13 Dec.
45
"2. Since the transfer of the
prisoners of war to the Security Police and Security Service may not
become officially known to the outside under any circumstances, other
prisoners of war may by no means be informed of the capture. The
captured prisoners are to be reported to the Army Information Bureau
as 'escaped and not captured.' Their mail is to be handled
accordingly. Inquiries of representatives of the protective power, of
the International Red Cross, and of other aid societies will be given
the same answer."
The same
communication carried a copy of an order of SS General Müller
acting for the Chief of the Security Police and SD, directing the
Gestapo to transport escaped prisoners directly to Mauthausen; and I
quote the first two paragraphs of Müller order, which begins on the
bottom of Page 1 and runs over to Page 2 of the English text. Quoting:
"The State Police directorates will
accept the captured escaped officer prisoners of war from the
prisoner-of-war camp commandants and will transport them to the
Concentration Camp Mauthausen following the procedure previously used,
unless the circumstances render a special transport imperative. The
prisoners of war are to be put in irons on the transport-not on the
way to the station if it is subject to view by the public. The camp
commandant at Mauthausen is to be notified that the transfer occurs
within the scope of the action 'Kugel.' The State Police directorates
will submit semi-yearly reports on these transfers giving merely the
figures, the first report being due on 5 July 1944."
Passing the next three sentences, we come to this line:
"For the sake of secrecy the Supreme
Command of the Armed Forces has been requested to inform the
prisoner-of-war camps to turn the captured prisoners over to the local
State Police office concerned and not to send them directly to
Mauthausen."
It is no
coincidence that the literal translation for the German word "Kugel"
is the English word "bullet," since Mauthausen, where the
escaped prisoners were sent, was an extermination center.
Nazi conquest was marked by the establishment of concentration camps
over all of Europe. In this connection we refer to Document Number
R-129. It is a report on the location of concentration camps signed by
Pohl, who was an SS general who was in charge of concentration camp
labor policies. Document Number R-129 bears our Exhibit Number USA-217.
I wish to refer particularly to Section 1, Paragraphs numbered 1 and 2
of this document, which are found on Page 1 of the English