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Volume IV · Page 571
| field usually consisted of from 80 to 100 men
and 7 to 10 officers. Sonderkommando 4b had a staff of 7 officers. Fendler
lived, ate, and associated with these officers. He was department III, some
other officer was department IV, and still another officer was department V or
VI, and so on. It is absurd to assume that Fendler could not know what these
other officers were doing, especially in view of the fact that Fendler was the
second senior officer in the Kommando. It is not contended by the prosecution, nor does the evidence show that Fendler, himself, ever conducted an execution, but it is maintained that he was part of an organization committed to an extermination program. Fendler asserts that department IV alone conducted the executions and, therefore, within the watertight compartment of his own department III, he did not know what was happening in department IV. The International Military Tribunal, in considering the relationship between the SD (which is department III) and the Gestapo (which is department IV), said — |
"One of the principal functions of the local SD units was to serve as the intelligence agency for the local Gestapo units. In the occupied territories, the formal relationship between local units of the Gestapo, Criminal Police and SD was slightly closer." |
| Fendler asserted over and over that he only
learned by accident of executions and that, generally, he did not know what was
taking place. Fendler's assertion runs counter to normal every day experience
because it is simply incredible that a high-ranking officer in a unit would not
know of the principal occupation of that unit. The defendant stated that he learned of the extermination order only after he had left the Kommando and was at Kiev on his way home. He was asked — |
| "So that you had to travel five hundred
kilometers and two days' distance from the very heart of this execution
district before you learned that executions were being performed upon Jews
because they were Jews, is that right?" And his answer was "yes". The defendant explained that one of his principal occupations in the Kommando was making out morale reports on the population. He was asked whether, when he learned of the program which had occurred in Tarnopol, where about 600 people were murdered, he included this fact in his report. He replied in the negative. He was asked why he would not include so momentous an event as the murdering of 600 people in the streets in a |
