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being 200,180. This is the group within the SS that the IMT declared
not to be a criminal organization.
In 1936 the defendant moved to
Berlin to become a member of the Economic Policy Department (WIPO) of Farben's
NW-7 Office. The prosecution contends that while he was in Berlin the defendant
was an active member of the Allgemeine (General) 55, and it sought to establish
that fact by documentary proof as follows:
1. An SS personnel file,
indicating the defendant’s number in that organization as 200,180 and
entries to the effect that he was promoted to 2d Lieutenant on 30 January 1938,
to 1st Lieutenant on 10 September 1939, and to Captain on 30 January 1941.
Opposite the entry of the defendant's promotion to 2d Lieutenant in 1938 is a
notation to the effect that he was a “Fuehrer in the SD.”
2.
An SS Racial and Settlement questionnaire, filled out by the defendant,
likewise giving his SS number as 200,180, his rank as a 2d Lieutenant, his unit
as “SD-Main Office,” and his activity as “Honorary Collaborator
of SD-Main Office.”
3. The defendant’s written application
for permission to marry (required of all members of the 55 and also of the
Wehrmacht) addressed to the Reich Chief of the SS on 6 May 1939. On this
printed form were listed four classes of SS memberships (not including the
Riding Unit), and that of the General SS had been underscored, indicating, so
the prosecution says, that the defendant at the time regarded himself as a
member of that group. This document also gave the defendant’s membership
number as 200,180, his unit as “SD-Main Office,” and his superior as
Colonel Six, a Department Chief in that office.
The defendant testified
that when he left Mannheim for Berlin in 1936, he was placed on a leave status
by the SS Riding Unit. He further said that he never thereafter paid dues to
the Riding Unit, although he did pay Party dues at Berlin, a part of which may
have been diverted to the SS by party officials without his knowledge. He
emphatically denied that he had ever affiliated, either directly or indirectly,
with any SS group, other than said Riding Unit.
No responsibility is
assumed by the defendant for the data shown on his SS personnel file produced
by the prosecution. He testified specifically that there was no basis in fact
for the memoranda thereon showing that on 30 January 1938 he was a
“Fuehrer in the SD,” and he ascribes this entry to an error or a
false assumption oil the part of the clerk who made or kept said record.
The defendant said that his progressive promotions from 2d Lieutenant
to Captain were automatic and customary in all branches of the SS, including
the Riding Units, and that no inference of membership in a criminal
organization can be drawn therefrom. Significance is attached to the
circumstance that in all the documents relating to |
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