. NMT04-T0853
Volume IV · Page 853
| c. Selections from the Evidence of the Defense | |
| TRANSLATION OF LORENZ DOCUMENT 51 LORENZ DEFENSE EXHIBIT 26 |
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| AFFIDAVIT OF OTTO
OHLENDORF,* 9 DECEMBER 1947, CONCERNING THE TASKS OF THE EINSATZGRUPPEN
WITH RESPECT TO ETHNIC GERMANS IN THE U.S.S.R. |
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| I, Otto Ohlendorf, born on 4
February 1907 in Hoheneggelsen/ Hannover, at present confined in the Nuernberg
Court Prison, have first been warned that I will render myself liable to
punishment if I give a false affidavit. I declare in lieu of oath that my
statement is true and was made in order to be submitted as evidence to the
Military Tribunal No. I, Case 8, at the Palace of Justice in Nuernberg,
Germany. From 1939 till 1946, 1 was in charge of Section III (internal security service) of the Reich Security Main Office. From June 1941 till June 1942, I was the delegate of the Chief of the Security Police and the Security Service with the 11th Army, and simultaneously Chief of the Einsatzgruppe D in the Russian campaign. In August 1941, I was transferred with my Einsatzgruppe to Transnistria, an area which subsequently was put under Romanian administration. There, my Einsatzgruppe discovered the existence of ethnic German settlements. Since the Romanians would not recognize possible reservations of ethnic Germans I, together with my Einsatzgruppe, concerned myself with the ethnic Germans for about 8 weeks and took care of them. I also sent a report to this effect to Berlin. One day SS Oberfuehrer Hoffmeyer arrived from there. It is possible that he was sent on the basis of my report. I entrusted Hoffmeyer with the care for the ethnic Germans in the area mentioned above. Hoffmeyer's Einsatzkommandos went to the German villages where they represented the German authority during a period of transition and also protected the ethnic Germans from possible excesses by the Romanians. I know that Hoffmeyer, subsequent to the establishment of his organization in the Ukraine, was subordinated to the Commander in Chief of the SS and Police, Pruetzmann. I have to mention that the Repatriation Office for Ethnic Germans was in no way connected with the tasks of my Einsatzgruppen. It is obvious that, as far as I was enabled to do so, I gave assistance to the Repatriation Office for Ethnic Germans |
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* Defendant in case of U. S. A. vs. Otto. Ohlendorf, et al., Case 9, vol. IV, this series.
