Second day of the trial
18 December 1946
(Hearing begins at 9:20 a.m.)
Presiding Judge: – I hereby resume the trial of the Supreme National Tribunal for examining the case against Ludwik Fischer [Ludwig Fischer – governor of the Warsaw district during the occupation] and other persons accused under the decree of 31 August 1944.
Expert Witness Professor Lorentz.
Presiding Judge: – Relative to the declarations made by defendant Fischer yesterday, can you provide some explanations?
Expert Witness Lorentz: – Yes, I can.
Presiding Judge: – Please, do.
Expert Witness Lorentz: – In his declarations made yesterday, the defendant invoked the fact that he was the executor of instructions and orders he received from higher authorities. I must say that indeed, in the majority of cases, the more important ordinances were given by higher authorities, but I must also stress that the Warsaw district authorities carried out those ordinances fully, scrupulously, thoroughly, and they often not only carried out the ordinances from the higher authorities, but also issued ordinances in the field of culture on their own initiative and autonomously. It is impossible to fully separate the order-giver and the executor. There is no doubt that the district was the executor, but in many cases it was undoubtedly the initiator. I will demonstrate this with the examples the defendant cited yesterday. So, in the field of theater: the defendant invoked the fact that he provided protection to the Theater of the City of Warsaw [Theater der Stadt Warschau] founded by the district. I can even add to that claim. Even before that, as early as on 22 May 1940, there was another theater opened in Warsaw that staged performances in Polish, namely, the Komedia theater at Kredytowa Street. What was the repertoire of that theater? Exclusively farces, Polish and foreign in Polish translation, with an erotic flavor. Only once did the theater stage a play of a more noteworthy Polish writer, Perzyński, but the actor who played the main role was selected from among cabaret, or cabaret-and-circus actors, and the same cabaret-and-circus character was given to that more noteworthy Polish play. At the same time, in the summer of 1940, in the theater in the Łazienki park, plays by Sophocles and Calderón were staged exclusively for the Germans. The entrance to that theater was forbidden to Poles. This very same summer of 1940, the Busch circus was brought to Warsaw for Poles. That juxtaposition, the Busch circus, and Sophocles and Calderón only for the Germans, is rather indicative.
The Theater of the City of Warsaw was a theater organized for the Germans and had its main ensemble comprised of German actors. The second ensemble was the Polish one. And another repertoire comparison: German ensembles, the local one and those brought from Germany, played the great repertoire, German and otherwise, even Shakespeare. Those performances were forbidden to Poles, and the so-called Polish theater staged only operettas and farces. It is enough to cite the repertoire: “Mrs. Ilona’s Forty Husbands”, “Gipsy Love”, “The Bat”, etc. It would therefore be difficult to accept the explanation that the defendant and the district authorities promoted theatrical culture in Poland. On the contrary, it seems to illustrate the circular of May 1940 which ordered Verflachung und Nekrotisierung [degeneration and necrotizing] for the theaters giving performances in Polish. The defendant mentioned his protection provided to music, citing the example of the concerts at Lardelli’s patisserie. It is therefore necessary to add that their conductor was kappelmeister Dołżycki, who had entered into the Germans’ service at the beginning of the occupation, and it was only Dołżycki’s efforts, and in reality the governor’s protection, that we have to thank for the concerts at Lardelli’s, concerts that were boycotted on the orders of Polish underground authorities. They were boycotted when Dołżycki declared during one of the concerts that it was his anniversary, and that it was the greatest honor for him to say that he had played in Berlin 40 years earlier. From that moment, it turned out that on the governor’s order, Dołżycki was using terror to coerce Polish musicians into performing in private concerts organized by the governor at the Brühl palace and at his villa in Konstancin. Such coercion with threats was the usual method. I should mention that kappelmeister Hesl, who acted on behalf of the district and was in charge of musical matters in Warsaw, coerced Polish musicians to perform in concerts at the Belweder palace, in the Łazienki park, at the Brühl palace, organized in particular when Frank or other dignitaries came to Warsaw. When a group of Polish musicians came to this same Hesl in November 1941, asking him if they were allowed not to play in those concerts or if they were obliged to play, he answered that the refusal to play in those concerts would be treated as war sabotage. Hesl was an official – as far as I know – who was directly subordinate to the district.
At the same time, the Warsaw district office for education and propaganda, while sending written notifications to musicians which summoned them to play in German concerts in the aforementioned palaces, included a clause in the notifications saying that every person who refused the summon would be handed over to the Arbeitsamt [labor office] and deported to the Reich.
Those are not forms and methods that promote cultural activity.
Unfortunately, today I’m unable to provide the Supreme Tribunal with written evidence in the form of those written summons and the report drawn up after the audience with Hesl in November 1941, as all files of the Directorate of Civil Resistance [Kierownictwo Walki Cywilnej] in the field of culture during the occupation that I oversaw, which were kept by numerous Polish scholars and artists under my direction in two copies, of which one was stored in the National Museum [Muzeum Narodowe] and the other in the archive at Podwale Street, were burned or destroyed during the Warsaw Uprising. However, if need be, I could cite many names of artists who received such summons.
As for the museums, the defendant denied having selected gifts at the National Museum in Warsaw once or several times. I can confirm the defendant’s claim that he was in the National Museum just a couple of times during the occupation. One of those visits, in the company of several ladies and gentlemen, involved precisely the selection of a gift. It wasn’t a gift for him, but a gift he chose for one of the dignitaries leaving Warsaw in 1942. I also confirm that there were many cases in which district officials, invoking the governor’s order, selected such gifts from the Museum. Those gifts were also recorded as handed over to the district on the governor’s order.
I also confirm the defendant’s claim that receipts were given for numerous artworks taken to the German offices. However, such administration of public museum collections is inadmissible under Articles 46, 52, and 56 of the Hague Convention.
What is more, receipts were given not only for the objects that were selected for Warsaw, but also for the Lublin Gestapo, for the Kreishauptmann [district head] in Częstochowa, and for other dignitaries. By contrast, hundreds of crates containing the stocks from the National Museum, the Army Museum [Muzeum Wojska], libraries, were taken away without receipts, and when the heads of those institutions requested receipts, the authorities who carried out the looting answered that they didn’t issue such receipts because under the ordinance of the Governor-General of December 1939, German authorities had taken over Sicherstellung und Erfassung der Kunstgestände [securing and registration of artworks].
I affirm that when in December 1939, 250 crates of the most valuable items were looted from the National Museum in Warsaw, those who took the crates categorically refused, in the presence of the museum curators, to issue any sort of receipt to me. At that time, they acted in the same way with the Army Museum.
What is more, the Gestapo and I drew up a report, in the presence of the curators, saying that I did not know what had been taken away from the National Museum.
The selected gifts are a contravention that had insignificant consequences, but there were very grave consequences to other acts which were initiated, or at least carried out by the Warsaw district officials.
The Belweder Museum was thrown out from the palace in December 1939, the state Archeological Museum was ousted from the Łazienki park in the summer of 1940, a huge part of the National Museum and the Army Museum was taken over for the purposes of the SS army and the air force in 1940. I affirm that the lease contract between the army and the German authorities was made by the Warsaw district, not by the central authorities, and I affirm that such conduct is another blatant violation of the articles of the Hague Convention I’ve cited.
Furthermore, I affirm that Jewish collections were being liquidated in Warsaw from December 1939 with complete ruthlessness, and the district officials participated in it. I affirm that as early as in December 1939, representatives of the German civil administration came for the first time to a known collector of Jewish origin, Binenthal, and plundered a part of his collection. I also affirm that regarding Warsaw collections, the entire collection of plaster casts at the University of Warsaw, left by King Stanisław August Poniatowski, was defiled, and then systematically shot apart by the units of Sicherheitspolizei [Security Police] that were staying at the university.
Concerning the protection of historic monuments, it would perhaps be pointless to list all the monuments which were destroyed in Warsaw, not during the fighting, but during the period of calm. It is enough to say that the new plan for the city regulation drawn up by Gross, who wasn’t an army architect or a police architect, but an architect subordinate to the civil authorities and acting on the orders of the civil authorities, the plan drawn up as early as in the fall of 1939 and completed in the spring of 1940, intended for the Warsaw castle to be razed to the ground. The majority of Warsaw monuments were to be demolished, with the exception of the Old Town, which, according to the Germans, was to remain as a document of German culture. This plan didn’t result from the war damages: it shows that the civil authorities’ methodical operation was not prepared in Kraków, but in Warsaw, by the officials of the Warsaw civil administration.
I am unable to say who was responsible for the destruction of the entire ghetto, but I just have to say that within the ghetto, a huge number of historic buildings, mainly from the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, were destroyed.
Finally, I must affirm that the Warsaw administration authorities altered the Belweder palace and the palace in the Łazienki park. According to the construction office’s claim, the initial plan was to convert the main palace in the Łazienki park into a residence for Governor Fischer, and only later was a change made and the palace taken over by Frank.
Moreover, I want to say that the monument to Chopin in Warsaw was blown up not in the heat of battle, but in May 1940. I also want to say that it wasn’t in the heat of battle that the Polish plaque was removed from the monument to Copernicus, and the German plaque installed.
I want to say that it was on the orders of Governor Fischer, and not of the Governor-General, that the monument to Kiliński was taken hostage in revenge for the German plaque [taken down from Copernicus’s monument by the Polish saboteur Maciej Dawidowski] and sentenced to “imprisonment” in the building of the National Museum.
Finally, the question of the Warsaw castle. The defendant claims that the order came from higher-ups, that the defendant insistently tried to revoke it, and that thanks to that, the castle wasn’t blown up in January 1940. I want to clarify the defendant’s words. For me, there is no doubt that the initiative to blow up the castle came from higher-ups, but I want to say, by way of illustration of the claim I’ve made at the beginning, that it wasn’t just the initiative of the GG Cabinet [Regierung des Generalgouvernements], but also the eager collaboration of the Warsaw authorities that destroyed Polish culture. Because I affirm once more that the order that was executed came from architect Heidelberg, the Baurath [construction inspector] not of the Cabinet of the General Government in Kraków, but of the Warsaw district, directly subordinate to Governor Fischer. Admittedly, it was Frank who initiated the castle’s demolition on 10 October 1939 with the symbolic gesture of tearing off the Polish eagles from the royal throne in the Throne Room of the Warsaw castle, but afterwards, the entire execution lay in the hands of the Warsaw administration. When I and a group of museologists and conservators applied for permission to take at least the pieces left after the demolition, I was allowed to take some such pieces to the museum. All the same, I emphasize the fact that when I was trying to secure the ceilings by Bacciarelli and I was working on them along with conservators, and when on 8 December 1939, as we were finishing the removal of the famous Bacciarelli ceiling portraying the triumph of science and art, we were driven down from the scaffolding – straight away – by none other than the officials of the Warsaw district, with Heidelberg in the front of the line.
The castle wasn’t demolished in January 1940, but what remained of it at that time? Only bare exterior walls, the entire interior had been vandalized. And how! In such a way that the magnificent 18th-century wood panelings were “secured” by being thrown out of the first- floor windows into the courtyard. Stacks of wood panelings, sculptures, and artworks were lying in the castle courtyard for months until they were taken away in winter in open cars. Of course they were the remains of historic objects, not the historic objects themselves. And it was those remains that were used by the Warsaw district, and not by the Cabinet of the General Government, to convert the Presidium of the Council of Ministers into the Deutsches Haus.
And the last matter, a matter of historic significance not only for Polish culture, but for the culture of the entire world: the demolition of Warsaw after the Uprising. I am unable to determine the persons responsible, so I shall just state the facts. It was undoubtedly Geibel who demolished Warsaw as the chief head, but the Warsaw district collaborated with him through its officials. The Räumungsstab [demolition squad], at the exit of Wolska Street, comprised both the offices employing the officials subordinate to Geibel, and the district officials subordinate to the civil authorities. The head of the civil Räumungsstab, operating on the governor’s behalf, was first Dr. Rodig, and then Dr. Pleitz. These were two parallel authorities that had separate functions. Next to them was the seat of the notorious, murderous Sonderkommando [special unit] of Schultz at Wolska Street, and Warsaw district officials worked in the room next door at the Räumungsstab. The operation was synchronized. I’m speaking about it because it is in the course of that operation that almost all Warsaw collections were lost. The Warsaw district officials oversaw the plundering of the city. It is under their command that flats were emptied, street after street. They would give a notification saying that the plundering in a given district had ended, and then the Brennkommando [burning unit] in uniforms, no one knows under whose authority, would set it all on fire. In this way were lost, as I said, all of the Warsaw collections that were still being salvaged with utmost dedication during the entire Uprising by a special unit for securing historic items, subordinate to Polish civil authorities – collections that we have to estimate at tens of thousands of artworks, and hundreds of thousands or millions of library stocks.
The defendant claimed that he’d helped Polish scholars who had been trying under my direction to secure the remains of the collections after the Uprising. I have to confirm that, but I also have to clarify the circumstances of that aid. One of the clauses in the surrender act provided for securing Polish cultural collections. How was this carried out? After the Uprising, the employees under Professor Zachwatowicz were driven out of the city and deported to camps before 6 October 1944. The securing was performed mainly by SS-Untersturmführer Arhard, supposedly from Munich, in such a way that he chose arbitrarily a number of items from several Warsaw collections and sent them away in an unknown direction that German authorities kept strictly confidential. The operation for the securing of the artworks lasted little more than two weeks in October, and then it ended. The group of Polish scholars who were in the vicinity of Warsaw after the Uprising started to receive information about the methodic burning of all streets and collections in mid- October. Around 15 October, the Krasiński Library [Biblioteka Krasińskich] was burned down, where the most valuable collections had been stored by the Germans – not by the central authorities, but by the district authorities headed by Dr. Witte as the district’s commissioner for Warsaw libraries. When the news came that two thousand incunables, 50 thousand most valuable manuscripts, more than 100 thousand old print books had been burned there, I called a special conspiratory conference on 17 October in Pruszków for around 20 scholars and artists (directors). I called the conference as the director of Civil Resistance [Walka Cywilna] in the field of culture and the head of cultural affairs with the Polish underground authorities during the entire occupation, as well as the speaker for the department for war indemnities with the Polish underground authorities. At the conference, we decided that it was necessary to demand that the surrender conditions be carried out immediately. The Vice-Mayor of Warsaw, Podwiński, authorized by the surrendering Polish authorities for matters related to the securing of historic objects, unsuccessfully tried to reach the German authorities. First, through the senior district official [starosta] in Pruszków, Dr. Albrecht, he tried to reach Governor Fischer in Sochaczew; he tried to reach Geibel – he was rejected everywhere. Then he tried to reach the German authorities through the intermediary of the presidium of the Main Welfare Council [Rada Główna Opiekuńcza, charity organization for Poles], Mr Wachowiak and Mr Machnicki. They said that the German authorities were of the opinion that the surrender conditions had been carried out, the valuable objects had been secured. Thus, during a second conference I called on 25 October in Pruszków, we decided to try other channels. I was authorized to apply for a personal meeting with Geibel through the presidium of the Main Welfare Council. I accepted the order. After a few days, Mr Wachowiak and Mr Machnicki did obtain such an audience for me. On 1 November 1944, I was summoned with them to the Räumungsstab at Wolska Street. Geibel, his staff, and Governor Fischer with a few of his officials were present there. The conference can be attested by both Wachowiak and Machnicki. I was told in advance that I was not allowed to mention the surrender conditions – that issue had been resolved. I was, however, allowed to explain the matter regarding the securing of some other collections. At the conference, I pointed out that it wasn’t the issue of Poland, but of the culture of the entire world if the invaluable cultural treasures that were still in Warsaw were destroyed and burned. Neither Geibel nor the defendant claimed that the items were not going to be burned. It was clear that everything was going to be burned, and that the buildings that housed the collections were going to be blown up. After quite a long conference, I was given two weeks and an authorization to take several railway cars. The conditions that I had put forward were the following: at least several hundred railway wagons, no deadline, transport limited to the Polish territory.
Indeed, it was at the last moment, as on 25 October the municipal archive had been set alight and burned. On 4 November, the Brennkommando deliberately set fire to the Archive of Modern Records [Archiwum Akt Nowych], thus erasing the archival trace of the twenty years of independence. However, only a part of the collections were secured in the Polish territory, namely, in Częstochowa. A large part was transported to Germany and was mostly lost.
Politically speaking, we pursued the following goal: we had to be on site in Warsaw at any cost, supervise, extend deadlines. And so we succeeded in extending those deadlines until the Germans’ retreat. One week after the other, always on some pretext. Then we would learn about, or we’d witness, the torching of historic houses, museums, the mining of the National Museum, crates with dynamite being placed in its cellars because the National Museum was supposed to be blown up at the beginning of November. We were at the National Library in mid-November 1944 when the Brennkommando came, and they left the building only thanks to the declaration that work was still being continued on the orders of the German authorities.
So again, there are documents saying that everything was supposed to be burned, everything was supposed to be destroyed.
We conducted two operations: the first one, known to defendant Fischer, and the second one that I directed, once more in my secret role. A unit of German cars that we had bribed was transporting items from the buildings that were already on fire. At the architecture faculty, directed by Professor Zachwatowicz, at Podwale Street, at Koszykowa Street, our colleagues belonging to that unofficial group carried away the unique vistas and plans of Warsaw that were already on fire, measurement photographs of historic buildings that serve today as the basis for the reconstruction of Warsaw’s monuments. It was that secret group that took the most beautiful Warsaw library collection, Korotyński’s Varsavianum, from a burning building, and salvaged many other collections in the same way.
Members of the Supreme Tribunal, the issue of the responsibility for all this...
I affirm once more: those are the facts, unique in modern times. There has been no such occurrence in which such library collections as those in the Krasiński Library were burned in the course of wartime operations, deliberately, and in which buildings that housed invaluable art treasures were mined and blown up.
After all, as late as on 16 January 1945, on the eve of the retreat, a public library building with half a million volumes was burned down. After all, the Saxon Palace and the Brühl Palace were blown up in December 1944, not during the course of the insurgent activities. After all, the Royal Castle wasn’t blown up during the Uprising, but after it. And the Old Town was not burned in the course of operations, but in mid-September, after the quarter had surrendered.
Those weren’t war necessities, and those weren’t average buildings.
After all, the Warsaw cathedral was blown up in mid-December, together with the Jesuits’ church and the Augustinians’ church.
And the Warsaw monuments? We were going around Warsaw, observing and writing down every day. The monument to Prince Józef Poniatowski by architect Thorvaldsen wasn’t blown up until Christmas. Others, like the monument to Mickiewicz, were blown up during the same period.
Since these facts are unique in the modern history of the world, it is of utmost importance not only to determine who gave the main order, who was the initiator, but also who collaborated. That is why in conclusion, I have to repeat once more: Rodig, Leist, Abb, the libraries’ director, Schellenberg, the museums’ director, and many others – the first wasn’t a district official, the second was only partially a district official, but a number of the Warsaw district officials carried out the looting synchronized with the Brennkommando and the army units who laid mines and placed dynamite.
Prosecutor Siewierski: – Was Geibel the SS-und Polizeiführer for the Warsaw district?
Expert Witness Lorenz: – I’m unable to answer that. During the initial period after the Uprising, he had the rank of lieutenant-colonel. In the course of that operation, he was promoted to brigadier general, and he had the title of the SS-und Polizeiführer, I think, for the Warsaw district.