"This draft amounts to special legislation both in the sphere of actual law end in that of criminal procedure. In this connection the suggestions made by the Fuehrer's deputy have been taken into consideration to a great extent."
In referring to the various provisions of the ordinance, Schlegelberger has this to say?
"I have been in agreement with the opinion hald by the Fuehrer's deputy that a Pole is less sensitive to the imposition of an ordinary prison sentence; therefore, I have taken administrative measures to assure that Poles and Jews will be separated from other prisoners and that their imprisonment will be rendered more severe.
"For these new kinds of punishment the prisoners are to be lodged in camps and in prisons and are to be employed with hard and very hard labor. There are also administrative measures which provide for special disciplinary punishment; that is, imprisonment in an unlighted cell, transfer from a prison camp to a more rigorous prison camp, etc.
"A Pole or a Jew sentenced by a German court is not to be allowed in the future any legal remedy against the judgment. Neither will he have a right of appeal or be allowed to ask that the case be reopened. All sentences will take effect immediately. In the future Poles and Jews will also no longer be allowed to object to German judges on the grounds of prejudice nor will they be able to take an oath. Coercive measures against them are permissible under easier conditions.
"In this sphere of criminal procedure the draft clearly shows the difference in the political status of Germans on one side and Poles and Jews on the other.
"Criminal proceedings based on this draft will accordingly be characterized by the greatest possible speed, together with immediate execution of sentence and will, therefore, in no way be inferior to summary court proceedings.
The possibility of applying the most severe penalties in every appropriate case will enable the penal law administration to cooperate energetically in the realization of the Fuehrer's political aims in the Eastern territories."
One of the amendments to this decree on December 3, 1942, states that no German attorney is to undertake the defense of Polish persons before tribunals in the incorporated Eastern territories. This, in effect, prevented any accused person before these courts from having defense counsel since Polish lawyers were prohibited from engaging in any legal practice. That this prevision was received favorably by Ministry officials is indicated by a letter from the President of the Court of Appeals in Koenigsberg addressed to the Reich Minister of Justice shortly after this supplementary decree became effective. The judge, in the course of his letter, says this:
"It is in the German interest to continue to prohibit the defense of Poles by German jurists.
"I see no cause to lift or even to modify the present ban on defense of Poles by attorneys. On the contrary, the ban placed on the principle of rendering legal assistance to Poles by attorneys should be still further stressed and made more extensive."
To put to rest any fear that the ban of German attorneys would result in a competitive hardship on them, this judge has the following to say:
"The fear that, in the future, former Polish attorneys or counselors may be called in to act as legal advisers to Poles and may gain influence over then (i.e. German counsel) seems to me improbable. In the incorporated Eastern territories of my district, where, although the population numbers about one million, only three attorneys are established, it has not been observed that former Polish attorneys or counselors are engaging in activities connected with natters of law.
"It is, of course, much easier for the tribunal to have the case of a person charged put before them by a lawyer nicely arranged and in the German language. But the judge must dispense with these facilities when such great issues ere at stake for the German people."
The court will, in due course, have an opportunity to examine all of these documents and an opportunity to observe the ruthless manner in which this "special legislation" was administered. It is perhaps superfluous to quote a statement by the President of the Court of Appeals of Danzig summarizing the "situation" in his district for a two-month period in 1942 following the effective date of the decree of December 4, 1941. "There were", he says, "no complaints about too lenient decisions during the period reported on."
The defendant Schlegelberger, shortly after the decree became effective, conferred with the Reich Governor of Eastern territories and worked cut a system of administration pursuant to the decree of December 4, 1941, which (1) provided for summary court martials, (2) delegated to the Reich Governor the sole right to grant amnesty, and (3) agreed to the holding of civilian prisoners as hostages.
In summarizing the results of this conference the defendant Schlegelberger assured the Reich Governor that the "interest of the State can best be served by regulating matters along the lines of our unanimous consent."
It is thus clear that the extension of German law and German courts into the Eastern territories, especially insofar as the Poles and the Jews were concerned, eventually deprived them of any legal recourse whatsoever.
What has been said respecting the part played by key officials of the Ministry of Justice in extending German law and the German court system to the occupied territories is equally true of Czechoslovakia and particularly the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. In one sense, by virtue of the fact that Czechoslovakia fell to the Nazis before the war, the experience there served as a proving ground for measures which were later extended to the Eastern territories and other occupied countries.
The decree cf April 14, 1939, and the decrees of November 2, 1942, and of July 1, 1943, the texts of which, among others will be presented in evidence, mark the progress of the Nazis in extending German jurisdiction to Czechoslovakia and are mute evidence of the "legal" justification for the robbery, extortion and atrocities, the knowledge of which have already shocked the world. The Prosecution will show that the Ministry of Justice not only had full knowledge of what was going on in the Protectorate but its "experts" took a leading part in the establishment and administration of the court system in the Protectorate from the very outset to the end of the war as they did in the Eastern territories.
As the evidence unfolds we will see the defendant Schlegelberger active in drafting "legal justification". We shall see the defendant Lautz concerned with even minute matters cf administration of the People's Court in the trial of Czechoslovakian nationals both in Prague and those removed for trial to Berlin, and we shall note that many of the other defendants were called upon from time to time for their assistance in making the court system function 92 to the maximum required by National Socialist policies as they were enforced upon the Czechoslovakian nation.
In refusing citizens of occupied territories protection of the law the defendants abetted and brought about the murder of thousands of persons. The acts of the defendants violated the laws of the countries where committed and were repugnant to the laws of every civilized country. In administering occupied territory, the defendants were bound by the Hague Convention to respect "family Honor and rights". These obligations the defendants ignored, and so squarely placed themselves in the category of common war criminals.
On the 7th of December 1941, the so-called Nacht und Nebel, or Night and Fog decree was issued pursuant to the orders of Hitler and Keitel. Perhaps never in world history has there been a more perverted and daibolical plot for intimidation and repression than this. Its terms provided that in case of continued resistance on the part of the inhabitants of certain of the occupied countries, but largely aimed at France, Belgium and the low countries, the suspected perpetrators should be spirited away without any indication of their whereabouts or eventual fate. The victims were to be tried by the OKI in the occupied territories only when it appeared probable that death sentences would be quickly passed and executed. The others were to be taken to Germany, there to be tried by Special Courts. Whether the death sentence was there imposed, prison sentences given or the individuals "acquitted", the first and foremost purpose -- that of complete secrecy so far as their family and friends were concerned -- was to be preserved. It is thus clear that the cognemen of "Night and Fog" was well chosen since in theory and practice the victims vanished as in the blackness of night and were never heard of again.
In the IMT opinion, the Court observed that:
"The evidence is quite overwhelming of a systematic rule of violence, brutality, and terror."
Continuing with the IMT decision:
"After these civilians arrived in Germany, no word of them was permitted to reach the country from which they care, or even their relatives; even in eases when they died awaiting trial the families were not informed, the purpose being to create anxiety in the minds of the family of the arrested person.
Hitler's purpose in issuing this decree was stated by the defendant Keitel in a covering letter, dated 12 December 1941, to be as follows:"
"Efficient and enduring intimidation an only be achieved either by capital punishment or by measures by which the relatives of the criminal and the population do not know the fate of the criminal. This aim is achieved when the criminal is transferred to Germany."
Preparations for the carrying out of the decree on the part of the Wehrmacht were entrusted to Lt, General Lehman of the Legal Department of the OKW. He conferred with various members of the Ministry of Justice to determine whether the Ministry would be able and willing to assume the trials of the captured individuals shipped to Germany from the occupied countries. It is more than interesting to note from a statement signed by General Lehman that, in his opinion, the defendant Schlegelberger was the only official in the Ministry of Justice at that time who had the authority to assume the trial of these cases.
The total number of victims of "Nacht und Nobel" may never be known but we do know that as of November 1, 1943 the Wehrmacht had delivered a total of more than 5 200 "Nacht und Nobel" prisoners far trial to the several courts throughout Germany designated by the Ministry of Justice far that purpose.
Originally there were four Special Courts assigned to handle the "Nacht und Nebel" cases. The Special Court at Kiel was assigned to the cases arising in Norway, Cologne to the French cases, Essen to Belgium, and Berlin for cases of a special nature. In the latter stages of the "Nacht und Nebel" program the effectiveness of allied bombing made it necessary to shift the location of some of these courts, principally in the transfer cf the Cologne court to Ereslau and the Essen court to Hamm.
When we call the roll of the defendants before us today who acted in and were principally responsible for the large part which the Ministry of Justice played in the "Nacht und Nebel" program, we find there the names of Schlegelberger, von Ammon, Mettgenberg, Lautz, Engert and Joel, in addition to others who played less conspicuous, if not less important, roles. If we were to select one of these men, who, above all others, should have known the criminal nature of the "Nacht und Nebel" program, such a man might very well have been the defendant von Ammon who was the Ministry of Justice's specialist in international law. Yet the fact is that the name of von Ammon together with that of Mettgenberg recur again and again as the principal negotiators with the OKW in matters concerning the application of law and the administration of the "Nacht und Nebel" program.
The Reich Minister of Justice, in a letter to the public prosecutors charged with trying "Nacht und Nebel" cases, outlined in detail the measures which were to be taken to assure complete secrecy of the trials. This letter, from which we quote extensively as follows was endorsed, among others, by von Ammon:
"With regard to criminal procedures on account of punishable offenses against the Reich or against the Occupying Forces in the occupied territories, I request observance of the following directives, in order not to endanger the necessary top secrecy of the procedure, particularly regarding the execution of death sentences and other cases of death among prisoners:
"1. The cards used for investigations for the Reich Criminal Statistics need not be filled in. Likewise, notification of the penal records office will be discontinued until further notice. However, sentences will have to be registered in lists or on a card-index in order to make possible an entry into the penal records in due course.
"2. In cases cf death, especially in cases of execution of NNprisoners, as well as in cases of Female NN-prisoners giving birth to a child, the registrar must be notified as prescribed by law.
However, the following remark has to be added:
"'By order of the Reich Minister of the Interior, the entry into the death (birth) registry must bear an endorsement, saying that examination of the papers, furnishing of information and of certified copies of death or birth certificates is admissible only with the consent of the Reich Minister of Justice.'
"3. In case an NN-prisoner sentenced to death desires to draw up a public will, the judge or notary public and, if necessary, other persons whose presence is required, will have access to the prisoner. Only officials of the Ministry of Justice may be called as witnesses. The persons who assist the drawing up of the will are, if necessary, to be sworn to secrecy. The will has to be taken into official custody according to article 2 of the Testaments Law. The disposition receipt has to be kept by the Prosecution until further notice.
"4. Farewell letters by NN-prisoners as well as other letters must not be mailed. They have to be forwarded to the Prosecution who will keep them until further notice.
"5. If an NN-prisoner who has been sentenced to death and informed of the forthcoming execution of the death sentence desires spiritual assistance by the prison padre, this will be granted. If necessary the padre must be sworn to secrecy.
"6. The relatives will not be informed of the death and especially of the execution of an NN-prisoner. The press will not be informed of the execution of a death sentence by public announcement in posters.
"7. The bodies of executed NN-prisoners or prisoners who died from other causes have to be turned over to the State Police for burial. Reference must be made to the existing regulations on secrecy. It must be pointed out especially that the graves of NN-prisoners must not be marked with the names of the deceased.
"The bodies must not be used for teaching or research purposes.
"8. Legacies of NN-prisoners who have been executed or died from other causes must be kept at the prison where the sentence was served."
It is not our purpose here to review all of the gruesome details of carrying out the spirit of the "Nacht und Nebel" program which became the daily routine of these defendants. As the court will see, all of the stipulations regarding the secrecy of the original decree and indeed the addition of other unbelievably harsh and inhuman provisions were systematically executed and improved upon by these men. If, to take one example, the Wehrmacht erroneously arrested in the occupied countries individuals who wore patently innocent of any resistance to the Nazis, these victims, in order to preserve the secrecy of the program, had to be treated in exactly the same way as other individuals who managed to escape with a prison sentence. Never did the families and friends of the convicted or innocent knew their fate. I the alleged trials before the Special Courts none of the accused was, at any time, ever able to introduce evidence from his own country as to his innocence and, in no case, were the accused permitted to choose legal counsel other than that assigned to them by the court.
Again the defendants flagrantly violated rights secured by the Hague Convention of citizens of countries occupied by the German armed forces-the right of family honor, the lives of persons, and the right to be judged under their own laws.
Mr. Wooleyhen will continue the reading of the opening statement.
THE PRESIDENT: The Court will have a recess at this time before you begin your opening statement.
(A recess was taken)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed with your statement.
MR. WOOLEYHEN: Illegal Transfer of Prison Inmates to Concentration Camps.
A Ministry of Justice policy of extermination through calculated denial of all judicial and penal process, in close collaboration with the Gestapo and SS, characterizes the second substantive group of crimes previously mentioned. By 1939, inspections of Reich penitentiaries operated by the Ministry of Justice disclosed that large number of political prisoners in security detention were engaged in paid labor on projects incompatible with the rearmament effort which then was at a climax. At Hitler's order these prison inmates were transferred to concentration camps where their work could be both unpaid and of more use to munition requirements. Thus was initiated a program which was to eventually erase any practical difference between the fates of those victims who were put through the shams of criminal court procedure, and those who were thrown by the police into concentration camps without the formality of a hearing.
Apparently noting that transfers from Reich prisons to concentration camps aroused no immediate public clamor or official opposition, judges saw therein an outlet for increasingly burdensome members of criminal cases, particularly political cases as the defendant Engert has stated:
"In 1940 or 1941 I wrote to Himmler suggestion that he take me into the Gestapo. My idea was to get closer in touch with the Gestapo in order to get an insight into the activities of the Gestapo, and then to reach a better relationship between the Gestapo and the People's Court ....I also wanted to prevent the possibility of insignificant cases being brought up in the People's Court which could be bettor handed over to the Gestapo for a short term internment in a concentration camp."
About the time that Engert, then Vice President of the People's Court, made this overture to Himmler, he began to complain officially that it was incompatible with the respect, dignity and tasks of the People's Court to try minor political cases. He opined that such cases could be settled more quickly and effectively by transferring the culprit to a concentration camp. Thierack, then President of the People's Court, in heartily endorsing Engert's attitude, wrote to the Minister of Justice in 1940 in part as follows:
"However right it is to exterminate harshly and uproot all the seeds of insurrection, as for example we see them in Bohemia and Moravia, it is wrong for every follower, even the smallest, to be given the honor of appearing for trial and being judged for high treason before the People's Court or, failing that, before an appellate court. In order to deal with those small cases and even with the smallest, the culprits should surely be shown that German sovereignty will not put up with their behaviour and will take action accordingly. That can be done in a different way and I think in a more advantageous one, than through the tedious and also very expensive and ponderous channels of court procedure. I have therefore no objection whatsoever, if all the small hangers-on who are somehow connected with the high treason plans which have been woven and abetted and plotted by others, are brought to their senses by being transferred to a concentration camp for some time."
These opinions and desires of Engert and Thierack found eager a sympathetic audience with the Gestapo and SS, resulting in working agreements between these agencies and the Ministry of Justice whereby such illegal transfers could be accomplished outside the law. As the International Military Tribunal in its judgment has found:
"An agreement made with the Ministry of Justice on 18 September 1942 provided that anti-social elements who had finished prison sentences were to be delivered to the SS to be worked to death."
This agreement, it will be noted, expanded the initial ideas of Engert and Thierack far beyond any mere hastening of minor political court cases or exploitation of prison labor. The agreement introduced the idea of exterminating the so-called "asocials", i.e. persons who for either racial, political or personality reasons were deemed unfit to live. Within a month after this agreement had been worked out and put into practive, it was expanded further to include not only those "asocial" elements who had finished their prison sentences, but also all Jews, Gypsies, Russians and Ukranians who were detained under arrest or imprisonment in any Reich penitentiary or work house as well as all Poles who were sentenced to more than 3 years.
Now, since the intentional design was to literally work these people to death once they were transferred to concentration camps, this expanded illegal agreement actually rendered any court sentence for any crime tantamount to a death sentence.
In some cases the death awaiting those unfortunates was not long in coming. For example, a situation report in 1942 from the Attorney General of the Court of Appeals in Berlin to the defendant Schlegelberger, while the latter was Acting Minister of Justice, revealed the following episode:
"In this connection I think I ought to point out that only recently perpetrators have been repeatedly handed over to the Gestapo. Also, there was no sufficient cause therefor, to be found in my opinion, in the conduct of the Justice authorities.
I am referring to criminal procedures against Skibbe and others--" than follows the citation of the case in the German files-- "in which 4 defendants, 26, 22, 20 and 18 years of age accused of committing 23, 19, 15 and 12 completed or attempted robberies by taking advantage of air raid protection measures, were sentenced by the Special Court of Berlin to 7, 6 and 5½ years of penal servitude and loss of civil rights for 10 years each. Although 3 of the perpetrators had not been convicted previously and the 4th one only of 2 comparatively minor crimes, in addition to all of them being still comparatively young and, at least in my opinion, the pronounced penalties being not inadequate, these perpetrators were handed over to the Gestapo. They were shot, as could be seen from the newspaper reports because they offered resistance.' May I remark that it is hardly unknown to the public any longer that these shootings 'because of resistance offered' are actually caused by other considerations."
Still operating completely beyond any existing law decree or regulation, this same cabal of justice officials, SS and Gestapo extended this policy of extermination through the occupied Eastern territories. As the SS and SD offices throughout those Eastern countries were instructed in November 1942:
"The Reichsfuehrer-SS has come to an agreement with the Reich Minister of Justice Thierack that the courts will forego the carrying out of regular criminal procedures against Poles and members of the Eastern peoples. These people of foreign extraction henceforth shall be turned over to the police. Jews and Gypsies are to be treated likewise. This agreement was approved by the Fuehrer."
These instructions to the SS and SD in the East continue:
"Those considerations which may be right for the punishment of an offense committed by a German, are wrong with regard to the punishment of an offense committed by a persons of foreign extraction. The personal motives of the offender are to be disregarded completely. Important is only that this offense endangers the order of the German community and that, therefore, measures must be taken to prevent further dangers. In other words, the offense committed by a person of foreign extraction is not to be judged from the point of view of legal retribution by way of justice, but from the point of view of preventing danger through police action. From this follows that the criminal procedure against persons of foreign extraction must be transferred from the courts to the police."
With the Jews, Poles, Gypsies, Ukranians and other so-called "asocial" persons throughout the occupied East relegated to a carefully prepared death, this same unholy alliance returned its attention to the Reich and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. There, by the infamous decree of 1 July 1943, signed among others by Thierack, all of the foregoing perversions of judicial and penal process were tardily "legalized" by officially denying to all Jews any recourse to the criminal courts and committed any Jews accused of an undefined "criminal action" to the Police.
With grim humor the following article of that statute ordered the confiscation by the Reich of a Jew's property after his death.
This decree completed the absolute disfranchisement and expropriation of property of Jews in the Third Reich and Bohemia and Moravia who had not already, by that time, been deported or slain.
Prison inmates not transferred to concentration camps, pursuant to the foregoing program, were hardly better off in Reich prisons under the hospitality of the Minister of Justice. The defendant Joel had a working agreement with a deputy of Himmler's whereby he turned over to the SS, for shooting, those defendants whose sentences by the courts were deemed insufficient by Hitler who followed published decisions in the newspapers. A number of charts tabulating the shootings of such defendants, many of whom had received only minor sentences, attest to Joel's zealous activity on this score.
Schlegelberger, too, studiously connected what was deemed a "legal basis" for these shootings of prison inflates serving minor sentences.
Judicial murders in violation of international law.
Victims of the People's Court, Special Courts, and civil courts martial were judicially murdered by certain of the defendants using a variety of legalistic artifices, all of which had the obvious common denominator of a zealous desire to exterminate even trifling activity not even deemed misdeamors by the community of civilized nations. One such artifice frequently employed was a subjective, conclusive assumption by the judges and prosecutors of proof of the very issues tried. For example, after the Nazi importation of forced labor from the occupied East had collected large numbers of foreign workers within the Reich at various war jobs against their will, escape efforts by such workers across Reich frontiers to their homeland or elsewhere became frequent. These escapees, when apprehended by border officials, were normally handed ever to the People's Court for trial for preparation of high treason, which bore a mandatory sentence of death. The applicable section cf the German Criminal Code defined high treason in this contest "as an attempt to incorporate by violence or by threat of violence the German territory in its entirety or in part into a foreign state or to detach from the Reich territory belonging to the Reich." The escapees were indicted, inconceivable as it may be, for the violation of this provision.
In grasping for some legal straw upon which to base a conviction on these grounds, the courts created a whole--cloth assumption that such escapees were heading through Switzerland, or wherever they might have been picked up, in an effort to join some military legion hostile to the Reich. The Reich prosecutors were drawn into this scheme. Walter Brem, a former assistant to the Chief Prosecutor at the People's Court, described the situation thus:
"The majority of these cases concerned foreign laborers who wated to look for a job in Switzerland because of inadequate salaries and insufficient food rations in the Reich. The prosecution, however, claimed that foreign legions were being established in Switzerland and that every foreigner wanted to cross the border illegally to join up with such legions. I was ordered by the prosecutor of the People's Court to connect the accused somehow with the foreign legions.
I have never received a positive answer about these alleged organizations and the whole concept was known to the foreigners only as a rumor. Individual proofs of any acts of high treason could not be established; however, the prosecution bas** its claims on the assumption that such foreign laborers would behave in a hostile manner against Germany once given the opportunity."
This contention was acceptable to judges of the People's Court. On 12 August, 1942, three Polish defendants, Mazur, Kubisz, and Nowakowski, pursuant to an indictment signed by the defendant Lautz, were sentenced to death by the People's Court for preparation of high treason and attempting to separate a portion of the Reich by force. They had left their factory in Thuringa and proceeded across the Swiss border where they were apprehended by Swiss officials and returned to the Reich. As reasons fer their escape the defendants cited the hard working conditions to which they had been exposed. Kubisz testified that the meals consisted only of soup. Mazur stated that his work in the quarry was so hard that he feared he would not survive the winter. The defendants stated they had hoped to find better working conditions in Switzerland. They denied having had any knowledge of the existence of a Polish Legion in Switzerland. The prosecution offered no evidence to impeach this testimony in any way.
Nevertheless, the People's Court found that the defendants' statements were more excuses, that the existence of a Polish Legion in Switzerland was "generally known", and that the defendants intended to join this legion. This judicial assumption was buttressed by a physician's certificate which showed all three defendants to be in excellent health and qualified for active service. Therefore, the court "was convinced" that the defendants had discussed the fate of Poland and her people with their camp mates in the factory barracks and had decided to join the Polish legion in Switzerland. The court said that it know of a pact with Russia that the Polish Government in exile had formed and that this fact had been broadcast by the British radio. The court knew, furthermore, that in the past Polish workers had repeatedly fled to Switzerland where they were recruited for the Polish legion, and I quote a portion of the court's decision:
"These circumstances force the court to the conclusion that the defendants intended to join the Polish Legion in Switzerland."
With regard to verbal remarks deemed seditious or deleterious to the "German peoples' defensive strength", People's Court sentences were not only outrageously unjustified, but reached the climax of judicial caprice. The Austrian taxicab driver, Rudolf Kozian, pursuant to an indictment signed by Lautz, was sentenced to death on 26 June 1944 for making certain uncomplimentary remarks concerning Hitler and the progress of the war. In the course of conversation while driving a female customer, who later denounced him to the Gestapo, he made remarks typified by the following: "To us Viennese it's all the same from whom we receive our bread whether his name is Stalin, Churchill or Hitler. What matters is that we can live ... When I quarrel with someone and see that I can no longer carry on then I step and do not continue the fight until everything is destroyed. The Fuehrer in his speech said that he would destroy us all. The Fuehrer has said that this war will be fought until one side will be annihilated. Every child knows that we are that side, unless the Fuehrer will come to his senses before then and offers peace to the enemy." The Court found the defendant guilty of having attempted to undermine the German morale to such an extent that he was deemed to come within the special emergency decree authorizing death for impairing German defensive strength.
Contrast the foregoing case of the Austrian taxi driver, resident of a country occupied and annexed by illegal aggressive acts, with that of Mrs. Von Brincken, a German Nazi, who was indicted in August 1944 for having made similar statements in a conversation with friends at the seashore. When the man who had rented her a beach chair became angry about the careless way in which his chair was treated, Mrs. Von Brincken was alleged to have said: "Well, don't worry, the Russian commissars will be sitting in them next year." She was also vocally indignant to her neighbors because her seventeen year old daughter had just been drafted for labor assignment in the country, and said: "It would do the farmers no good; they would only get more work and more worry since the girl could not do anything but eat."
Due to the intercession of both her husband, a colonel, and a notorious SS general who was a friend of the family, she was released with an admonition.
Such judicial discrimination with death as the forfeit, is explained by the defendant Petersen, a lay judge at the People's Court from 1941 until the end of the war:
"The sentences of the People's Court can be understood only if one keeps in mind the intent underlying the penalties. This was not primarily that of imposing punishment in accordance with normal 'bourgeois' conceptions of crime and punishment, but rather of annihilating an opposition which could become detrimental to the German aims."
DR. ASCHENAUER: Defense counsel for the defendant Petersen. By my motion of 21 February 1947 I objected to the submission of the affidavit of the Defendant Petersen. On 27 February 1947, I specified the motion. It says: "The Defense is not permitted to introduce the affidavit and the interrogations under oath of the defendant Petersen into the proceedings. On 21 February 1947 I gave the reasons for the motion which are as follows: From 12 June until the end of 1946, the Defendant Petersen was in the Langwasser Camp. As a patient, he was moved to the Regensburg Camp where his medical treatment was continued. Already at Langwasser, Petersen was pronounced unfit for transport. In spite of medical treatment, he was moved to Nuernberg. As he collapsed in Regensburg, medical treatment for circulation disturbance was continued at the court prison here; the circulation disturbance improved only at Christmas 1946. Accommodation in a cell in which half a window was missing, was naturally very detrimental to the state of health of the 61-year old defendant Peterson. Therefore, -
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel for the Defendant is advised that the statement of counsel is not evidence in this case. It is merely a statement of what later will be introduced in evidence. If this statement is introduced in evidence, you can make your objection and it will then be ruled upon. For the moment, the Prosecution will continue its statement.
DR. ASCHENAUER: I should only like to point out that this is the same affidavit which is being presented here and that this affidavit is due to the psychological condition of the witness.
THE PRESIDENT: I repeat. This is not evidence. This is merely a statement of what will later be introduced in evidence. At that time, if you have an objection, it will be considered. At this time, you may not interrupt the statement of the Prosecution.
DR. ASCHENAUER: I will raise my objection at a later time.
MR. WOOLEYHAN: To get the proper context, I will begin at the beginning of the excerpt included in the opening statement.
"The sentences of the People's Court can be understood only if one keeps in mind the intent underlying the penalties. This was not primarily that of imposing punishment in accordance with normal "bourgeois' conceptions of crime and punishment, but rather of annihilating an opposition which could become detrimental to the German aims. This was our duty. Hence, after a defendant had been brought before the People's Court because of some act or utterance, his actual deed was of no particular importance in the determination of the punishment within the framework of the law. The important thing was whether the man had to be exterminated from the community of the people as a 'public enemy' because of his personal attitudes and his social or anti-social tendencies."
The further artifice of "punishment by analogy", previously mentioned generally, was a tyrannical in practice as it seems in theory. Revolting examples of this procedure in action are legion. A particularly notorious case that turned on this ground was that of Lehmann Katzenberger, sixty-eight year old former chairman of the Nurnberg Jewish Congregation. Katzenberger was indicted by the Nurnberg District Court for so-called "racial pollution", having been accused of sexual relations with one Irene Seiler, an Ayran woman. The police tried desperately without success to secure the necessary conclusive evidence, but Katzenberger and Seiler, both well known figures of some prestige in the community, denied under oath any illicit relationship. There were no witnesses to or other evidence of the accused act. Since an acquittal of the Jew was unthinkable, particularly in Nurnberg which was the hearthstone of the Jew-baiter Streicher, and whose newspaper "DER STURMER" widely publicized the story, Katzenberger was remanded to the Nurnberg Special Court, tried as a "public enemy", sentenced to death and executed.