. NMT02-T0289
Volume II · Page 289
sent to the 'euthanasia station' at Bernburg for extermination. I was ordered to issue falsified statements of the death of these Jews, and obeyed the order. This action was known as '14 f 13'."When the defendant Hoven took the stand in his own defense, he attempted to discredit the effects of the statements contained in his affidavit by testifying that the affidavit was taken as a result of interrogations propounded to him by the prosecution in English, and that he was not sufficiently familiar with the language to be fully aware of the inculpatory nature of the statements he was making.
The Tribunal is not impressed with these assertions. The evidence shows that prior to the war the defendant had lived for several years in the United States, where he had acquired at least an average understanding and comprehension of the English language. When he was on the witness stand, the Tribunal questioned him at length in order to ascertain the extent of his knowledge of English, and in particular, of his understanding of the meaning of the words used by him in his affidavit. As a result of this questioning the Tribunal is convinced that no undue or improper advantage was taken of the defendant in procuring the affidavit, and that at the time of his interrogation by the prosecution, Hoven knew and understood perfectly well the nature of the statements he was making.
The facts contained in the Hoven affidavit were convincingly substantiated by other evidence in the record, the only real difference being that the evidence shows the defendant to have been guilty of even many hundreds more murders than are admitted by him in his affidavit. As stated, in essence, by one of the prosecution witnesses in connection with the subject, Hoven personally killed inmates in the hospital barracks by injection. These people were mostly suffering from malnutrition and exhaustion. Hoven must have killed 1,000 of every nationality. These inmates were killed on the initiative of Hoven with no requests from the illegal camp administration or the political prisoners.
It is obvious from the evidence that throughout his entire service at Buchenwald, Hoven attempted to serve three masters: the SS camp administration, the criminal prisoners, and the political prisoners of the camp. As a result he became criminally implicated in murders committed by all three groups involving the deaths of non-German nationals, some of whom were prisoners of war and others of whom were civilians. In addition to these, he committed murders on his own individual responsibility. There
