Q. For how long do you know the former district court director, Dr. Oswald Rothaug?
A. It must have been in 1940 when I happened to meet Dr. Rothaug.
Q. Between you and Dr. Rothaug were there any personal connections?
A. No.
Q. Did you have official relations with each other?
A. No, I did not maintain those either.
Q. Were there, between you and Rothaug, relations because of your Party Office?
A. No, in regard to the Party office, if I received advice or had any request, I turned to the competent Gau legal office chief.
Q. Did you correspond with Rothaug?
A. No, I never corresponded with Rothaug.
Q. Did you conduct official or private telephone conversations with Rothaug?
A. I do not recall any telephone conversation with Rothaug.
Q. Did Rothaug, at any time, try to influence the leadership of the Gau Franconia?
A. During my time in my office, Herr Rothaug never undertook such an attempt, and I do not know either why he should have concerned himself with the political leadership.
Q. Did you ever hear anything to that effect from the late Haberkern?
A. Haberkern did not inform me about such matters.
Q. Did you hear of remarks or actions by Rothaug which could have constituted influencing the leadership of the Gau?
A. I didn't hear of these until I left in 1942. Then, I was a soldier and could no longer concern myself about these matters.
Q. Did Dr. Rothaug belong to the circle surrounding Streicher and Holz?
A. No, quite a different circle of persons had social contact with Striecher as well as with Holz.
Q. In your capacity as Kreisleiter or in your capacity as political chief who was in charge of the Gau Franconia did you ever avail yourself of any services of Dr. Rothaug?
A. No, I have already stated that I did not do so. The office to which I would have had to turn, and also did turn for such services was the Gau legal office.
Q. Did you, at any time, influence Rothaug's field of work?
A. No, legally not at all because that was forbidden to me. There was a Fuehrer order which expressly forbade us to interfere in pending court proceedings. I complied with that strictly and, as I have stated, all other matters which were concerned with personnel were clarified by the Gau legal office.
Q. A witness here alleged that before Rothaug decided his criminal cases he asked for the opinion of the Gauleitung. Could you determine any facts or make any observations about that?
A. From March 1940, to March 1942, Rothaug never approached me, and I do not believe he approached Streicher or Holz either, because whoever knows Rothaug knows that he made his own decisions.
Q. Did you ever find out from what time Rothaug knew the Haberkern Family?
A. Yes, it must have been over twenty years, from the time when Haberkern had a sausage factory at Pfaffenhofen on the Ilm. At that time Rotthaug lived at Haberkern's home.
Q. Do you know whether Haberkern was already, at that time, a member of the NSDAP?
A. I believe that he certainly was not because Haberkern had the Party membership number of approximately 104,000 and that must have been from joining the Party in 1929, that is, a few years later.
Q. Did you ever make an appointment with Rothaug in the Blaue Traube?
A. No.
Q. Did you make an appointment with Rothaug outside of the Blaue Traube for any definite discussion or any other purpose?
A. No, I never made any appointment with Rothaug, and outside the Blaue Traube, I did not meet him either. I recall that I saw him briefly once at the Hotel Viktoria where I was eating my supper. I believe that we did not even exchange a few words.
Q. Did you obtain any information as to what were the reasons which caused Rothaug to visit the Blaue Traube?
A. As I have already stated, Rothaug has known the Haberkern Family for more than twenty years. That must have been the main reason. Moreover, for the regular guests in the Blaue Traube, just as in every other restaurant, there sometimes was wine in the evening, and Rothaug then drank a few glasses of red wine.
Q. Did you see Rothaug several times in the Blaue Traube?
A. Yes.
Q. At what time did Rothaug usually come and did he come there alone or was he accompanied by others?
A. Rothaug usually came very late, always 10:30 or 11:00. Usually he came alone, unless he came from a trial that was held out of town. Then sometimes he was accompanied by his associate judges.
Q. Now, this regular table (Stammtischbrunde) which is supposed to have existed there was discussed here a great deal. Can you tell me whether, outside of this regular group in which Rothaug participated, there was another regular group that used to sit at a regular table which might be of importance here?
A. There was a regular table. There the Haberkern family used to eat, and they used to sit there. Rothaug almost always sat down there. There were two regular parties which met at this table. On Thursdays there was a party to which Rothaug belonged, and a private party on Tuesdays who used to meet Tuesday evenings when the Blaue Traube, as such, was closed. Rothaug did not belong to this group.
Q. In this circle to which Rothaug belonged were there any politically influential people among them?
A. In the Thursday circle to which Rothaug belonged there were usually business people, two shop owners, one lawyer; that is to say, people who did not hold any political rank and had no name in politics.
Q. Can you perhaps state some of the habits of this regular table group which characterizes its nature?
A. At this regular table there was a duty to appear. Whoever did not come had to pay 50 pfennigs fine, and then there was a yearly banquet held from this money. That is a Frankonian custom.
Q. Did you personally belong to this regular table group of Rothaug's?
A. No, I belonged to neither one of the groups.
Q. Did Rothaug, as far as you know, participate in any actions of the Party?
A. As far as I know Rothaug did not participate in any actions and was not prominent in politics, either. He was much too much of a jurist, and concerned himself only with his legal duties.
Q. Did you hear that he was a follower of the Ludendorff Movement?
A. Yes, I knew that.
Q. Did Rothaug openly admit that he belonged to it?
A. Yes.
Q. Was this Ludendorff Movement promoted by the Party?
A. No. The Ludendorff Movement was not only not recognized by the Party but treated very carefully and regarded almost as an opponent.
Q. Did you attend any sessions of the Special Court when Rothaug was presiding judge?
A. As far as I remember I attended parts of four sessions.
Q. What kind of trials were they?
A. One was a theft in a slaughtering house. There were six defendants there.
Q. In other words, this was not a political case?
A. No, that was not a political case. The other was the trial against the two Catholic clergymen Schmidt and Fahsel. The other cases I cannot remember for certain. I don't recall for sure whether I attended the trial against Katzenberger or whether I gained my knowledge only from reports on the case.
Q. Since you have just mentioned the Katzenberger case, I am asking you did the Gauleitung exert any influence on the court in that case?
A. May I ask you when the trial against Katzenberger took place?
Q. The Katzenberger trial was on the 14 and 15 of March 1942.
A. Then I can say with certainty that in the Katzenberger affair, before the trial and during the trial, no contact whatsoever was established with me. I heard about the Katzenberger trial only one or two days before, and I have already stated that I don't know for certain anymore whether I attended this trial for one or two hours --but in any case, I neither exerted any influence nor did Rothaug inform me in advance about this trial in anyway whatsoever.
Q. You personally were at that time in charge of the Gau?
A. At that time I was put in charge of the Gau Franconia and would have been the competent man.
Q. Do you happen to remember when Holz again took over the affairs of the Gauleitung?
A. He must have taken them over immediately afterwards. It was at the end of March.
Q. When the Katzenberger trial took place here, Holz was not yet in Nurnberg?
A. No. At that time Holz was not yet in Nurnberg. As far as I know, Holz arrived in Nurnberg on the 19th or 20th of March.
DR. KOESSEL: I am referring the Tribunal to the testimony of the witness Seiler who asserted that she personally saw Gauleiter Holz in the Katzenberger trial.
BY DR. KOESSL:
Q. Did Rothaug invite you to any session?
A. No, I do not know of any such invitation.
Q. A witness testified here that once there was some talk about it that Rothaug, in your presence, in the Blaue Traube handed court files -- and that is the files of the Ramsteck case -- over to Haberkern. Therefore, I am asking you did you ever see court files in the Blaue Traube?
A. No, I never saw that, When Rothaug came from his home, he always came without files and without his briefcase, unless he came from some trial or other, and in that case he was hardly ever alone.
Q. Thus you did not see that Rothaug gave the case file of Ramsteck to Haberkern?
A. No.
Q. Did you ask Rothaug for any information on the Ramsteck case?
A. Yes.
Q. Of what kind was it, what did you want to know from him?
A. I asked Dr. Rothaug whether they needed me as a witness. At that time I had to undertake a business trip in my capacity as chief of the Reich Union of local health insurance groups, and I wanted to know if I could go on that trip. Dr. Rothaug told me at that time that neither the defense counsel nor the prosecution so far requested my testimony. However, in spite of that I did remain in Nurnberg and told Ramsteck that I could be reached by telephone at any time and and would be available as a witness.
DR. KOESSL: Thank you, I have no further questions to put to the witness Zimmermann.
THE PRESIDENT: Any defense counsel desire to interrogate this witness as their own? You may cross examine.
CROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. WOLLEYHAN:
Q. Mr. Zimmermann, you have said this afternoon that you were not involved in the Aryanizations of Jewish property in Nurnberg and Fuerth in 1939, '37 and '38 but that you were ordered to clean up the administration of the city after those outrages occurred. Tell me, were you likewise ordered to clean up the administration of the city after the well-known Pogroms against the Jews in Nurnberg in 1938 in November, when synagogues were burned and shops were smashed?
A. In my statements I said that I had to clean up the results of the Streicher affair. I did not, however, state what you have just put to me; however, I can state here that was also my task. I had nothing to say about the city administration itself, As far as the affair of the 9th of November 1938 is concerned, a preliminary investigation had already been carried out.
Q. What were the results of that investigation?
A. This investigation was conducted from Berlin on the order of the then Reich Marshal Hermann Goering. I was never permitted to look at those files.
Q. After the events of the 8th or 9th of November 1938 in Nurnberg, when, as you may remember, Jewish synagogues were burned and other outrages committed by mobs, did you make any investigations of that in your capacity as Kreisleiter of Nurnberg City?
A. Of the 9th of November 1938 I was never informed in my capacity at all as Kreisleiter of Nurnberg. During the night, about 3 or 3:30, a friend called me on the telephone and told me that something or other was going on in Nurnberg.
I went from my apartment to the city and together with this man whose name was Georg Emmert, I opposed the excesses whereever possible. As Kreisleiter of Nurnberg, I certainly could not do any more than to mitigate the situation as far as possible.
Q. So you opposed these excesses?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. I show you some papers. Open them, please, where the papers are marked with the paper slips there. Please turn to the marked copy of the Newspaper, "Fraenkische Tageszeitung" of 10 November 1938. On the second column of that newspaper page, do you find the headline, "The memorial hours of the Party." And then the newspaper story in that column continues: "On 9 November 1938 the Kreisleither Zimmermann spoke, the highest Party official of the Nurnberg City. 'We shall never forget,' the Kreisleiter, said, 'what used to be, but we will be united forever with our people, and we will forever fight against those which, as the Jewish race, are the hereditary enemy of all people. The German people has no space anymore, no apartments anymore for the members of the Jewish Devil's race." Do you find that story, Mr. Zimmermann?
A: Yes.
Q: Now, do you find -- just a moment, please -- do you find also your picture on the bottom of the page?
A: Yes.
Q: Now, please turn, if you will, to the next day's newspaper of the 11th November 1938, where you will find an account of a mass meeting which you introduced and opened in Adolf Hitler Platz, of which the picture there shows you. Now, does that newspaper state the following: "Ireisleiter Zimmermann opened the mass meeting and stated that the Nurnberg population, aroused over the shameful dead of a Jewish bastard, had taken to the street and demonstrated against the Jews during the nights of Wednesday to Thursday." Do you find that story there?
A: Yes.
Q: And do you find there also that you then introduced to that mass meeting as the principle speaker Gauleiter Julius Streicher?
A: Yes.
Q: Now, tell me, Mr. Zimmermann, was it during that time of the 9th and 10th of November that you were making these speeches that the burning of the synagogues and other street outrages occurred? Can't you hear me? Did the witness hear my question?
INTERPRETER WARTENBERG: The German translation didn't come through.
Q: Was it during the same time, Mr. Zimmermann, that you were making these speeches in Nurnberg that these excesses against the Jews were taking place in Nurnberg?
A: I have to say the following in regard to this affair, that in spite of what was written in the newspaper, I usually did not speak at the meetings, but that little newspaper reporters wrote this up and that most of the things were edited by Streicher himself.
I have already stated that on the 9th of November I opposed this action. I stated that during the night of 9th of November I opposed that action, and I know what I am saying here under oath, and you can check upon that at any time. As far as the first report was concerned, this was a memorial service for heroes that took place before that night; and the second was a mass meeting which took place on the Adolf Hitler Platz and which I opened. Anyone who knows how I opened mass meetings knows that I only spoke one sentence, and that I never said all this, and this was only done in the newspaper report.
Q: Mr. Zimmermann, please look at the front page of that issue of the newspaper where you see the title of the newspaper itself. The front page of the issue. Do you see the official Party insignia, the Hoheitzabzeichen, and is that the insignia of an official Party newspaper?
A: Yes, it is.
Q: Alright. Now, with regard to these Pogroms or excess or whatever you call them in Nurnberg on the 8th or 9th of November 1938, did you or any official that you knew of report those excess to the judicial authorities for action?
A: That was known everywhere that this action took place during the night, and the police was informed about it, and it was the task of the police.
Q: Now, it was known everywhere, you say. Do you think that the defendant Rothaug knew about it?
A: He certainly must have found out about it afterwards. Whether he knew about it during the night, I don't know because I only found out about it myself at 3:30 in the morning.
Q: Mr. Zimmermann, in your connection with the police and the judicial authorities, did you ever learn that the presiding judge of a court handling criminal cases was responsible for issuing arrest warrants?
A: Well, that probably was the duty of the court.
DR. KOESSL: Just a moment, I object to that question because the witness is in no way able to give legal expert opinions on who issues warrants of arrest. I also did not examine him on that question, and he has no legal qualifications at all on the basis of which he can answer that question.
THE PRESIDENT: The objection is sustained.
BY MR. WOLLEYHAN:
Q: You have stated, Mr. Zimmermann, that to your knowledge Rothaug did not participate in Party matters, that he was too much the legal professional for that. Now, in your opinion, having been on the scene, was what happened here in Nurnberg against Jewish life and property on the 8th or 9th of November 1938, an occurrence sponsored by or sanctioned by the Nazi Party?
A: This can only be a question of a person. In my circle in Nurnberg I forbade all my political leaders, all my local group leaders to participate even in the least, in the Aryanization, not even a single one of them bought himself a house or a car. I directly forbade them to do so.
Q: What was your rank in the SA, Mr. Zimmermann?
A: I was SA-Oberfuehrer and I held it as an honorary rank.
Q: Does that correspond roughly to the army rank of colonel?
A: Probably.
Q: I then read to you from page 16962 of the Findings of the International Military Tribunal concerning the activities of the SA:
"SA units were used to blow up synagogues in the Jewish Program of the 10th and 11th of November 1938". I ask you, Mr. Zimmermann, if in your capacity as an SA-Colonel, and further in your capacity as a public speaker as quoted in the official Nazi paper in Nurnberg of which we have just read, did you or did you not have an active part in the Jewish Pogroms of the 8th an 9th November 1938?
A: I have already stated that not only did I not partipate, but I even opposed them.
THE PRESIDENT: He has answered that question.
Q: In evidence before this court is a document which states on its face, Mr. Zimmermann, that the defendant Rothaug was responsible for all political criminal cases coming before the Nurnberg Penal Chamber, Special Court. That is found in Exhibit 553. I ask you a hypothetical question, Mr. Zimmermann. If you assume that a judge was responsible for all political criminal cases arising in Nurnberg, would you think that these excesses of the 8th and 9th of November, 1938 which you state you tried to prevent should have been tried by such a judge?
DR. KOESSL: I object to that question for the following reason, because the witness -
THE PRESIDENT: You need not state your reason. The objection is sustained.
MR. WOOLEYHAN: No further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Any redirect examination?
DR. KOESSL: Yes, Your Honor.
REDIRECT EXAMINATION.
BY DR. KOESSL:
Q: Witness, outside of the occurrences of the night from the 9th to the 10th of November, did further excess take place later which would have been of that nature?
I mean, did these excesses during the following days - during that night end or did further destruction take place?
A: Nothing further happened in Nurnberg later on; at least, I don't know now about anything.
Q: Did you obtain knowledge as to who initiated these Pogroms during the night at that time?
A: I can only state again that I, as the competent Kreisleiter of Nurnberg, was not informed. That should be evidence for the Tribunal for the fact that apparently I was not the competent man. It was only at 3:30 in the morning that my friend Georg Emmert informed me about it. Thereupon, I went to the city in order to try to lessen it. In my own trial I shall bring evidence to that effect.
Q: That is enough, witness. The prosecutor read the passage from the sentence of the IMT where the participation of the SA was pointed out. I am asking you therefore, did you at that time lead a unit of the SA?
A: When I made the statement that I was an SA-Oberfuehrer, I said I had an honorary rank. In order to correct it: at that time I perhaps had the official rank of a Truppfuehrer. Only later on my SA rank was assimilated to my official rank.
Q: At that time you were not in the highest rank?
A: No.
Q: And you did not lead a unit either?
A No. I had the courage to describe myself as an SA-Oberfuehrer. In my life I have never worn an SA uniform.
DR. KOESSL: Thank you. I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness is excused.
DR. KOESSL: May I call as the next witness Paul Ohler.
PAUL OHLER, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:
BY JUDGE BLAIR:
Raise your right hand and be sworn. Repeat after me the following oath: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.
(The witness repeated the oath.)
You may be seated.
DR. KOESSL: May I begin the examination?
THE PRESIDENT: We don't have his name on our list. Will you give us his name?
DR. KOESSL: The witness' name is Paul Ohler. The Tribunal permitted me to call him.
THE PRESIDENT: Proceed.
DIRECT EXAMINATION
BY DR. KOESSL (Attorney for the defendant Rothaug):
Q Witness, please tell your name and your profession.
A My name is Paul Ohler, and my last profession was criminal commissar.
Q In what branch of the police were you employed?
A I dealt, as a policeman, with cases of preparation for high treason and formation of new parties; later my field was enlarged to include also the police handling of offenses against the Malicious Acts Law, listening to foreign broadcasts, undermining of military morale, and anti-sabotage intelligence.
Q Do you know the judges of the former Special Court Nurnberg and whom?
A Yes. I know Dr. Rothaug, Dr. Ferber and Groben.
Q Whom of these judges do you know especially well?
A I know Dr. Ferber better.
Q For how long have you known Dr. Ferber and for what reason did you become more closely acquainted with him?
A I became acquainted with Dr. Ferber while he was public prosecutor: and at that time we found out that we were from the same part of the country.
Q Did Dr. Ferber discuss with you at that time the then presiding judge of the Special Court Nurnberg, Rothaug?
A Dr. Ferber and I spoke only very seldom with each other.
Q Did Ferber make remarks to you to the effect, for example, that Rothaug was a tyrant in his surroundings or that he put them under pressure?
A No.
Q He didn't have any other complaints either?
A No.
Q What did Dr. Ferber say about the activities of the Special Court?
A Dr. Ferber never made any derogatory remarks about the activities of the Special Court.
Q Witness, do you know that the Gestapo in Nurnberg at times monitored the broadcasts of enemy stations?
A Yes, I know that.
Q Were the contents of these broadcasts written down anywhere or summarized?
AAt the time when monitoring of foreign broadcasts by an office was permitted, these broadcasts were summarized in writing; they were not in the form of reports, but they were just summarized in writing.
Q Do you know these reports?
A Yes, I read a part of those reports.
Q What was the contents of these reports?
A These reports, or these broadcasts of foreign stations brought political news and other news reports from the fronts, and appeals to foreign workers who were working in the Reich to commit acts of sabotage in agriculture by burning farmhouses, and rendering draught animals unusable by injuring them by mixing poison, nails and glass splinters in the fodder, and thus killing the animals or, at least, to make it necessary to slaughter them in emergency slaughterings. Furthermore, appeals were made to burn armament factories; to put sand and other friction material into the geers of the machines in order to make them no longer usable; and also to destroy railroads and railroad equipment. Frequently it was pointed out what power the millions of workers, foreign workers, who were working in Germany represented in order to weaken the war potential of Germany.
Q Did you forward such reports?
A Only in very exceptional cases. I forwarded one or two; it may also have been three reports.
Q Outside of these monitoring reports, were there other reports in the field of your activity?
A Yes. There was also the daily report of the RSHA.
Q Were those reports secret?
A Yes.
Q What was contained in those reports?
A These reports contained, among other things, descriptions of the facts that had happened regarding sabotage cases, undermining of military morale, defeatist remarks. These were brief, bare descriptions - without any conclusions or instructions of any kind.
Q Were such reports forwarded by you?
A In order to promote the jurisdiction of the Special Court and the prosecution at the Special Court, and the judges of the Special Court, to make it easier for, to distinguish between serious and less serious offenses, my office chief decided to have excerpts from these reports compiled and, submitted to the prosecution at the Special Court and to the judges.
Q To whom were these excerpts sent?
AAs a rule they were brought to the District Court Director Ferber. In part, I brought then there myself, or I had messengers take them over there. If several copies of files existed, I had one given to Dr. Ferber, one to the senior public prosecutor, and one to the presiding judge of the Special Court. If only one copy was in existence, we asked Dr. Ferber, after he had read this copy, to give it to the senior public prosecutor, and to ask the latter, after he had read it, to forward it to the presiding judge of the Special Court.
Q Witness, for how long were you altogether in the service of the police?
A I belong to the police since 1911.
DR. KOESSL: Thank you. I have no further questions to ask of the witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any other defendant's counsel desire to interrogate the witness? Apparently not. Is there any cross examination?
MR. WOOLEYHAN: Only one question, Your Honor.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. WOOLEYHAN:
Q It wasn't clear to me, from the description of the job that you held, witness, whether or not all this police work that you did was in and for the Gestapo. Are you a Gestapo man?
A Yes.
MR. WOOLEYHAN: I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness is excused.
DR. KOESSL: With the permission of the Tribunal, I shall first introduce Document Book I-A. I assume that the Tribunal has already received the English translations, and I also assume that the Prosecution has received copies of this document book.
The first document which I want to introduce as Exhibit No. 1 is an article from the German Jurists newspaper of the 1st of January, 1928. It is entitled "The Bankruptcy of the Criminal Administration of Justice of the State." The Prosecution in its opening statement pointed out what high level the German Administration of Justice had reached already before 1933 from the point of view of culture. It contrasts sharply with the development of law after 1933 as mistaken development. It emphasizes especially the severity of the jurisdiction in order to characterize this development. The prosecution also pointed out the high level of legal literature in German legal life before 1933. The German Juristenzeitung, jurists newspaper, was an excellent publication in the field of German legal literature.
I now submit this article, "The Bankruptcy of Criminal Administration of Justice," and first would like to direct the attention of the Tribunal to the prominent of the men who are listed on page one as editors of this legal journal. I would like to point especially out the senior public prosecutor in retirement, Dr. Ebermayer; Dr. Hachenburg, Dr. Haymann, Dr. Kahl; and the former Social Democratic Minister of Justice, Dr. Schiffer. All of these men had nothing to do with the later developments of law and with National Socialism.
The article by Dr. Baumbach, who was also a prominent man of that time, begins with the sentence - "It can, I think, be said that public security among us is in a bad way". In the article he investigates the reasons for this decline, and on page 2 he reaches the conclusion at the top of page 2, where he says: "The state plays a tragiccomic role; the role of the blustering old man, the man who threatens and scolds while somebody snaps his fingers at him unmolested. That is the comic side.
The tragedy lies in the fact that the state forbids the possession of weapons, it denies self-protection; in the draft of the new Penal Code it even encroaches on the most fundamental right of every living creature, self-defense - all with the lie that it is strong enough to protect us. It removes our shoes and says to us: March!"
THE PRESIDENT: We will read your exhibits. A very brief statement of what they purport to cover is sufficient.
DR. KOESSL: Yes, Your Honor. Altogether I wanted to perhaps point out to the Tribunal what the central problem is. I wanted to prove with this document that the cry for a more severe administration of justice is much older than the so-called political change of 1933, and that this cry is due to general constitutional considerations.
I offer this document as Rothaug Exhibit No. 1.
THE PRESIDENT: The exhibit is received.
DR. KOESSL: As Exhibit No. 2 I offer Rothaug Document No. 76, on page 11 of my document book. It is a report about the inauguration of the President of the District Court of Appeals, Dr. Duering at Bamberg.
THE PRESIDENT: Just a moment. Page 11?
DR. KOESSL: Page 11, at the top of the page, in the German.
MR. WOOLEYHAN: Page 13.
THE PRESIDENT: page 13.
DR. KOESSL: It is page 13 in the English; it is supposed to be page 13 in the English document book.
Duerig is characterized by the witness Miethsam as a man who reached that high position even though he was an opponent of National Socialism. Heuwieser, Duerig's predecessor, was the President of the District Court of Appeal who criticized Rothaug's bruque manner and his lack of suitability for a position in the administration of justice. I would like to read the following passages quite briefly.
On page two of the document book - "Whoever has the nerve to utilize wartime conditions for his own ends or even in order to satisfy his criminal instincts, would thus obviously exclude himself from the common task of the German people, and his offense could be punishable only by the most severe punishment. This task was to be shared by the courts martial and the courts of the civil administration of justice. The task would be the same for both, and we may be convinced that the sound sense of justice of the people would welcome nothing so much as a right and fair, as the severe blow struck at criminals of that type. This task would be superior to any task otherwise accomplished among the people by the administration of justice; all other tasks would recede into the background compared to this for the time being."
Those are the words which the then Reich Minister Thierack said at the inauguration. President of the District Court of Appeal Duerig pointed out the need for the good understanding between Party and State. This also seems to be necessary to mention in this document.
Excuse me, I just said Reich Minister Thierack here. It was Guertner.
THE PRESIDENT: Guertner.
DR. KOESSL: I offer Rothaug Document No. 76 as Rothaug Exhibit No. 2.
THE PRESIDENT: The exhibit is received.
DR. KOESSL: The next document, Rothaug Document No, 77, is an article from the journal "Deutsche Justiz". It concerns a report about a conference of Presidents of the Special Courts and referents for cases before the Special Courts, and general public prosecutors on the 24th of October 1939 at the Reich Ministry of Justice. The meeting concerned the work of the Special Courts during war. The then Under Secretary Freisler makes the following request regarding the administration of criminal justice during war. He says - this is at the end of page two of the document - "First, the punishable facts of the case as judged by the legislator should not be lost track of by too much talking and thinking.