I mean. . . .

MAXWELL-FYFE: . . . Assume that these figures—one is a Russian figure, the other a German—assume they are even fifty per cent correct, assume it was two million and one million, are you telling this tribunal that a minister with your power in the Reich could remain ignorant that that was going on?

GOERING: This I maintain, and the reason for this is that these things were kept secret from me. I might add that in my opinion not even the Führer knew the extent of what was going on. This is also explained by the fact that Himmler kept all these matters very secret. We were never given figures or any other details.

MAXWELL-FYFE: But, witness, had you not access to the foreign press, the press department in your ministry, to foreign broadcasts? You see, there is evidence that altogether, when you take the Jews and other people, something like ten million people have been done to death in cold blood, apart from those killed in battle. Something like ten million people. Do you say that you never saw or heard from the foreign press, in broadcasts, that this was going on?

GOERING: First of all, the figure ten million is not established in any way. Secondly, throughout the war I did not read the foreign press, because I considered it nothing but propaganda. Thirdly, though I had the right to listen to foreign broadcasts I never did so, simply because I did not want to listen to propaganda. Neither did I listen to home propaganda. Only during the last four days of the war did I—and this I could prove—listen to a foreign broadcasting station for the first time. [
IX
,
p
. 310]

Later Maxwell-Fyfe briefly challenged Goering's loyalty to Hitler in view of these facts.

MAXWELL-FYFE: Do you still seek to justify and glorify Hitler after he had ordered the murder of these fifty young flying officers at Stalag Luft III?

GOERING: I am here neither to justify the Führer Adolf Hitler nor to glorify him. I am here only to emphasize that I remained faithful to him, for I believe in keeping one's oath not in good times only, but also in bad times when it is much more difficult. As to your reference to the fifty airmen, I never opposed the Führer so clearly and strongly as in this matter, and I gave him my views. After that, no conversation between the Führer and myself took place for months.

MAXWELL-FYFE: The Führer, at any rate, must have had full knowledge of what was happening with regard to concentration camps, the treatment of the Jews, and the treatment of the workers, must he not?

GOERING: I already mentioned it as my opinion that the Führer did not know about details in concentration camps, about atrocities as described here. Insofar as I know him, I do not believe he was informed.

MAXWELL-FYFE: I am not asking about details; I am asking about the murder of four or five million people. Are you suggesting that nobody in power in Germany, except Himmler and perhaps Kaltenbrunner, knew about that?

GOERING: I am still of the opinion that the Führer did not know about these figures. [
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,
p
. 312]

Maxwell-Fyfe closed his cross-examination with a final scathing challenge to Goering's credibility under oath. He was using two documents, the second of which was the record of a conference in which Goering heard directly from Lohse, a Reich commissioner for the eastern occupied territories, that the Jews were being “disposed of” in Hungary.

MAXWELL-FYFE: I call your attention to the statement that “there are only a few Jews left alive, tens of thousands have been disposed of.” Do you still say, in the face of these two documents, that neither Hitler nor yourself knew that the Jews were being exterminated?

GOERING: This should be understood: From this you cannot conclude that they have been killed. It is not my remark, but the remark of Lohse. On that question I also answered. The Jews were only left in smaller numbers. From this remark you cannot conclude that they were killed. It could also mean that they were removed.

MAXWELL-FYFE: About the preceding remark, I suggest that you make quite clear what you meant by “there are only a few Jews left alive, whereas tens of thousands have been disposed of.”

GOERING: They were still living there. That is how you should understand that.

MAXWELL-FYFE: You heard what I read to you about Hitler, what he said to Horthy and what Ribbentrop said, that the Jews must be exterminated or taken to concentration camps. Hitler said the Jews must either work or be shot. That was in April 1943. Do you still say that neither Hitler nor you knew of this policy to exterminate the Jews?

GOERING: For the correction of the document—

MAXWELL-FYFE: Will you please answer my question? Do you still say neither Hitler nor you knew of the policy to exterminate the Jews?

GOERING: As far as Hitler is concerned, I have said I do not believe it. As far as I am concerned, I have said that I did not know, even approximately, to what degree this thing took place.

MAXWELL-FYFE: You did not know to what degree, but you knew there was a policy that aimed at the extermination of the Jews?

GOERING: No, a policy for emigration, not liquidation, of the Jews. I only knew there had been isolated cases of such perpetrations. [
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pp
. 314—15]

MAXWELL-FYFE: Thank you.

After this, everyone knew that Goering, whatever he might try to say in retaliation, was utterly discredited. The minutes of the meeting on August 6, 1942, were read; they showed that Goering had expressed himself forcibly to the Reich Commissioners on the
need
to “extract everything possible out of the territories” and warned them they were “certainly not sent there to work for the welfare of the population.” Goering was reminded that he had said, “I intend to plunder and to do it thoroughly.” Faced with the document, he could not deny that he had spoken these words, or refute the references to the two million men and women taken to Germany for forced labor.

RUDENKO: But you do not deny the underlying meaning that you were speaking here of millions of people who were carried off forcibly to Germany for slave labor.

GOERING: I do not deny that I was speaking of two million workers who had been called up, but whether they were all brought to Germany I cannot say at the moment. At any rate, they were used for the German economy.

RUDENKO: You do not deny that this was forced labor, slavery.

GOERING: Slavery, that I deny. Forced labor did, of course, partly come into it, and the reason for that I have already stated.

RUDENKO: But they were forcibly taken out of their countries and sent to Germany?

GOERING: To a certain extent deported forcibly, and I have already explained why. [
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p
. 325]

The examination by General Rudenko which now followed was a formal one and was especially concerned with the invasion of the Soviet Union and Goering's participation in its planning. The documents cited showed that Goering was more concerned to anticipate obtaining food supplies for Germany from these territories than to preplan their political annexation.

RUDENKO: . . . You considered the annexation of these regions a step to come later. As you said yourself, after it was won you would have seized these provinces and annexed them.

GOERING: As an old hunter, I acted according to the principle of not dividing the bear's skin before the bear was shot.

RUDENKO: I understand. The bear's skin should be divided only when the territories were seized completely, is that correct?

GOERING: Just what to do with the skin could be decided definitely only after the bear was shot.

RUDENKO: Luckily, this did not happen.

GOERING: Luckily for you. [
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p
. 320]

With studied politeness the questioning went on to put on record Goering's part in pillorying the occupied territories and forcing them to supply the German nation.

Rudenko tried to obtain an admission from Goering, which he refused to give, that instructions issued to German officers ordering them to shoot civilians who resisted, and, later, to take the lives of fifty to a hundred Communists for every German killed, were known to him at the time. Nor would Goering admit to any detailed knowledge of the treatment given to Soviet prisoners of war, or to the validity of Himmler's assertions, made in a speech, that thirty million Slavs must be exterminated. Rudenko ended his cross-examination with a dramatic challenge to Goering on his fundamental responsibility. This developed into a fierce exchange.