These are directions coming directly from your head office in Berlin.
"It has been ascertained that the I.S. (Intelligence Service) has attempted, sometimes most successfully, to gain admittance for seemingly trustworthy persons into the activities of the Party group and its associate organizations. It is therefore necessary that you thoroughly investigate not only all those persons coming into contact with you who are not very well known to you, and above all you must scrutinize any new persons and visitors appearing in your immediate vicinity. If possible, let them be taken in hand by a comrade whose absolute Nazi convictions are not generally known to the man in the street...."
I think we can leave the rest of that.
"You are to report everything that comes to your notice, even though it may at first appear very insignificant. Rumors suddenly arising also come in this category, however false they may be."
DO you remember your members in Romania being told to report everything? Everything they saw?
BOHLE: Yes, of course.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: "An important section of both your work and that of your comrades' work must be industrial concerns, business enterprises, et cetera. Not only can you spread your propaganda very well in this way, but it is precisely in such concerns that you can easily pick up information concerning strange visitors. It is known that the enemy espionage organizations are especially active in industrial circles both in gathering information and carrying out acts of sabotage. Members with close connections with ship ping and forwarding companies are particularly suitable for this work. It goes without saying that you must be meticulous and cautious when selecting your assistants."
THE PRESIDENT: Do you have some more to read from this document? If so, we will adjourn now until 2 o'clock.
[The Tribunal recessed until 1400 hours.]
Afternoon Session.
MARSHAL: If it please the Tribunal, the Defendant Streicher is absent from this session.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Witness, will you look again at the document we were reading before the Court adjourned. Would you look at the paragraph which commences "as everywhere else it is extremely important to know where the enemy is and what he is doing." My Lord, I am not absolutely certain that I did not start reading.
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, yes, you had read that and the next one and the one at the top of Page 3 in the English text. At least I think you have. You read the one beginning "An important section." LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Perhaps I can start the paragraph commencing "An important section." Have you got that?
BOHLE: Yes.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: "An important section of both your work and that of your comrades must be industrial concerns, business enterprises, et cetera. Not only can you spread your propaganda very well in this way, but it is precisely in such concerns that you can easily pick up information concerning strange visitors. It is known that the enemy espionage organizations are especially active in industrial circles, both in gathering information and carrying out acts of sabotage. Comrades with close connections with shipping and forwarding companies are particularly suitable for this work. Naturally you must be meticulous and cautious when selecting your assistants.
"In this connection a reference to interstate organizations and exchange organizations is relevant."-I particularly want you to note these next lines: "It has been proved that these often use harmless activities as camouflage and are in reality to be regarded as branches of the Foreign Intelligence Department."
Witness, doesn't that exactly describe the way in which the Auslands-Organisation was carrying on its business? Read it again:
"It has been proved that these often use harmless activities as camouflage and are in reality to be regarded as branches of the Foreign Intelligence Department."
Doesn't that fit in with the directions that this Landesgruppenleiter of pours has been writing to his members in this document?
BOHLE: On the contrary, I find that this is clear proof of the fact that the organizations mentioned here were in a foreign espionage service and not in the German espionage service. My interpretation is the exact opposite of that of the British Prosecutor.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Are you not giving instructions here, or is not your Landesgruppenleiter giving instructions, to carry cut counterespionage-the work that is carried on by the intelligence service? Isn't that what the writer is writing about so far?
BOHLE: The letter, with which I am not personally familiar, apparently instructs Germans abroad to turn in a report whenever they encounter the intelligence service at work. I do not think that any objection can .be raised to that in time of war.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Very well. We will not go on arguing about it. I understand that you know nothing about the instructions which are contained in that letter. This is the first you have ever seen or heard of it; is that right?
BOHLE: No, this letter is new to me, and I do not know whether it is true, for there is no original here.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: May I take it then that, of the countries around Germany in which your organization worked, you have no knowledge of the activities that they were carrying out in Belgium? You have no knowledge of the activities that they were carrying out in Norway, none about what they were doing in Spain, and not very much about what they were doing in Romania either; is that correct?
BOHLE: No, that is not correct. Of course I knew of the activity of these groups abroad; but the particular activity that the British Prosecutor wishes to pint out as the aim of the Auslands-Organisation is not quite clear to me.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: If you had knowledge of any of their activities-I understand from your evidence that you had none of the activities about which your own Auslands-Organisation Yearbook publishes a story. Both in Norway and Greece the activities were recounted in those two stories. You knew nothing about them at all; is that right?
BOHLE: I did not know about the activity in Norway. E have already testified to that effect. I was very familiar with the activity in Greece which was along perfectly normal lines.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Very well. I want to leave that, and I just want to ask you two questions about another matter. Am I right in saying that the information-and I am not going to argue with you now as to what type of information it was-but the information that your organization sent back, was that passed on to the Defendant Hess?
BOHLE: Sometimes yes and sometimes no. It depended upon the nature of the information. If it was information on foreign policy it was, of course, sent to another office.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: You were in fact acting as a pool of information, were you not? Let me explain myself: You were forwarding information that you received, to the SS?
BOHLE. Sometimes, yes; if not to the SS then probably. ..
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: To the Foreign Office?
BOHLE: Sometimos also to the Foreign Office.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: And to the Abwehr, were you not'?
BOHLE: Very seldom, but it happened occasionally.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: You say very seldom. Did you not have a liaison officer attached to your organization from the Abwehr?
BOHLE: No. I had only one assistant who maintained an unofficial connection with the Abwehr, if the occasion arose.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Perhaps we are talking about the same gentleman. Did you not have a Captain Schmauss attached to your head office in Berlin?
BOHLE: Mr. Schmauss has never