The Nuremberg Interviews (29 page)

I asked Kaltenbrunner whether he thought that Himmler had anything to do with the assassination of Heydrich. He replied, “No, but I am sure that it was welcomed by Himmler.

“Hess was an idealist, but the man who took his place, Bormann, was a definitely power-crazy, stingy man. Whereas Hess had the attitude of a worldly man, Bormann had the attitude of a newcomer. I believe that Bormann had no friends and that he was one of the most despised of men. The only reason he could hold the confidence of Hitler was that Hitler had been tremendously mistrusting during the last few years — a sickly mistrust. You realize these things can happen in any government, not only in the Nazi government — but in other governments they cannot handle these matters as they can in an authoritarian state, where everything pyramids to the top. There is no regime more in need of objectivity than the authoritarian state.”

I asked him what he meant by this. He continued, “Well, for example, the colonel of the prison has under him, let us say, twelve officers. What I mean by objectivity is that these officers always inform him of what goes on and undoubtedly he allows these officers to see him at any time, et cetera. Or a better example — in England, every honest citizen who has been a lawyer becomes, at the age of fifty to fifty-five, a judge. Now, men who had only seen law from one side suddenly become judges. That, together with their experience of life, will allow them to see things from both sides.

“In other words, the authoritarian state would be good if the one on top is objective, but not if he is the type of man who becomes angry if something is said to him which he dislikes. Certainly it doesn’t work if the leader mistrusts everyone, or if his wishes exceed his judgment, finally overwhelming him.

“For example, if Hitler tells himself that it is impossible to live peacefully with America and that the whole Communist system aims and works toward a war with Germany, and then someone says to Hitler that perhaps his conception is incorrect and that maybe America wants peace — then Hitler would not listen, would bang both fists on the table, and shut up his informant. It was not possible to talk to Hitler objectively.

“Hitler had an excellent memory for numbers and he knew exactly the tonnage of each warship any nation possessed. He knew this even better than the naval and finance experts. Hitler believed that America had to find a place to get rid of its investments in lend-lease, armaments,
et cetera, and that it had to realize the money it had invested over here. That was Hitler’s idea. Any attempt to talk peacefully or negotiate a peace with America was unsuccessful because Hitler felt that Germany could not offer America this financial settlement which it desired. Thus, Hitler thought that the war with the United States was not an ideological war but one that stemmed purely from economic reasons.

“I give this example to explain how objective reporting only has a point if it is to a man who is not possessed by a certain idea.”

I asked Kaltenbrunner whether Hitler did realize finally toward the end of the war that it was in reality an ideological war. “No, Hitler always remarked that if America really fought for democracy, then America could have done away with the antidemocratic system in the Soviet Union twenty-five years ago.”

I said that I could not see much sense in this reasoning since the Soviet Union had not declared war on us or committed any atrocities or breaches of international conduct. Kaltenbrunner replied: “But an ideological difference between the United States and the Soviet Union existed — and that was Hitler’s viewpoint.

“As far as I know, Hitler did not completely condemn democratic principles — in fact, he favored a certain type of democracy. Because whereas you see the party now for the past ten years as completely authoritarian, Hitler’s final aims were a completely parliamentarian system — well, not complete; there would always be the leadership principle, like the president in the United States, but that leader would use largely democratic principles.”

We then went on to a discussion of the SD. “The way the SD was set up was correct for an authoritarian regime. Of course, the party soon recognized what a bad and dangerous instrument it would be for the party if it remained in the hands of Heydrich and Himmler, in view of the relationship with Bormann.

“Since Himmler couldn’t get any financial contributions from the state for the SD, and because the SD was a party organization, therefore, Bormann could exercise a certain amount of control over the SD. This argument is a thing which can be found in any state, including democracies. If an information service becomes disagreeable in any country, there can be a cut-down on the finances. Corrupt personalities exist in any party.

“Now comes the important point. Heydrich took the SD and made it part of the RSHA. He took certain SD members and had them paid by
the state, and placed them with the Criminal and Political Police. Heydrich did that to combat party power. Therefore the party had less and less to say about the SD. Heydrich could employ another thousand men by employing them in state positions. So Heydrich became more and more independent and the RSHA became a potent power. This was done with extraordinary skill. Heydrich faked friendship with Bormann, became friendly with all the ministers, et cetera. Heydrich and Bormann did not trust each other, but they had some advantages through each other.

“Himmler was a rival of Bormann, and Heydrich played both against each other. Heydrich pretended to be friendly with Bormann, but Bormann realized that Heydrich was a follower of Himmler. Bormann was trying to use Heydrich. Himmler saw what was happening. Between Himmler and Bormann, Heydrich grew bigger and bigger, until he was personally received by Hitler. But both Bormann and Himmler recognized Heydrich’s threat.

“Bormann was born in 1900, Himmler in 1900, and Heydrich in 1904, so they were all within the same age group. They were all intensely competitive and jealous for power. Heydrich won the eye of Hitler at an early date through his organizational skill and his talent for exact reporting, in which Hitler was interested.

“The SD was founded by Himmler and organized by Heydrich. The idea might have originated with Bormann, but Heydrich organized it in 1934–35.

“There were many attempts on Heydrich’s part to become a state secretary, with Bormann’s help. The first step he achieved was the Police Ministry. On one side Heydrich supported Himmler; then he tried to push aside Himmler from the police section and he himself sought the Police Ministry. He would have succeeded if he had not had a very ambitious opponent, Kurt Daluege, who later became insane with dementia paralytica, I understand. Both Daluege and Heydrich wanted to achieve the same position. Daluege also wanted the Police Ministry. Both were dissatisfied with their ranks. Both stood on an equal level — Daluege was chief of the main office of the Ordinary Police and Heydrich chief of the Reich Security Main Office.

“Himmler used this rivalry between Heydrich and Daluege in not allowing either of them to come to power. That saved Himmler from these two power-crazy individuals, because Himmler was very much
more primitive mentally than Daluege, who was still in good health at the time, and much more so than Heydrich, who was more shrewd.

“I knew Daluege in 1943. He had ideas of grandeur. He would say he had 3 million men if he had in reality 300,000. That was the reason Daluege had to be recalled.

“After Constantin von Neurath was recalled, Heydrich through Bormann’s help was appointed as Neurath’s successor to the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia. Thus Heydrich obtained the rank of minister. Himmler had not yet achieved so high a rank by the end of 1941.

“You can imagine the psychological reaction of Himmler when he found that Heydrich had achieved a ministerial rank above his own. And you can conceive the reaction of the progressively insane Daluege, who remained main office chief, but who until then had been on the same level as Heydrich.

“I believe from a medical standpoint, the sudden rise of Heydrich was the moment when Daluege’s sickness became recognizable. Daluege was more stupid, more conceited, generally dumber than Heydrich. But Daluege was equally ambitious, although not in the same manner as Heydrich. Daluege was more personally conceited. Daluege was morally more decent than Heydrich, who drew no lines at using any methods to gain power. Daluege was more of an obedient officer.”

Kaltenbrunner was speaking in slow, carefully enunciated words, as if he had been thinking of these things for a long time, and the effect was a studied one. He required no questions or comments from me to stimulate his talking. At this point, when Kaltenbrunner paused, I asked him whether Heydrich’s nickname, “the Hangman,” was appropriate in his opinion.

“Within Germany, Heydrich was of course not called that. But he was sadistic.”

I asked Kaltenbrunner who, in his opinion, was more sadistic, Himmler or Heydrich. “Himmler was not sadistic — he was a stingy, small person. He was formerly a schoolteacher and he was always that kind of mentality. He obtained pleasure from punishing others, like a schoolteacher who hits a child with a cane more than necessary and derives pleasure from it. This is not truly sadistic; Himmler felt that he was responsible for the education and betterment of other people. The extermination of the Jews in concentration camps has no connection with this. I personally think this happened because of Himmler’s slavelike obedience to the Führer.”

“I am thought of as another Himmler.” (Smiles.) “I’m not. The papers make me out as a criminal. I never killed anyone.”

Kaltenbrunner was in his usual inhibited, frigid state. He was superficially polite and expressed pleasure at the visit of Mr. Triest and myself. He remarked that I had not been in to see him for a few weeks and, “I wondered whether you had become disgusted with us war criminals — particularly me, the so-called archcriminal of them all.” Kaltenbrunner smiled periodically as he said this. It was apparent that he expected a polite response to the effect that I did not consider him the archcriminal. I explained that I had been in England for the week and that there had been a great influx of organization witnesses recently and that much time had been spent in interviewing them.

I asked him what he thought of Alfred Jodl’s defense, which had terminated today. “Very good. The whole documentary evidence against Jodl proved that the war against Russia was not an aggressive war but rather a preventive one.
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Naturally we all knew this before, but now the world will know it as a result of this trial and Jodl’s defense.”

I was somewhat surprised at this deduction since I had listened to Jodl’s case carefully and found nothing in it which would justify Germany’s attack on Russia as a preventive war. I asked Kaltenbrunner to explain what he meant, as it was rather mystifying to me. He replied in clipped sentences, with his usual precise manner of speaking, “If the Russians supplied their troops down to company level with maps and so forth and had so many divisions on the Romanian and Hungarian frontiers, then it is clear that our attack on Russia was not an offensive war but a preventive one. In other words, it is easily deduced that Russia intended to wage war against all of Europe.” Did Kaltenbrunner really feel this to be true? “Beyond any doubt. Today you heard the testimony of General Winter, who was the chief of staff under Field Marshal Rundstedt and who is an excellent officer in charge of one of our best armies. General Winter confirmed the fact that the Russians had assembled their troops up to the Hungarian border prior to the outbreak of war against Russia. Why did the Russians march up to the Hungarian border?”

Kaltenbrunner drew a map of the situation at that time, showing the
Russian and Hungarian borders, and placed
X
marks where Russian troops were said to have been assembled. “The Russians had troops on the Russian border of Hungary and Romania, which proves beyond any question of a doubt that the Russians intended an aggressive war in the Balkans. Thus, today the indictment was proven false — at least as far as Germany waging an aggressive war. One can’t prove the intention of Germany to conquer Poland. At the time of the Russian-German war, a division of Poland had already taken place. One can speak of an aggressive war not only against Germany but against the whole of Europe.

“There is no human law or law of God or national law that states that any healthy being has to permit the snake to eat the mouse — but on the other hand it is perfectly justified to defend the mouse. In a modern war it is most difficult to determine whether it is an aggressive or preventive war. In the Hague Convention
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it does not say at what time a war ceases to be defensive and becomes offensive.

“The Hague Convention does not mention a preventive war because owing to modern weapons, preventive war had not yet existed. The quicker humanity advances, the more important it is to be the one who deals the first blow. It was still possible in times of old-fashioned warfare to put up an ultimatum, but with all the new and modern weapons, tanks, and especially the atom bomb, this is impossible.

“That is, if by an espionage system or treason you learn of your opponent’s intention to attack you, and then you attack first, you are still the defender and not the aggressor. That was the case with Germany against Russia. We just learned of Russia’s intention in time. This question was decided in favor of the Reich today in court. As a matter of fact, it was brought out previously — although not as clearly as in the testimony of General Winter today — in the cases of Raeder, Keitel, Goering, and their witnesses, as well as in the case of Jodl. But the clearest proof and the establishment of this fact beyond any doubt came through Jodl’s defense and I was very happy to hear it. Thus, the indictment of conspiracy for aggression is done away with completely.”

Couldn’t it mean that Russia deployed its troops because it felt there was danger of a German attack through Hungary and Romania, which were satellite states at that time? Kaltenbrunner coolly decided in the negative. “No. That is definitely not the case because our troops were tied up in the West. At that very moment the Reich had heard of Russia’s plans. Russia expected that the Reich would lose still more blood in
the West. And they thought, therefore, that the march of Russian troops to the West would be easier as time went on. For Russia the German Reich was only a part of Europe, and Russia was interested not only in conquering the Reich but in overcoming the whole of Europe and bringing Communism to the entire continent.”