. NMT04-T0987
Volume IV · Page 987
| TRANSLATION OF MEYER-HETLING DOCUMENT 85 MEYER-HETLING DEFENSE EXHIBIT 85 |
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| AFFIDAVIT OF
WALTER GERLACH, 3 NOVEMBER 1947, CONCERNING MEYER-HETLING'S ACTIVITIES |
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| Affidavit | |
| I, Walter Gerlach, born at
Gusow, District Lebus, 25 August 1896, at present in the Court Prison at
Nuernberg, have been duly warned that I make myself liable to punishment if I
make a false affidavit. I declare under oath that my statement is true and was
made in order to be submitted as evidence to Military Tribunal No. I in the
Palace of Justice at Nuernberg, Germany. In the period from 1939 to 1944, I was staff leader of the office of the Deputy of the Reich Commissioner for Strengthening of Germanism in Koenigsberg. Among others, the land office of Zichenau came under my official supervision. Its duty was to register all real estate owned by Poles in my sphere of duty and to draw up a sort of inventory of real estate for a settlement planned for after the war. The land office Zichenau was not established until the summer of 1940 and at the time of the events mentioned below was subordinate to SS 1st Lieutenant Risch. Before the registration work of the land office began and before Provincial President Koch was appointed Deputy of the Reich Commissioner for Strengthening of Germanism, on his own authority Koch had already confiscated and taken into his possession several Polish estates for purposes of the self-administration of the district and for the so-called Erich Koch Foundation. In spite of objections on the part of the Staff Main Office, (Central Land Office), Koch continued his arbitrary actions even after his appointment as deputy, so that the position of the land office Zichenau became more and more difficult. In 1941 or 1942, Prof. Meyer-Hetling and I visited Koch personally in Koenigsberg in order to dissuade him from his arbitrary actions and to induce him in the future not to carry out any further wild confiscations. Koch promised everything. On the occasion of a later visit by Prof. Meyer-Hetling in Zichenau, the land office director again objected to Koch's behavior. Above all, it was a matter of the orders pertaining to the estate Krasne, where Koch himself was temporarily living. On the personal order of Koch, land belonging to Polish peasants was simply incorporated into the economy of the estate. Prof. Meyer-Hetling immediately went with me to Krasne in order to ascertain the facts on the spot. This establishing of the illegal activity |
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