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The Warsaw Ghetto: Statement by Stroop to Investigators About his Actions in the Warsaw Ghetto

(February 24, 1946)

Before me, Major Luke P. Rogers, being authorized to administer oaths, personally appeared Juergen Stroop who, being duly sworn, through the interpreter. made and subscribed the following statement:

My name is Juergen Stroop. I was SS and Polizeifuehrer of the District of Warsaw from the 17th or 18th of April 1943, until the end of August 1943. The action against the Warsaw ghetto was planned by my predecessor, SS Oberfuehrer Doctor von Sammern-Frankenegg. On the day of the commencement of this action I took over the command and von Sammern-Frankenegg explained to me what was to be done. He had the order from Himmler before him, and in addition I received a teletype from Himmler which ordered me to clear the Warsaw ghetto and raze it to the ground. To carry this out, I had two battalions of Waffen-SS, one hundred army men, units of Order Police, and seventy-five to a hundred Security Police people. The Security Police had been active in the Warsaw ghetto for some time, and during this program it was their function to accompany SS units in groups of six or eight, as guides and experts in ghetto matters. Obersturmbannfuehrer Doctor Hahn was commander of the Security Police of Warsaw at. this time. Hahn gave the Security Police its orders concerning their tasks in this action. These orders were not given to Hahn by me, but came from Kaltenbrunner in Berlin. As SS and Polizeifuehrer of Warsaw I gave no orders to the Security Police. All orders came to Hahn from Kaltenbrunner in Berlin. For example, in June or July of the same year, I was together with Hahn in Kaltenbrunner's office and Kaltenbrunner told me that while Hahn and I must work together, all basic orders to the Security Police must come from him in Berlin.

After the people had been taken out of the Ghetto, numbering from fifty to sixty thousand, they were brought to the railroad station. The Security Police had absolute supervision of these people, and was in charge of the transport of these people to Lublin.

Immediately after the ghetto action had been completed, about three hundred foreign Jews had been collected at the Polski Hotel. These people had partly been here before the action, and partly brought here during the action. Kaltenbrunner ordered Hahn to transport these people away. Hahn himself told me that he had received this order from Kaltenbrunner.

All executions [literally, carrying out death sentences] were ordered by the Reich Main Security Office, Kaltenbrunner.

I have read this statement over and I have understood it completely. I have made the statement freely and without compulsion. I swear before God that. this is the full truth.

[signed] Juergen Stroop

Subscribed and sworn to before me at Wiesbaden, Germany, on this 24th day of February 1946.

[signed] Luke P. Rogers
Major CMP
Investigating Officer


Source:Copy of Document 3841-PS, pp. 777-78, The Nizkor Project