Q. Did the bill become law?
A. No, the OKW objected to the bill and then it was defeated.
Q. Was your attitude in this matter and your behavor something that was the usual thing?
A. No, it was something very unusual. Normally, it is absolutely untenable that a ministerial official, behind the back of the minister, fights against the decisions made by the minister. But from the point of view of the idea of a constitutional state, the law was so untenable that I considered being bound by the law of higher duty that my duty of obedience to my superior.
Q. The prosecution has submitted as Exhibit 435, Document NG-889, a report of a meeting of the Party Chancellery in Munich on 22 June 1943. It deals with questions which were connected with the decree regarding the Party responsibility. Do you remember this affair?
A. Yes.
Q. The defendant Klemm has testified about this Party responsibility decree already when he was a witness. Will you please briefly describe again what was supposed to be the purpose of this decree?
A. This too is a draft of law which mainly contained three points. First, contrary to prevailing law, the Party was not supposed to be made responsible under law for damage which an official of the Party had inflicted while he had carried out his Party activity contrary to law.
Secondly, the courts were supposed to be bound by so-called political evaluations by Party offices without being able to review them, especially as to their factual basis.
Thirdly so-called standering complaints against trusted people of the Party were supposed to be excluded.
Q. What was your attitude regarding this fraft?
A. When I cam to the Ministry in 1943, this bill had already been completed. When I found out about it, I had serious misgivings. Quite obviously, it was aiming at a special law for the Party and its offices.
Furthermore, its purposes were to give a favorable position to the Party and its offices in the courts. I especially considered it absolutely untenable that the courts should be bound by any evaluations made by the Party offices. I started with that point by pretending that these two matters were not connected and actually they didn't belong together. I tried, under this pretense, to sever the questions of political evaluation from the so-called Party responsibility. I succeeded, at least to the extent that first of all, new discussions were supposed to be conducted about this. This is how the discussion of the 22 of June 1943 came about.
THE PRESIDENT: Was that in 1943?
THE WITNESS: Yes, that is 1943. The prosecution submitted a document about it.
BY DR. ORTH:
Q. Was an agreement reached at this meeting?
A. No, an agreement was not so important at all. My tactical aim was the following: to have this, in my opinion, completely misguided matter possibly dragged out until the end of the war. I was of the opinion that questions of such basic importance should not be decided during time of war, and I did not see any urgent need for it either. I did succeed in dragging this whole matter out, and it was also possible to do so in the future.
THE PRESIDENT: May I ask you a question? Who was supporting the bill which you opposed?
THE WITNESS: The bill was initiated by the Party Chancellery. Before I came to the Ministry, a discussion of this bill had already taken place among the participation departments. Those who were concerned with it were, as far as I remember, in addition to the Party Chancellery, the Reich Chancellery, the Ministry of the Interior, and I believe the Finance Ministry also.
THE PRESIDENT: I said who, by name, in the Party Chancellery was supporting this bill?
THE WITNESS: In the Party Chancellery, the bill was supported that is, represented---by a man called Link. I believe he was Reichstellenleiter in the Reich Party Treasury. The discussions on the 22 of June 1943 took place with the Chief of the Justice Group in the Party Chancellery. That was at that time Ministerial Director Klemm, and his Referent, Ministerial Councilor Enke. But they were only discussions which took place subsequent to what had already happened before, and if it hadn't been for Klemm, then it would not have been possible for us at all to bring this matter up again for discussion.
BY DR. ORTH:
Q. Witness, did this bill later become law?
A. No. I already stated that it remained a draft. But in 1943 and 1944, renewed discussions did take place. I, myself participated in a discussion, I believe, in that fall of 1944. At this time too, it was not possible to iron out the difficulties which existed, so that the bill, as I can say quite within the way I wanted it, was pigeon holed again.
Q. I now shall start on a new group of questions.
THE PRESIDENT: May I ask another question? What connection did that bill and the discussions concerning it have with Division VI on Civil Law, of which you were the head?
THE WITNESS: In the field of civil law, the question of political evaluation was of interest. That was the rain interest, for the question was used in order--for example---to break contracts of work in official organizations. I don't know whether you understood me. A complaint for dismissal was submitted and the reason that was given was that the employee or the worker cannot be employed any more be the official organization because he is politically unreliable. Mainly these official organization were connected with the Party. To prove that the person was not politically reliable, a political evaluation by a Forty office, which was competent, was submitted. And now, the issue before the court was whether this political evaluation is correct and true, or is not.
Since the courts in their review had asked fer facts in their examination, it was for the Party frequently unpleasant, because the allegations of the trusted people of the Party were in effect not in accordance with the facts. Therefore, the political opinion was wrong. Then the complaint was rejected.
THE PRESIDENT: I was asking you what it had to do with your department. These political evaluations came through your department, didn't they?
THE WITNESS: No.
THE PRESIDENT: Then you have not answered my question. I was asking you what this proposed bill had to do with your Abteilung VI, and you might limit your answer to that question.
THE WITNESS: The draft had something to do with my division because my division participated in these questions technically. The law regarding public corporations had in part something to with my division. The question of political evaluation was important in the case of workers' trials, in the appointment of quardians, in the question of the honor of farmers, in hereditary from estate courts.
THE PRESIDENT: Just a moment, Then you are new answering me that the matter of political evaluation did have something to do with your department, is that right? I understood you to just say that.
THE WITNESS: I would like to ask you that I may frame my answer in the following: the division was in charge of the supervision of the civil courts, and the civil courts had to deal with these questions I have just discussed. Therefore, complaints were addressed to the Ministry and they came to my division.
THE PRESIDENT: I think you have made it perfectly clear. Go ahead.
BY DR. ORTH:
Q. Witness, did this bill later became law?
A. No, I said--
THE PRESIDENT: That is the third tine the witness had been asked that and has answered it, and it was in evidence before by the witness Klemm.
BY DR. ORTH:
A: The defendant Rothenberger has testified regarding the office for the reorganization of the German judicature. Were you in charge of that office?
A. Yes. That office was a sub-division of Division VI, and usually I was also in charge of the sub-division.
Q. I now submit to you Document Exhibit 510 NG-988. Does this document contain the order of business of the office for the reorganization of the German judicature?
A. Yes.
Q. Will you please, in a few words, tell the Tribunal the tasks of this office.
A. The office had the task to prepare the factual and the legal lasis for reorganization of the German court system for the time after the war; furthermore, to prepare bills for the position and especiallyconcerning the independence of judges, a Judge's Law.
Court No. III, Case No. 3.
Q Witness, the Special Courts and the People's Court must have belonged also to the organization of the courts, is that correct?
A Yes.
Q Therefore you were forced within the scope of the preparations for the reorganization of the judicature to state your opinion also on the question of the existence of Special Courts and the People's Court, is that correct?
A Yes. But I may say that the People's Court and the Special Court, of course, had nothing to do with civil matters; furthermore, basically organizational questions did also not belong to my division. Thus I had to deal only with a possible future of reorganization of these courts within the scope of the preliminary work for the entire reorganization, and here the question was whether in the future Special Courts and the People's Courts were to be incorporated into the regular court system and how.
Q And what was your attitude?
A I, for one, have always been an opponent of those two courts. That has nothing to do with any matters which have been discussed here now. But that is connected with experiences which I had in Bavaria with the former Bavarian People's Court, and the considerations which were connected with that. In any case, I, for my own person, would be clear in my mind that these courts should be abolished as soon as possible. That was also the attitude of all of the members of the office for the reorganization of the German judicature.
THE PRESIDENT: A question, please. You all understood that this reform of the judicial procedure was not to take place until after the war, didn't you?
A Yes. I should like to finish my answer. I meant to say that I reported to the minister on that question and demanded from him to express a clear opinion on that point. At first Thierack did not want to have anything to do with it and said to me that during the war that was quite out of the question and there was no point in dis Court No. III, Case No. 3.cussing it.
But finally I got him to agree with me, to the effect that those courts were to disappear when all courts would be reorganized.
BY DR. ORTHA:
Q The prosecution charges the defendant with having removed the independence of the judges and with having allowed interference on the part of the Party with the Administration of Justice. I have a few questions to ask you concerning that charge. Were you, yourself, as long as you were judge with the Reich Supreme Court, able to make your decisions in a free and independent manner?
A Yes.
Q Do you remember any case from that period where an attempt was made to interfere with the Administration of Justice from any quarter?
A No. You mean with the Reich Supreme Court? No, I never heard of any such case. Anyhow, I can't recall any such case.
Q Did you as a department chief at the Reich Ministry of Justice ever hear of any cases where anybody tried to interfere with the legal practice of the courts in civil cases, and what was your attitude to those matters?
A There were some such attempts made especially by lower Party agencies in spite of counter measures being taken. An attempt was made to interfere with the work of courts by Party agencies meddling with these matters before a case could come before a court at all, or attempts were made by the Party agencies interfering after a trial had started, and even attempts were made to influence decisions of the courts in individual trials. It also happened with court decisions in civil cases, for example, over a tenancy matter--that certain party agencies simply refused to recognize the court decision as being valid, and we saw the effects of that in particular with the question of executing such decisions--that is to say, if a decision had been made in a tenancy case, and now the sentence was to be executed. I counteracted such attempts with great determination in every case, although often Court No. III, Case No. 3.that was very difficult indeed.
I had instructed my department to tell me immediately of any case of influencing that came to their knowledge, so as to enable me to take the necessary steps, and such steps on my part were always successful. I cannot remember one single case where my counter measures were in vain.
Q Witness, you said a little earlier on, that in the office for the reorganization of the judicature, the question of the independence of the judges was also dealt with, is that correct?
A Yes.
Q What attitude did you take towards that question?
AAt all discussions which wore held in that office, without making ever any concessions, I upheld the view that under all circumstances the judge must be independent. At conferences with my staff and at conferences with judges, I made that demand again and again.
Q You have testified that even under extremely difficult circumstances, you resisted attempts made by Party or other agencies to interfere with the Administration of civil law. Could you give a brief account of such cases to the Tribunal, please?
A I could name a number of individual cases, but I think it will be sufficient if I give an account of one case. That was the Friedrich case, which was mentioned here by Under-Secretary Klemm. What happened in that case was briefly this: Friedrich had been killed in action on the front with a tank unit. In his testimony, he had said that his two children from his first marriage--he was divorced from his first wife--and who lived with their mother, that those two children should not be given over to the care of his second wife. The guardian-the father of the Colonel who had been killed in action--tried to comply with the son's last wish, and in doing so there was a litigation with the children's mother. As the guardian felt anxious about the outcome of the case, he approached the chief adjutant of the Wehrmacht with Hitler, with the request for assistance. This adjutant was an acquaintance of the guardian and he reported to Hitler. Hitler decided, Court No. III, Case No. 3.without ever listening to the other part, without having seen a report from the Ministry of Justice, quite arbitrarily in favor of the guardian, and simultaneously ordered a law to be promulgated according to which in all cases where soldiers who had been killed in action, in their testaments had given any directives as to the people who were to look after their children, the courts were to be bound by those directions in such testaments.
That decision by the Fuehrer was passed on to Thierack by Himmler. We had a look at the files and we found that the court had not yet made a decision. According to the evidence which had already been produced, there could however be no doubt that the decision of the court, on the basis of the law, would have been contrary to the Fuehrer's decision. Furthermore, I considered this new law which the Fuehrer decision demanded, to be an impossibility, and therefore I asked Thierack to approach Hitler personally and to try and convince Hitler that the decision in the individual case, as well as this law which was to be promulgated, could not be taken into consideration at all. But Thierack wouldn't go, and he wouldn't call on Hitler. I then suggested that he had better try and get Bormann and Himmler interested in our point of view, but he refused to do anything about it. He refused, although Klemm shared my point of view and supported it.
So the matter dragged on because we did not execute the Fuehrer's order, and then the Chief Adjutant of the Armed Forces, who had interfered in two very rude letters to Thierack, charged us with sabotaging the Fuehrer's decisions, and threatened that he would report to Hitler on the matter. We then persuaded Thierack to agree to my visiting the Chief Adjutant of the Armed Forces to try and settle this matter. I did see him and I may say that the circumstances which attended the meeting were highly dramatic. The talk went on for about two hours and the outcome was that the Chief Adjutant of the Wehrmacht came to see that this was quite an impossibility, and then declared himself ready to see to it that Hitler would withdraw his decision.
In that way, the Court was allowed to make a free, uninfluenced decision in the guardianship case and that law was never promulgated.
Q Witness, am I right in summing up if I say you even prevented an attempt by Hitler to interfere by a fuehrer decision in an individual case with the jurisdiction of the civil courts?
A Yes
Q A further charge the prosecution has been made, was that a National Socialist jurist had been given preference when it came to promotions and without paying any attention to their actual abilities. Now I ask you, did you have anything to do with personnel matters?
A In principle, it was Department 1 of the Ministry of Justice which dealt with personnel matters. Within the framework of my department; however; I was able to deal with question of promotion and other personnel questions. But the other departments had nothing to do with me, concerning their staff.
Q What attitude did you take in your personnel policy?
A The only thing I took into consideration was technical ability. In the case of the majority of my assistants, I didn't even know what their political views were. From the mere fact that many of those men are now still in central positions and in high court offices, from that alone one can draw the conclusion that their attitude was not that of a National Socialist.
Q What about the leading men in your department?
A My permanent deputy was Ministerial Dirigent Dr. Hese. He was not a party member and, as was general knowledge even at that time, he was definitely an anti-Nazi. I appointed him to be my deputy because of his ability and I did so although an old man who was also a party member would have been available in the department.
Q Did you have anything else to do with the appointment to higher offices?
A I only had anything to do with that if the department had any technical interest in the appointment of such a vacancy.
For example, there is one case I remember--I had tried very hard to have the jurisdiction in heredity farm courts independent of party agencies. For that purpose, after many difficult conferences, I got the heredity farm court several from the Union with the Reich Peasant leader and that is to say until that time the Reich Peasant leader had been the president of that court and now the former vicepresident who was not a party member was to become the president of the Reich heredity court and I also attempted at that occasion that the present presiding minister of Bavaria, Dr. Erhard, was to become the vice-president of that Court. He was highly qualified for that position. We knew of him too that he was not a party member, but in view of the developments of total war, those plans were never put into effect.
Q I am now passing on to another matter. The prosecution assumes that the execution of the so-called NN decree by the authority of the administration of justice was disreputable and you were charged with having played a part in the NN affair. Wouldn't you comment on that charge, please?
AAs for my playing a part in executing the NN decree, that was not part of the duties of my department. The so-called NN matters, were, after all, penal cases and for those the civil department had nothing to do on principle. As these were secret matters, I never heard of the decree. It was only when it was announced in the press together with the Goering trial that I heard of the NN decree.
As for the part played by the administration of justice, I heard only here from the documents which were introduced at this trial and from the testimony of the witnesses at this trial.
Q The prosecution has introduced Exhibit 319 NG 269 which is a decree by the Reich Ministry of Justice concerning NN prisoners. This decree also deals with questions of personnel status and last wills. That is to say, it deals with subjects which, according to the plan of distribution of work, would belong to the scope of your department.
Please comment on this document and please tell us something about the part your department played.
A It is right that my department did play a part. The decree is dated 6 March. That is to say, it was just after I had assumed office, but the department had to deal only with two questions, questions which fell within their competency and it only dealt with two questions. The draft which has been put to me was insofar in accordance with the laws up to that point, and I could not gather from that there was anything wrong with these NM matters.
From that draft, one could not see that it was concerned with foreign prisoners and that for their conviction actually the courts of the armed forces would have been competent. The reason for the secrecy of NN matters, I supposed to be found with security reasons and therefore looking at it from extraordinary wartime conditions, that secret didn't strike me as anything particularly unusual.
Further more as the matters which were related to Department 6 considered quite by themselves were entirely in accordance with the law, I therefore had no particular reason to go into the matter of secrecy. I would only have to investigate that matter if those instructions as such had been contrary to the law, because in that case, but only in that case, I would have had to investigate whether a legal basis could be found for it.
THE PRESIDENT: You are talking about certain instructions being in conformity with the law. Would you specify definitely what instructions you refer to and what law they were in conformity with? I didn't understand what you meant.
MR. ALSTOETTER: I was referring to these two points. One I think is number 2, in that decree, and numeral two contained instructions to the effect that notifications of deaths and births had to be made to the registrar in accordance with law. That is in accordance with Articles 17 and 18 -- I am now quoting from memory -- that is in accordance with Article 17 and 18 of the Census Law, and that was the way it had to be handled in all circumstances.
Now that numeral two had an attached instruction by which the registrar was informed about keeping matters secret, and the registrar was instructed that in case inquiries were made or certificates were to be made out from registries the competent Reich Minister of the Interior has made certain regulations concerning cases where such information was not to be given. Now under numeral three, it says that taking into custody of so-called public testament of NN prisoners, are made in accordance with the provisions of the ordinary law, that is provisions of Articles 5 to 20 of the testament law, which is still valid today.
THE PRESIDENT: Just a question. Did this instrument concerning which you have testified mention NN cases as such?
MR. ALSTOETTER: NN prisoners are mentioned, unless I am wrong.
THE PRESIDENT: As such?
MR. ALSTOETTER: NN prisoners, yes. There are only two possibilities which were striking.
THE PRESIDENT: Then you know something about what NN meant, didn't you?
MR. ALSTOETTER: No. I never heard the word nacht and Nebel, night and fog. We didn't know anything about it. The whole department didn't know about it. My experts, my referents didn't know about it, nor Herr Hesse.
THE PRESIDENT: When you found a document with NN in it, your curiosity was not aroused in the slightest?
MR. ALSTOETTER: I am afraid I didn't get that.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think we can answer it ourselves.
The further interrogation of this witness will continue tomorrow morning.
It has been observed that the defendant Klemm since the recess has been absent from the courtroom.
His absence is pursuant to a request on the part of his counsel by reason of the fact that he was not feeling well and he was excused. That is correct, is it not, Dr. Schilf?
DR. SCHILF: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, we will recess now until tomorrow morning at nine-thirty.
(The Tribunal adjourbed until 16 September 1947, at 0930 hours.)
Case III Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America against Josef Alstoetter, et al.
, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 16 September 1947, 0930, the Honorable James T. Brand, presiding.
THE MARSHAL: The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal III.
Military Tribunal III is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.
There will be order in the Court.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Marshal, will you ascertain if the defendants are all present?
THE MARSHAL: May it please your Honors, all the defendants are present in the courtroom.
THE PRESIDENT: Let proper notation be made. You may proceed.
JOSEF ALSTOETTER -Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION -Continued BY DR. ORTH: (Attorney for the defendant Alstoetter)
Q Witness, yesterday we stopped when we had come to the questions concerning the participation of Department VI in the circular decree of the 6th March, 1943. I am now going to hand you this decree, Exhibit 319. Please then answer some questions I am going to put to you bylooking at this document. In what parts of this decree had your department taken a hand?
A Department VI had had something to do with numerals two and three of this decree.
Q Did you yourself work on those sections?
A No, I didn't. My referents dealt with them.
Q Who were those referents?
A Ministerial Dirigent Dr. Hesse, Ministerial Counselor Rexroth, and Oberregierungsrat Dr. Vogel, senior government counselor.
Q How did you come to hear about that decree?
A It was through routine channels that I heard of it and saw it.
I was not informed about the matter and could not even be informed about it because I had only been at the Reich Ministry of Justice for a very short time. In connection with some other matters, when Dr. Hesse came to talk to me, I discussed the NN matters with him briefly. I merely asked him what the whole thing was about. Dr. Hesse told me that the matters concerned mainly the penal department, and as far as we were concerned, it was all right.
Q Could you rely on Herr Hesse not submitting anything for signature which might have caused misgivings of my kind?
A Herr Dr. Hesse had been in the service since before 1933, and since 1935 he had been at the Ministry and he had boon in the civil department since that time. In view of his attitude as a whole, it is entirely out of the question that ho would have submitted anything to mo for my signature which caused him any misgivings whatsoever.
QQuite apart from the decree, did you have any documents?
A No.
Q Why not?
A Well, above all, this was a secret matter which concerned another department. There was the Fuehrer Order which has been discussed hero a great many times, according to which every person who dealt with such a matter only should hoar as much as concerned himself personally and his work. That was so whenever secret matters were being dealt with, but even if this had not been a secret matter, it would not have been necessary to inform us about the nature of this matter because it was not necessary for the work which had to be done by Department VI.
Q Did Department VI deviate from legal provisions in dealing with Section UU?
A No. I think I explained that yesterday. I should like to refer again to the provisions in the census law, Article 18 and Article 34.
Q Did the department deviate from the legal provisions in dealing with Section III?
A No. I told you yesterday that under Section III the establishment of so-called public testaments was safeguarded for the prisoners concerned. The official custody of a public testament is regulated under Article 20 of the Testament Law, concerning testaments of the kind. The question, where a voucher was to be kept; vouchers which normally would have gone to the heirs - is a question of entirely secondary importance, and it was the penal department who should have decided on that matter.
Q Witness, would you please road the first paragraph of the decree?
A "In penal proceedings for offenses against the Reich or the occupying powers in tho occupied territories, (the so-called NN matters) I request everybody, in order not to endanger the secrecy of the matter, to proceed according to tho following directives."
Q Did that sentence not give you cause for doubts?
A No, it didn't. All I could gather from that sentence was that the so-called NN matter concerned criminal offenses against tho Reich or the occupying power in tho occupied territories. Such offenses could be committed by Germans or by foreigners. The special secrecy concerning the proceedings was bound up with the nature of the matter, as in my view these proceedings could only concern espionage, high treason and similar things. I could not possibly have gathered that these were proceedings which were contrary to international law. The mere idea didn't occur to me, and in my opinion that idea couldn't have occurred to anybody who saw nothing but that decree.
Q Did the term NN matters not strike you in any way?
A No, that term didn't strike me either. In tho administration of justice initials were used both as concerned matters and concerned persons. We called it the so-called registry language.
Q Witness, will you assume for the moment that at that time you actually had available further documents concerning these NN matters.
Would you in that case, too, have signed the decree or not?
A I believe I must say that I would have signed them, or rather that I would have co-signed them because an examination, a scrutiny of the documents on which the decree was based, from the point of view whether it was contrary to international law, that was not my business. The examination by the department -- and that moans my examination -had to refer only to the two sections with which we have dealt here. Those sections were in order from the legal point of view, and I would have relied on, that further examination from the point of view of international law had long been made and that it was all right.
Q We shall now conclude this matter and pass on to something else. The Prosecution has introduced in evidence the Prosecution document, Exhibit 460. The document relates to illegitimate children born of foreign female workers. I am handing the document to you. The document consists of two parts, one, the decree by the Reich Minister of Interior, dated 5th June, 1944; and, two, the letter signed by you from the Reich Ministry of Justice, dated 15th November, 1944, with which your department dealt, and which notifies the guardianship court of the decree of the Minister of Interior. Please comment on the decree by the Minister of the Interior.
This deals with the guardianship of illegitimate children, children borne by women workers who were not of German nationality; women who had come to the Reich to work there, and who had there given birth to a child. Pregnancy in this case was not a reason to dissolve the contract, but formerly, as is evident from the decree by the Minister of Interior, pregnant women of non-German nationality had been returned to their homeland on account of their pregnancy; in the future, they were no longer to be returned home. Anybody who knows conditions as they were in Germany at that time will also immediately understand the reasons: we were dependent upon every worker, On the other hand, the increasing air raids which hit above all the transport installations, and the transport difficulties were not designed to allow such repatriation. Therefore, a new problem arose, and that was the problem of taking care of those illegitimate children born to foreign women workers. For the solution of this problem the Minister of the Interior alone was competent, and the official agencies to which the decree of the Minister of the Interior was addressed were only official agencies from the sphere of the Interior's administration. In principle, the questions of so-called public assistance to juveniles, with which we are concerned here, are dealt with in the Reich Juvenile Welfare Law of 9th July, 1922, Reich Gazette Blatt, I, page 633. What law according to Article I, however, in principle deals only with German children. Cars for foreign children and stateless children was admissible under law, but there was no legal obligation to undertake such welfare measures, The measures taken by the Minister of the Interior in this decree were within the framework of the Juvenile Welfare Law.
I should like to refer to the provisions of articles 28 and 29 of the Juvenile Welfare Law. I should like to add the following: The preferential treatment of children born to foreign women workers, who had been fathered by German, or men of so-called equal race, in my opinion cannot be criticized either from a legal or theoretical point of view. Quite apart from the fact that all this could only be done if the mother approved. By the nature of this thing, from the very beginning all these measures could only be considered provisional; they could only exist as long as the foreign or stateless mother remained under contract. When that contract had terminated, the mother, as a rule, took her child back home with her. For the rest, every mother, as a rule, took her child back home with her. For the rest, every mother could look after her own child, if that was possible for her. She was even entitled legally to enforce accommodation of her own child where and how she wished, for the legal position of the illegitimate mother and the legal position of her child were not affected by the decree of the Reich Minister of interior. After the decree, that position remained the same as it had before, that is to say the same as it was before 1933, that is to say, it remained the same as it would have been if the same conditions had existed at the time prior to 1933; and even foreign illegitimate mothers at any time could approach the competent guardianship court if she disagreed with any arrangement that had been made for her child.
THE PRESIDENT: May I ask you a question, please. You referred to the foreign or stateless mother. I don't know just what you meant by a stateless mother. Will you define that term for us - stateless.