2 Jan. 46
a lower ranking member of the Secret
Police or Gestapo. These teams were assigned to the camp commanders
and had the job to segregate the prisoners of war who were candidates
for execution, according to the orders that had been given, and to
report them to the office of the Secret Police."
I will not read the remainder of that affidavit.
Passing from that phase of the case: The Gestapo and SD sent recaptured
prisoners of war to concentration camps where they were executed —
that is, prisoners of war who had escaped and were recaptured. The
Tribunal will recall that in a document heretofore introduced, 1650-PS,
was an order in which the Chief of the Security Police and SD instructed
regional Gestapo offices to take certain classes of recaptured officers
from camps and to transport them to Mauthausen concentration camp, under
the operation known as "Kugel." That, if Your Honor recalls,
means "bullet." That is the famous "Bullet Decree"
that has been previously introduced. On the journey the prisoners of war
were to be placed in irons. The Gestapo officers were to make
semi-annual reports, giving numbers only, of the sending of these
prisoners of war to Mauthausen. On the 27th of July 1944 an order was
issued from the VI Corps Area Command on the treatment of prisoners of
war. That is Document 1514-PS in the second volume, which I offer as
Exhibit Number USA-491. This document provided that prisoners of war
were to be discharged from prisoner-of-war status and transferred to the
Gestapo under certain cirumstances <sic>,
and I quote from the first page, beginning with the word "subject,"
quoting:
"Subject: Delivery of prisoners of
war to the Secret State Police.
"Enclosed in the annex Reference Decree 1. The following
summarized ruling is issued with respect to the delivery to the Secret
Police:
"1) a) According to Reference Decrees 2 and 3, the commander of
the camp has to deliver Soviet prisoners of war to the Secret State
Police in case of punishable offenses and to dismiss them from
imprisonment of war, if he does not believe that his disciplinary
functions suffice to prescribe punishment for violations committed.
Report of the facts of the case is not necessary.
"b) Recaptured Soviet prisoners of war have to be delivered
first to the nearest police office in order to ascertain whether
punishable offenses have been committed during the escape. The
dismissal from imprisonment of war takes place upon