Former SS General Karl Wolff, being tried here for the wartime murder of 300,000 Jews, was described in court here today as adjutant to Heinrich Himmler, head of the Gestapo and, therefore, as a high officer who knew perfectly well about the Hitler program for the annihilation of European Jewry through mass murder.
Today’s witness, Dr. Hans Buchheim, director of the Historical Institute of Munich, was called by the court as an expert on the Nazi program against the Jews. In two hours on the witness stand, he totally demolished testimony given on behalf of Wolff yesterday by another former German officer, ex-General Gerhard Engel.
Gen. Engel had told the court that only “a very small body” of high-ranking Nazis knew that the real meaning of Hitler’s “final solution” for the Jews involved the death of the Jews. Gen. Engel thus tried to bolster Wolff’s contention that he thought concentration camps were not much different from Indian reservations in the United States. When Dr. Buchheim was finished with his testimony, two non-Jewish witnesses took the stand to tell the court that they had been beaten by Wolff while in concentration camps. The men were Joachim von Gersthof and Bogislav von Bonim.
Help ensure Jewish news remains accessible to all. Your donation to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency powers the trusted journalism that has connected Jewish communities worldwide for more than 100 years. With your help, JTA can continue to deliver vital news and insights. Donate today.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
