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Volume II · Page 635
DEFENDANT MILCH*
[March 11]
Erhard Milch, the defendant, took the stand and testified as follows:
JUDGE MUSMANNO: The defendant will raise his right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing. (The defendant repeated the oath.)
JUDGE MUSMANNO: You may be seated.
DIRECT EXAMINATION
DR. BERGOLD: Witness, I do not have to tell you the same thing I tell all the other witnesses; namely that you should speak slowly and all that. You have heard that several times. Give your full name.
DEFENDANT MILCH: Erhard Milch.
Q: When and where were you born?
A. On 30 March 1892, in Wilhelmshaven.
Q. Who were your parents?
A. My father was a clerk with the Kriegsmarine [navy], and my mother was born Vetter.
Q. What education did you have?
A. I attended the Gymnasium in Wilhelmshaven, and then from 1905 on I went to the Joachimsthalsche Gymnasium in Berlin.
Q. When did you matriculate?
A. In February 1910.
Q. What did you study then?
A. I didn't study, but four days later I went to the First Foot Artillery Regiment in Koenigsberg in East Prussia, and I joined that regiment as a cadet.
Q. Witness, what was your position in the Third Reich in 1933?
A. I was State Secretary at that time; at first, it was not called a ministry. It was called the Reich Commissar's Office, because formal measures for the formation of a ministry had to be considered both with the Reich President as well as the Reichstag. At first, Goering was Reich Commissar and I was Deputy Reich Commissar for Aviation. I think it was in March that the Reich
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*The defendant Milch testified in his own behalf on eight full trial days (March 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, and 20, 1947) His testimony is recorded in 581 mimeographed pages (Tr. pp. 1696-2276).
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