Copy of document 3841-PS

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

                                                              [Page 778]

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

     [signed]  Luke P. Rogers
     Major CMP
     Investigating Officer