2 Jan. 46
responsibility of all men and women of the
kin of the culprit. It furthermore hits most severely the family
circle of the political criminal. For example, this practice has
already shown, at the end of 1939, the best results in the new Eastern
territories, especially in the Warta district. Experience shows that
as soon as this new method for combatting assassins and saboteurs
becomes known to these foreign people — this may be achieved by
oral propaganda — the female members of a kin to which members of
the resistance movement or bands belong will exert a curbing
influence."
Now the SD and
Gestapo also conducted third-degree interrogations of prisoners of war;
and I refer to Document 1531-PS, Exhibit Number USA-248. This document
contains an order of 12 June 1942, signed by Müller which
authorized the use of third-degree methods in interrogations where
preliminary investigation indicated that the prisoners could give
information on important facts such as subversive activities but not to
extort confessions of prisoners' own crimes.
Now I quote from Page 2 of the English translation, Paragraph 2:
"Third degree may, under this
supposition, only be employed against Communists, Marxists, Jehovah's
Witnesses, saboteurs, terrorists, members of resistance movements,
parachute agents, asocial elements, Polish or Soviet Russian loafers,
or tramps. In all other cases, my permission must first be obtained."
Then I pass to Paragraph 4 at the end:
"Third degree can, according to the
circumstances, consist amongst other methods, of:
"Very simple diet (bread and water); hard bunk; dark cell;
deprivation of sleep; exhaustive drilling; also in flogging (for more
than 20 strokes a doctor must be consulted)."
On the 24th of February 1944 the commander of the Sipo and the SD for
the district of Radom published an order issued by the Befehlshaber of
the Sipo and the SD at Kraków which is Document L-89, Exhibit
Number USA-507, in the first volume. This followed closely the
provisions of the previous decree that I have just quoted from; and I
quote the first paragraph after the list of offices on the first page:
"In view of the variety of methods
used to date in intensified interrogations and in order to avoid
excesses, also to protect officials against eventual criminal
proceedings, the Befehlshaber of the Security Police and of the SD in
Kraków has issued the following order for the Security Police
in the