Documentation from trial conducted in Landesgericht Klagenfurt (the Klagenfurt District Court) against members of the HSSPF (Höhere SS- und Polizeiführer-Higher SS and Police Leader) Lublin; Testimony by Franz Bertl, former driver of Odilo Globocnik and other members of the SSPF in Lublin and Cracow, 1965

Documentation from trial conducted in Landesgericht Klagenfurt (the Klagenfurt District Court) against members of the HSSPF (Höhere SS- und Polizeiführer-Higher SS and Police Leader) Lublin; Testimony by Franz Bertl, former driver of Odilo Globocnik and and other members of the SSPF in Lublin and Cracow, 1965 Documentation from a trial conducted against Austrian war criminals, most of whom participated in "Aktion Reinhardt": - Investigation against Hermann Hoefle started in Landesgericht Linz (the Linz District Court) in 1947 (Vg8 6771/47); - Main part of the investigation conducted by Landesgericht Salzburg (the Salzburg District Court) from 1956 (11a Vr 1382/56) and Landesgericht Wien (the Vienna District Court) from 1962 (27c Vr 852/62); - Final investigation conducted by Landesgericht Klagenfurt (the Klagenfurt District Court), 1962-1971 (25 Vr 3123/71); - Transfer of the files to the various courts and emendation of the signatures, as well as commencement of various other trials against other Austrian war criminals during the investigation; - Copying of the documents at Landesgericht Klagenfurt and transfer of the copies to Yad Vashem. The overall arrangement of the files includes three kinds of volumes: - General volumes containing general administrational information regarding the trial, indexes and collections; - Appendix volumes containing statements and information from trials dealing with similar cases from Germany, mostly from Hamburg; - Main volumes containing documentation, statements and correspondence from the trial. This file is part of a General Volume; it contains the testimony given by Franz Bertl in Klagenfurt, 29 April and 09 November 1965: Testimony given in Klagenfurt, 29 April 1965: - Born 27 September 1903; - Driver for Odilo Globocnik, Reinhold von Mohrenschild and other members of the SSPF in Lublin and Cracow; served In Lublin from February 1940; transferred to Cracow, spring of 1942; in charge of the Fahrbereitschaft (motor pool) in the Lipowa camp; Benedikt Farkas also drove Globocnik, but the witness was the main driver for the Stabsfuehrer (Staff Leader); - Names of other drivers in the department in Lublin, including Hans Lemke, Bonnblum, Leopold Veit, Eigner and Farkas; - Denial that he wore a uniform; - Description of the liquidation of the "small ghetto" and the way the ghetto was burned down; description of help given to a Jew who had rescued his child from the flames, by driving him to and away from the ghetto with Globocnik's car; the sight of corpses of Jews who were shot on the street during the liquidation; claim that he never witnessed actual shootings, but he heard of them; resettlement of the Jews in the large ghetto; participation of the SS Reiter-Schwadren unit in the liquidation; - Witness to an "Aktion" against Jews in Tarnow, 1941, where he had driven Globocnik; description of how the Jews were herded together at the marketplace; observation by members of the Kanzlei des Fuehrers from Berlin; drunkenness of many of the SS soldiers who hit the Jews with the butts of their rifles, killing many of them; shooting of the Jews, all men, at the cemetery; - Witness to the shooting of the patients of the Hospital for the Mentally Ill in Cholm, summer 1941; even Himmler participated in this drive from Lublin to Cholm; description of the shooting process under the direction of the Waffen SS; ordering of the Jews to sing, and shooting a Jew when he stopped singing; - Inability to name members of the SS Reiter-Schwadren. - Hearing from Farkas or Veigh of an "Aktion" against a Polish village conducted by the Dirlewanger unit; the village was burned down and many people were shot; - Conditions in the Lipowa camp; command of the camp first by Horst Riedel, and then by Wolfgang Mohwinkel; the witness never witnessed the shooting of Jews although he heard that there were shootings (pp. 3-12). Testimony given in Klagenfurt, 09 November 1965: - Questions posed regarding various defendants whom he said he did not know. - Inability to give any information regarding the euthanasia centre; inability to identify defendants from the pictures. - Testimony regarding N. Pichler who had a brothel in Lublin, lived in a house next to the SSPF and was a civil servant (pp.13-15).