Tapping Hitler's Generals

? FELBERT: So the crimes of which we are being accused there, these murders etc., can be grouped: one group consists of political crimes carried out by the SS and Security Service; but then there is also a second group of crimes committed by town majors who have overstepped the mark in an obvious failure to recognise a just verdict.

KITTEL: All these matters could very quickly be rectified by the mere fact that they came to light.

BRUHN: Was action taken against these gentlemen?

KITTEL: Yes. Those town majors had complete freedom of action. The paragraphs on the rights and duties of the military administration were drawn up so loosely that that was perfectly possible. He said: ‘That is an act against the Armed Forces.’ The penalty for an act against the Armed Forces is death, so he gave the death sentence. To begin with, my military police confiscated goods, and I said: ‘I shall punish any man who confiscates anything. Whatever is confiscated goes to a hospital.’

FELBERT: Have you also known places from which the Jews have been removed?

KITTEL: Yes

FELBERT: Was that carried out quite systematically?

KITTEL: Yes.

FELBERT: Woman and children–everybody?

KITTEL: Everybody. Horrible!

FELBERT: Were they loaded into trains?

KITTEL: If only they had been loaded into trains! The things I’ve experienced! I then sent a man along and said: ‘I order this to stop. I can’t stand it any longer.’ For instance, in LATVIA, near DVINSK, there were mass executions of Jews carried out by the SS or Security Service.[290] There were about fifteen Security Service men and perhaps sixty Latvians, who are known to be the most brutal people in the world. I was lying in bed early one Sunday morning when I kept on hearing two salvoes followed by small arms fire. I got up and went out and asked: ‘What’s all this shooting?’ The orderly said to me: ‘You ought to go over there, Sir, you’ll see something.’ I only went fairly near and that was enough for me. Three hundred men had been driven out of DVINSK; they dug a trench–men and women dug a communal grave and then marched home. The next day along they came again–men, women and children–they were counted off and stripped naked; the executioners first laid all the clothes in one pile. Then twenty women had to take up their position–naked–on the edge of the trench, they were shot and fell down into it.

FELBERT: How was it done?

KITTEL: They faced the trench and then twenty Latvians came up behind and simply fired once through the back of their heads. There was a sort of step in the trench, so that they stood rather lower than the Latvians, who stood up on the edge and simply shot them through the head, and they fell down forwards into the trench. After that came twenty men and they were killed by a salvo in just the same way. Someone gave the command and the twenty fell into the trench like ninepins. Then came the worst thing of all; I went away and said: ‘I’m going to do something about this.’ I got into my car and went to this Security Service man and said: ‘Once and for all, I forbid these executions outside, where people can look on. If you shoot people in the wood or somewhere where no one can see, that’s your own affair. But I absolutely forbid another day’s shooting there. We draw our drinking water from deep springs; we’re getting nothing but corpse water there.’ It was the MESCHEPS spa[291] where I was; it lies to the north of DVINSK.

FELBERT: What did they do to the children?

KITTEL (very excited): They seized three-year old children by their hair, held them up and shot them with a pistol and then threw them in. I saw that for myself. One could watch it; the SD had roped the area off and the people were standing watching from about 300 m off. The Latvians and the German soldiers were just standing there, looking in.

FELBERT: What kind of SD people are they, then?

KITTEL: Nauseating! I’m convinced that they’ll all be shot.

FELBERT: Where were they from, from which formation?

KITTEL: They were Germans and they were wearing the SD uniform with the black flashes on which is written ‘Sonder-Dienst’.

FELBERT: Were all the executioners Latvians?

KITTEL: Yes.

FELBERT: But a German gave the order, did he?

KITTEL: Yes. The Germans directed affairs and the Latvians carried them out. The Latvians searched all the clothes. The SD fellow saw reason and said: ‘Yes, we will do it somewhere else.’ They were all Jews who had been brought in from the country districts. Latvians wearing the armband–the Jews were brought in and were then robbed; there was a terrific bitterness against the Jews at DVINSK, and the people simply gave vent to their rage.

FELBERT: Against the Jews?

SCHAEFER: Yes, because the Russians had dragged off 60,000 Estonians. But, of course, the flames had been fanned. Tell me, what sort of an impression did these people create? Do you ever see any of them shortly before they were shot? Did they weep?