ONE of the most interesting characters in the history of the Third Reich and the Holocaust is the SS judge Konrad Morgen, now deceased, who maintained a flourishing law practice after the war in Frankfurt.

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Extracts from Transcript of John Toland's interview with Konrad Morgenat Frankfurt am Main, October 25, 1971

 

(1909 --   )

See transcript of John Toland's interview with --, at Frankfurt am Main, Oct 25, 1971, John Toland Papers: Franklin D. Roosevelt Library: box #53: file, "Mi--Mz."

-- wrote book, published in Leipzig, 1936; first saw Hitler ca 1935; glad Hitler was given (1945) chance to fail; not a martyr; Speer and verbrannte Erde; experiences as Judge in III Reich; Freisler.

-- was judge in SS Kriegsgericht;

"I personally arrested Koch and Frau Koch (Buchenwald) and sentenced him to death: the Koch/Buchenwald case, details; the Hoess case, Auschwitz; Sachsenhausen, SSBrigf.Glück -- prisoners had a better life in KZ than at home; investigated Auschwitz 1944, after gold smuggling case was investigated; Hoess transferred out of A. after investigation completed.

Toland asks: "Now you know all the claims after the war, at Nuremberg, 6 Million Jews etc. What do you think of that?"

Morgen answers: "I think it's right."

As for Auschwitz, he blamed the officers:

"The officers in the KZ made it easy for themselves. When new inmates arrived and he had no room, they took out the last batch, put them up against the wall and shot them, and made room for the net batch. They were brought in every Friday, each week.";

-- had been dismissed previous job, SS-Gericht Krakau, as "soft"; believes Hoess confession was "straight"; M believed Hitler knew [of the extermination edict], "he had to know."

Morgen says of the 6 Million: "It is hard to believe such a figure"; recalls "that Jews helped to kill their own people." Refused to testify at IMT that Frau Ilse Koch made lampshades -- "The Americans almost killed me for it... They threatened three times to turn me over to the Russians or French or Poles and had started to transfer me."

John Toland Papers: Franklin D. Roosevelt Library: box #53:, file, “Mi–Mz.”; cf Morgen’s testimony, IMT, Aug 7-8, 1946, pp.488-515