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Volume IV · Page 543
straight into the pit. I had no special expert for these shots in the neck. No physician was present either at this form of execution." |
| At the trial he explained that he witnessed these executions only because the chief of the Einsatzgruppe wished him to experience the sensation of watching an execution so that he might know how he would feel about a spectacle of that kind. |
"Q. You didn't know that before you witnessed the execution that you would have a feeling of revulsion against the execution. You didn't feel that before you actually witnessed the execution? |
| The defendant denied having executed any Jews
and in substantiation of this assertion he advanced various explanations (1)
that Thomas, the Einsatzgruppe chief, was aware of his religious background and
therefore wished to spare him his feelings; (2) that there were no Jews in his
territory anyway; (3) that he did not know of the Fuehrer Order. The defendant carried this third incredible proposal to the point where he declared that although he had led an Einsatzkommando in Russia for 9 months, he did not learn of the Fuehrer Order until he reached Nuernberg. In fact he states that the very first time the order ever came to his attention was when it was talked about in the courtroom and its contents shocked him considerably. Many of the defendants in seeking to justify killings have pronounced the word "investigation" with a certain self-assurance which proclaimed that so long as they "investigated" a man before shooting him, they had fulfilled every requirement of the law and could face the world with an untroubled conscience. But an investigation can, of course, be useless unless proof of innocence of crime releases the detainee. Investigating a man and concluding he is a Jew or Communist functionary or suspected franc-tireur gives no warrant in law or in morals to shoot him. Biberstein claims that all executees of his Kommando were given a proper investigation and killed only in accordance with law. Can this statement be believed? In testing Biberstein's credibility he was questioned regarding his work as a Gestapo chief. His answers to the questions put to him shed some light on the extent to which Biberstein can be believed in his wholesale denials. |
"Q. Suppose that you learned that in the town of Oppeln there was, let us say, a Hans Smith, who made a declaration to |
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