Why such a responsibility cannot exist, I will have to prove later.
Before I approach this basic subject, I would like to be permitted to discuss a few facts of crimes with which the defendant Lautz is supposed to have been connected and with which he is therefore charged.
The charges in counts 12 and 24 of the indictment are undoubtedly directed, as shown by their wording, against the Reich Ministry of Justice. Just the same, however, the defendant Lautz in addition to 4 employees of the Ministry is also held co-responsible. The prosecution, however, did not show any proof for the fact that Lautz participated in the legislature referring to the annexation and occupation of Czechoslovakia, Poland and Franco. But Lautz denied such a participation during his interrogation (Tr. 5783). His statement is supported by the fact that Lautz docs not appear in any of the submitted documents, referring to legislative discussions of the Reich Ministry of Justice.
The prosecution exhibits 77 (NG-412, I C 86), 220 (NG-671, III J 2) and 346 (NG-548, V B 73) do not refute the statements of the defendant Lautz. It can only be seen from exhibit 77 that Lautz, upon request of the Ministry dutifully reported about individual cases of treason, pending at his office, and of which the Ministry had to be informed in connection with the conferences which the ministry had with other agencies, concerning the new issue of some decrees referring to treason.
If Lautz in section E of his situation report (exhibit 220) declares it desirable that the penal provisions of par. 90 d and 90 c referring to treason by negligence should be intensified, this action was based upon his experiences with the jurisdiction of the first senate of the People's Court.
He explained this fact during his interrogation, showing an especially tragic case (Tr. 5788).
As he convincingly showed, he intended to cause a decrease in the number of death sentences through his suggestion. Nobody could blame him for that. And, similarly, nobody can consider such a suggestion as a participation in legislation; because suggestions like that were normal activities of all German authorities.
The report of the defendant Lautz to the Reich Minister of Justice (exh. 346) as, in any case, nothing whatsoever to do with legislation but refers to a question of interpretation of an existing law. The decision of this question was beyond the competence of the defendant Lautz, because facts were concerned which could only be criminally prosecuted if a direct order to this effect from the Reich Ministry of Justice has been issued. This, too, was explained in detail by Lautz during his interrogation (Tr. 5787, 6007 and following). As the document itself shows, Lautz did in no way approve of and accent the conception of the Reich Leader SS, shown in the report.
I wish to interpolate here. Moreover, this referred only to a very small number of cases. In the same manner correspondence in Exhibit 362 had nothing to do with legislation. The document clearly shows that this refers to elimination of printing technical difficulties.
In connection with measures of the Reich Ministry of Justice, the defendant Lautz has consequently been charged, in counts 15 and 27 of the indictment, of having participated in the Euthanasy program and the sterilization legislation. Here, too, the prosecution failed to submit material, justifying their charges. They could not do so, because, Lautz, as stated before, never worked at the Ministry and because the execution of this measure as well as the prosecution of certain delicts, committed in this connection, did not fall under his jurisdiction as Reich Chief Public Prosecutor.
This is also proven by the documents in volume: VIII A, submitted by the prosecution. Several denunciations can be found there, referring to Euthanasia, addressed to General Public Prosecutors, and several reports of General Public Prosecutors addressed to the Reich Ministry of Justice, but no letter from the department administered by Lautz. He himself expressly stated at this point that he was not called upon to participate in these measures, and had nothing to do with them (Tr. 5784). He has stated that the circular decree of the Reich Ministry of Justice, dated 22 April 1941, prosecution exhibit 392 (NG 265, VIII A 58/59), was sent to him for information only, as shown by its wording, that he did not understand it and that he, upon his inquiry at the Ministry, had received an insufficient reply, on the ground that the matter was not of his concern.
The same goes for the charge in counts 18 and 30 of the indictment. The criminal prosecution because of killing of enemy pilots who had made an emergency landing was not within the jurisdiction of the Reichsanwaltschaft at the People's Court. Lautz, therefore, could not have participated in the dismissal or postponement of such criminal procedures. It is therefore not at all suprising that the prosecution did not submit any evidence to this count. He did not know anything about these matters. (Tr. 5735).
Also the fact that Lautz, in counts 14 and 26 of the indictment, has been declared to be co-responsible is based upon a complete misunderstanding of Lautz' position and competence. The incidents with which the Reich Ministry of Justice were charged there - illegal executions, removal of a socials, etc. - do not concern the defendant Lautz. The evidence in this respect has shown the following:
Penal sentences were carried out by the prosecuting authorities assigned to the individual criminal courts, i.c. by the Reichanwaltschaft for the People's Court; may I, at this point, refer to par. 2 of the decree concerning the execution of punishment, to my exhibit 131 (L-173, II B 49). In sentences involving imprisonment, these activities of the Reichsanwaltschaft were limited to making provisions, for the transfer of a condemned person to such penal institution as previously chosen by the Ministry by general decree. From that point on, the prisoner was subject to the authority of the administration of the penal institution, The penal institutions, however, were neither supervised nor administered by the two Reich Chief Public Prosecutors, but the local General Public Prosecutor was their supervisor and the Reich Minister of Justice their Chief-Supervisor. Not Lautz, but these authorities decided the treatment of the prisoners, particularly the work that was to be done; they regulated the mail and visitor problem, and they also decided his transfer into another penal institution; the Reichsanwaltschaft at the People's Court did not have any chance to exert any influence in this matter. This is proven by my exhibits 133 (L-174, II B 65) and 134 (L-268, II B 60) and the witnesses Doebig (Tr. 1830), Hecter (Tr. 4835, 4848/49), Eggensberger (Tr. 5313) and Lautz (Tr. 5944) who expressed themselves to the same effect.
The assignment of the condemned person to the proper penal institution, however, was not the task of the defendant Lautz at the Reichsanwaltschaft. It was done by socalled "Rechtspfleger" (administrator of Justice), under the supervision of prosecutors and department chiefs who worked on that particular case. This was also confirmed by Hecker (Tr. 4855 and following) and is proven furthermore by the prosecution exhibits 134 (NG-597, III A 151/163), 267 (NG-614, IV A 76) and 266 (NG-598, IV S), concerning such matters; they do not show any signature of the Defendant Lautz, and cannot show such signatures because he had never seen them.
Court No. III, Case No. 3.
Since the penal institutions did not come within the field of competency of the Reich Public Prosecution and since Lautz had neither a right nor the duty to supervise them or to give them any directives, the Prosecution naturally could not produce any document or other piece of evidence proving that Lautz or his office issued any orders, with regard to the inmates of penal institutions, especially orders in connection with the handing over of inmates to authorities outside of the judiciary branch. Lautz and his office, especially, had nothing to do with the carrying out of the infamous agreement between Himmler and Thierack of 19 September 1942 which is contained in the prosecution exhibits 38 and 39 and which was aimed at the handing over of Poles, Jews, asocial elements and gypsies, sentences to imprisonment, to the Secret State Police. This is clearly evidenced through prosecution exhibit 268. It is the so-called Eichler decree issued by the Reich Ministry of Justice of 21 April 1943 ordering the handing over of Poles and Jews to the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Lublin, The decree is addressed exclusively to the General Public Prosecutors and also to the authorities responsible for the prisons. The Defendant Lautz was not even informed about that decree. In addition to that, the Prosecution exhibits 38, 39) 134 and 267 prove beyond doubt that the preparation and execution of that action was arranged by the Reich Ministry of Justice in direct dealings with the penal institutions. The authorities of Public Prosecution and thus also the Defendant Lautz did learn about that handing over of those prisoners to the Gestapo. While in the witness stand, Lautz, however, stated that he did not know about the purpose of that transfer, which was annihilation through work, until he learned about it during this trial. There is no doubt that this is correct. This purpose has been kept so very secret by Thierack and his closest collaborators, that not even the witness Hecker, as he stated under oath, knew about it, although Hecker was that official in the Ministry who was in direct charge of having the agreement of 19 September 1942 between Thierack and Himmler put into Court No. III, Case No. 3.practice.
Neither did Lautz have anything to do with the events which, as stated by the prosecution, occurred in some penal institutions, e.g. Sonnenburg, when the enemy approached. No documents or statements by witnesses were brought in to incriminate the Defendant on this point.
There is also no proof for the statement that for any other reason the Defendant Lautz delivered any person to the Gestapo, or that he was aiding and abetting such a measure. The Prosecution seems to have intended to prove this through exhibit 537, which it presented to the Defendant during the cross-examination. Lautz, however, was in a position to clear up the actual facts from the document itself.
In the case of Kurrass also two Jews had been taken into protective custody by the Gestapo, completely independently of the legal proceedings. The Gauleiter and the Chief of the Security Police in East Prussia had agreed in case that the defendants indicted in the legal proceedings were sentenced to death, to execute those two Jews at the same time. Lautz had heard about this matter through the report of the Chief Public Prosecutor of Koenigsberg and duly passed it on immediately to the Reich Minister of Justice by letter of 11 December 1944. Lautz did this expecting that the Reich Minister of Justice would veto the intention of the Gauleiter. Prosecution exhibit 537 does not prove either that the agreement made by the Gauleiter and the Chief of the Security Police was actually put into practice, on the contrary, page 2 of that exhibit seems to justify the assumption that this was not the case. At any rate it is obvious that Lautz had nothing whatsoever to do with the treatment of those two Jews.
Through the book of prisoners of the penal institution Ebrach, exhibit 271, the prosecution proves that the Reich Public Prosecution at the People's Court did not transfer any prisoners illegally. The entries in that book go up to spring 1945; they show that none of the 74 people convicted by the People's Court, who were kept at Ebrach was handed over to the Gestapo. Lautz is no more responsible for the Court No. III, Case No. 3.happenings in penal institutions and for the transfer of prisoners than he can be held responsible for the executions which, according to the statement of the prosecution, were carried out illegally.
It was the lawful duty of the Reich Public Prosecution at the People's Court to execute legally valid death sentences of that court.
It corresponded in this respect to the duties of any public prosecution of a district court, as proved by my exhibit 131. The prerequisite for the execution in each individual case was, however, that 1. ) the head of the State or the Minister of Justice, authorized by him, had denied to make use of his right to grant pardon, and that 2. ) the Minister of Justice had then given the express order to carry out the execution.
May I refer here to my exhibit 129.
According to article 13 of the code of pardon in prosecution exhibit 278, the public prosecution, regardless whether there was a clemency plea or not, had to present every legally valid sentence together with all documents and all statements concerning the question of clemency to the Minister of Justice. The Minister of Justice, through a formal decree, informed the public prosecutor of the decision of the head of the state concerning the question of clemency. In case where the head of the state refused to grant pardon the decree was accompanied by the express order to now carry out the sentence. This decree, an example of which can be found in prosecution exhibit 137 listed all the details of the carrying out of the execution as far as they were not regulated by general directives. Only after receipt of that decree the public prosecutor had to order the rest. His duty to examine was, as proved by my exhibits 132 and 165 were limited to the questions, whether the execution order emanated from the competent authority, whether it was couched in the prescribed language and whether our own competency was established.
These provisions applied to the defendant Lautz without any Court No. III, Case No. 3.alteration until the collapse, with the sole exception that, according to a general decree of the autumn of 1943, pardon reports were to be considerably shorter.
Lautz followed the regulations with meticulous care; he never ordered, as he testified here expressly, death sentences to be carried out without having been charged to do so in proper form. Nor has the Prosecution offered any proof for his having acted differently. This applies especially to the incidents at Ploetzensee from 7 to 9 September 1943 and at Brandenburg on 20 April 1945.
With regard to these incidents at Ploetzensee, from exhibits 286 and 288 and the complementary statements of Lautz during his examination the following picture emerges.
Contrary to Lautz's proposal to transfer the condemned prisoners to Brandenburg, Minister Thierack had ordered a mass execution. Lautz was passed over though a great number of the condemned people of the People's Court came under this order; all of the measures were carried out under the immediate direction of the Ministry of Justice. Lautz and his office had to restrict themselves to carrying out the execution of 34 convicted people for which an execution order in the legally prescribed form had been at the office for several days already. This is shown from the report of General Public Prosecutor Hansen of 25 September 1943 in Pros. Exh. 288. It is, therefore, absolutely understandable for Lautz in his letter of 9 September 1943 in Pros. Exh. 286 to have declined, vis a vis the Minister of Justice, any responsibility for the incidents at Ploetzensee, especially for the execution of various condemned persons without waiting for their clemency to be decided on, and thus to have voiced his criticism of the measures taken.
Nor can Lautz be incriminated by the execution at Brandenburg on 20 April 1945. He knew that a number of people who had been sentenced to death by the People's Court and whose clemency pleas and hand files had already been submitted to the Minister, had been held - and this is corroborated by the statements of Havemann of 10 April 1947 - at Branden Court No. III, Case No. 3.burg for weeks, in part even for months.
In spite of this, he did not undertake anything to hasten the decision of the Minister on the execution of the sentences. According to Lautz's testimony here, it evidently was General Public Prosecutor Hansen, under whose supervision the Brandenburg penitentiary was, who approached the Minister with the result that Thierack now decided on the clemency pleas and issued the execution order for about 30 of the condemned persons in the legally prescribed form.
Before turning to the activity of the defendant Lautz in People's Court criminal cases, I may be allowed to make a few basic remarks on the position on the German Prosecutor.
The German judicial system has considered it to be one of the exclusive functions of the State to prosecute punishable offenses. Apart from minor exceptions it does not concede any individual citizen any influence on criminal proceedings. This applies to the institution as well as to the conduct of criminal proceedings. Following the example set by the French, the State made use of the Prosecution Authorities in the discharge of this duty. These are bound by law to investigate every offense of which they get knowledge, and to investigate, and to make an indictment in case there is adequate reason for suspicion. The prosecution authorities thus proceed according to the socalled legality principle. This principle has only been ignored in a few cases specified by law in favor of the discretionary principle.
Above and beyond this, the German State has always made sure of its influence on the administration of criminal law by an hierachical structure of the prosecution authorities and by imposing on them the duty to follow the general and specific directives of their departmental superiors. In order to be in a position, at any time, also in individual cases, to issue orders deemed necessary, the Ministers of Justice, before as well as after 1933, had imposed upon the prosecution authorities the duty to report on a wide number of subjects. To quote an example of every single case brought before the People's Court No. III, Case No. 3.Court, the Indictment had to be submitted to the Minister of Justice, and it had to be done early enough to allow him to intervene effectively in the proceedings.
The defendant Klemm has testified hare as a witness with what care these indictments were examined in the Ministry of Justice. And finally the German state has always threatened the prosecutor with the severe penalties provided for in the penal code for failure to obey the legal order to prosecute. And these penalties were to be supplementary to the disciplinary penalties which the disobedient public servant had to expect per se.
With these measures - legality principle, strict adherence to directives and duty to report of the prosecutor liability to be punished in case of disobedience on part of the prosecutor, the providing of penalties for the disobedient prosecutor - the legislation of the seventies of the 19th century believed to have the guarantee that the claim of the State to supremacy in criminal matters against everybody could be ruthlessly enforced. The counterweight to this strong influence of the State leadership on criminal proceedings was formed by the independence of the judge, who need not fear that he would come to any hard on account of his decision - unless he had violated the law. The Third Reich did not change this state of affairs basically. Whether - what regards the court - other factors, for instance the application of the selective principle and the reform of the criminal law since 1933 have brought about a great change, is none of my concern. The prosecutor in any case continued to be subject to law and directive to the same extent as had been before.
All this is corroborated in my exhibits 53-55-58-60, 83-86, 92, 152-165, 172-229.
And it has, again and again, been explained as a matter of course in the testimonies of the witnesses - those of the prosecution and those of the defense as well - that the prosecutor had always been bound to the written law and to the directives of his superiors. I need only mention the testimonies of the witnesses Behl, Brem, Doebig, Court No. III, Case No. 3.Jahrreiss, Gruab, Ruemelin, Engert, Mueller, Paulus, Hofmann, etc.
I want to refer to another aspect which is of considerable importance just for the appreciation of the activity of the prosecutors who are defendants in this trial:
If the prosecutor is bound by law to carry out his duties according to the directives of his official superiors and to hide his own views, he can only draw the line at one point: He cannot be required to commit an offense in law. Apart from that, he has no choice to act one way or the other. As a representative of the State he just cannot, in his official acts, voice any other opinion than the opinion of the State. Accordingly, he need not fear either that he will be made responsible for his official acts, which he has carried out according to directives. That is also the interpretation of the French law. It has only recently been expressed again in the Judgment of the French Military Tribunal at Strasbourg of 3 May 1946 which I have submitted in my exhibit 166. The defendant in this case, amongst other people, was the Chief Public Prosecutor, Luger, of the former German Special Court at Strasbourg, because he had indicted, and asked for death sentences, against such Alsatians - that is to say, Frenchmen - who in the autumn of 1942 had not obeyed the call-up for military service. The French Military Tribunal, whose competence is established by an integral part of Statute No. 10, the London Four-power-Agreement of 8 August 1945, and whose legal argumentation derived from the French liberation law of 28 August 1944 acquitted the Chief public Prosecutor, because he had acted according to orders of his superiors to whom to obey he was by duty bound. The provisions of Statutes No. 10 who were doubtlessly known to the Tribunal. It would have applied them to the detriment of the Chief Public Prosecutor if it had not been of the opinion that the Chief Public Prosecutor, through the directives given to him, was exempted from the duty to examine the problems of international law involved in the proceedings before the German Special Court.
Court No. III, Case No. 3.
In paragraphs 9, 11, 21, and 23 of the indictment, Lautz is charged that by preferring charges against Germans as well as against inhabitants of occupied territories he participated in the suppression of political opposition against the Reich; that, in so doing, he made use of the Extraordinary Special Courts and of a misuse of criminal procedure, that by twisting the penal laws he had classified passive defeatism and unimportant utterances as treason; that he had also prosecuted nonGerman nationals for high treason against the Reich.
As may be gathered from the rounds given in their oral statement, the Prosecution evidently bases this charge on the assumption that Austria, Bohemia and Moravia, as well as the incorporated Eastern territories, are to be regarded as occupied territories and that resistance against the Reich on the part of their inhabitants is to be regarded as lawful. The Prosecution attempted to back their statements by submitting a number of indictments and judgments of the People's Court.
In reply to that, the following has been established by the evidence:
Austria voted itself into the Reich by the plebiscite of 10 April 1938. In accordance with an agreement with Czechoslovakia Bohemia and Moravia were declared parts of the Reich by a decree of the Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor, dated 16 March 1939; and the incorporated Eastern territories were reunited with the Reich after the defeat of the Polish state in 1939 by a decree of the Fuehrer and Reich-Chancellor, dated 8 Oct. 1939. In consequence of these constitutional developments, German law, thus also German criminal law, was introduced in these territories; in Bohemia and Moravia, however, essentially only those criminal statutes were introduced, with applicability to non-German nationals which aimed at the security of the state.
Like every German official, the Defendant Lautz was obliged by his office, to respect the legal position, as laid down by the law. The evidence made clear beyond doubt that during the time of the Empire as well as during the time of the Weimer Republic and during the 3rd Reich, no official had either the right or the duty to examine laws, which he had to carry out, from the point of view of whether they were in agreement with the principles of the law of nations; may I here amongst others, refer to the statements of the expert Professor Dr. Jahreiss and my exhibits Nos. 87 -- 109. This naturally held good also for the Defendant Lautz. He neither ever had the authority to doubt the validity in the sphere of international law of the pertinent principles. Apart from that, it has to be stressed emphatically that ho neither was nor even could have been acquainted with any of the facts, which might have caused him to nourish such doubts.
His knowledge concerning the political situation was based exclusively on the official announcements of the German regime. These, however, gave him the following aspect:
a) Austria:
The law of 13 march 1938 regarding the re-union of Austria with the German Reich, which had been agreed on by the Austrian Federal government, had been overwhelmingly approved by the Austrians in the plebiscite of 10 April 1938. The Great European Powers, above all England and France, had recognized the Anschluss of Austrian de facto and had concluded the agreement concerning the Sudetan districts in September 1938 in Munich.
b) Bohemia and Moravia:
The occupation of the so-called "rest of Czechoslovakia" in March 1939 had equally been accepted by the Great European Powers without a protest and been de facto recognized through recall of their diplomatic representatives from Prague. I may in this connection also refer to the Schlegelberger Exhibit 134 (Schlegelberger Document 140), from which England's de facto recognition of the new situation in the territory of Czechoslovakia can be shown.
c) Eastern territories:
After the defeat of the Polish Republic in autumn 1939, according to the German-Russian agreement for mutual interests of 29 Sept. 1939 (Schlegelberger Exhibit 149), the Reich was entitled to decide on its own discretion or the constitutional form for the territories west of the demarkation line. With certain territorial adjustments, - it therefore declared those territories to be German Reich territory which had been parts of the kingdom of Prussia until 1918, i.e. for approximately 120 years.
Similar considerations held good for the Memelland, the Danzig Free State, Eupen and Malmedy-Moresnet. If these areas had to be regarded as parts of the Reich -- and nobody had any doubts in this respect, as in also shown in the extracts from the competent commentaries and the decisions of the Reich Supreme Court in my exhibits No. 193, 212 - 215, then it was self understood that every attempt by force to remove the new constitutional situation constituted the preparation for an act of High Treason against the Reich, and that was the case even if the perpetrators were not Germans.
In this connection may 1 point to my exhibits 227 and 228. In addition, it will be shown that in Bohemia and Moravia, but above all in the incorporated Eastern territories, the aim of the resistance movement was by no means limited to the reestablishment of the so-called status quote at the time of the occupation by the Reich, but aimed beyond that at the extension of their own territories at the expense of the so-called Altreich. They thus constituted a very real danger, which had to be taken into account, especially as the means, with which the underground struggle against the Reich was being carried on above all in the East, - grew more and more menacing. This is proven by Schlegelberger Exhibit 157.
If, however, facts were present, in a case which pointed in the direction of the realization of these aims, then it was even the legal duty of the Reich Chief Prosecution at the People's Court to bring a charge, in accordance with the principle of legality pursuant to article 152 of the Code of Criminal Procedure in my exhibit No. 83. Lautz complied with this duty within the framework of the directions which he. received from his superior, the Minister of Justice. The Prosecution was unable to submit any proofs that he proceeded in this from any but an absolutely objective point of view.
May I in this connection state the following in detail: Eastern territories:
Very soon after the re-incorporation into the Reich of the territories which had been lost to Poland in 1918, illegal resistance groups formed there. They prepared for an armed insurrection against the Reich; they collected arms and decided on the primary points of attack in the case of insurrection.
For this purpose funds were collected, information channels established within the various groups and a readiness for revolt instigated by propaganda which was carried on with great efforts amongst the population by means of pamphlets and secret radio stations. Forged identity papers served to protect functionaries from discovery. The aim proclaimed by the insurgents was the destruction of the Reich at the first favorable moment, and the founding of a Greater Poland whose borders were to be pushed on to the Oder, at the expense of the Old Reich. Thus it should contain also those areas which always have had purely German populations, as it actually happens to be the case today, when the Poles drove out its 12 million inhabitants.
This set of facts is the base of the indictment in the prosecution exhibit 137. It accuses all defendants for having prepared the commission of high treason against the Reich.
The prosecution exhibits 125 end 134, or which only the latter contains an indictment signed by Lautz, is also concerned with the distribution of leaflets of the Polish resistance movement. Their printed request to hide weapons and war implements for the purpose of a revold and the demand for the forcible founding of a Polish state with its historical frontiers as far as the Oder, all unequivocally prove the violent aims of the authors, which the distributors of the pamphlets then adopted as their own. In this case, too, German law compelled an indictment for preparation to commit high treason. Of different nature are the cases treated in the prosecution exhibits 135 and 138. These acts were committed in the Old Reich. Concerning the case Kotzlovski, exhibit 138, it should be added that although the perpetrator was a native Pole, he had acquired German citizenship many years before. The indictment's charge that he propagandized the violent aims for a Greater Poland amongst Polish civilian workers legally constitutes the act of preparation to commit high treason. I wish to refer to the decisions of the Reich Court Martial in my exhibits 210 and 211 according to which the facts of the case on which the indictment in exhibit 135 are based, to wit, the attempted freeing of an allied flier held as prisoner of war, for the purpose of enabling him again to participate in the fight against the German Wehrmacht, constitutes pursuant to German law, the act of aiding and abetting the enemy.
Bohemia and Moravia:
The documents presented by the prosecution and the statements of defendant Lautz on the witness stand have shown that also in the area of Bohemia and Moravia, scon already after their incorporation into German Reich territory, far-reaching and dangerour attempts were made to reconstitute the Czechoslovakian state, and to extend its borders at the expense of the Old Reich - and indeed that communists tried to set up in all European countries people's republics according to Soviet precepts. These ideas were propagated partly by national, partly by communistic groups, who however were kept up mutual contact amongst themselves. They disposed of a large number of weapons and ample funds, were reinforced by agents dropped by enemy planes who brought them weapons, radio apparatus and other intelligence material, and they carried on very zealous and successful propaganda activities by means of all kinds of leaflets. By this as well as by numerous sabotage acts and surprise attacks of armed bands, quite a dangerous situation was conjured up for the security of these areas which were particularly important for the defense of the Reich.
These conditions which were described in detail by the defendant Lautz when interrogated as a witness, could all very easily be proved to the last item from the files of the People's Court if it would have been possible to present them here. But even the few documents submitted by the prosecution convoy a picture of the situation at that time. Firstly, there is the case of Charvat et al in exhibit 509. It concerns an indictment signed by the defendant Lautz against nine, very active members of an illegal communistic group in Chotzen in Bohemia. In its pleadings the prosecution described them as men who had no criminal record, and who distributed harmless leaflets.
But what they really did and intended to do follows from what they have said themselves; the aim of their illegal work was to set up a communistic people's republic in the territory of Czechoslovakia, and the spreading of the communistic revolution to the other countries of Europe. The population of the Protectorate, therefore, was to be incited against its own government, and the power of the Reich weakened by every type of sabotage acts. For this purpose active campaigns to recruit members and to distribute leaflets of similar contents were carried on. On this set of facts the indictment signed by Lautz bases its accusation for having committed the preparation of high treason, and of aiding and abetting the enemy. This indictment was drawn up in every respect according to the instructions of the Ministry of Justice and the rules of law as constantly practiced by German courts, particularly the Reich Court Martial, as is shown for instance by the prosecution exhibit 66 and my own exhibit 185. The same applies to the case Jamrozy et al, in prosecution exhibit 185. In this case only the sentence is available which sets forth that two of the three defendants prepared for the revolt, being leading functionaries of a communistic group in the mining district Michalkowitz (Moravia). To this category belongs also the prosecution exhibit 513. It concerns the case of one Chalupa, who, according to the indictment signed by Lautz, procured for a communistic functionary explosives for sabotage purposes. Finally, the prosecution submitted exhibit 567, which contains the indictment signed by Reich prosecutor Parrisius, and which accuses the defendant Nohawiska to be guilty of having aided and abetted the enemy, and to have committed acts in preparation of high treason, by spreading inflammatory news heard on enemy stations, to have kept in hiding saboteurs wanted by the police and to have distributed illegal pamphlets. The exhibit 184 does not sufficiently show what the Reich prosecuting authority really charged the defendant with; the document contains neither the indictment nor the reasons of the sentence.
The mutineers against Germany, however, were not content to operate only in the areas which were joined by the Reich. The insurrection was effected, at least by the attempt, to extend military aid to the Polish and Czech legionaires who, as in generally known, fought in considerable numbers on the side of the Allies against Germany. The perpetrators were in part inhabitants of the Protectorate, recruited from all classes; partly they were Poles who came from the incorporated Eastern territories as free workers to the Old Reich, as they have expressly declared according to my exhibit 200, and prosecution exhibit 136, and they made these statements to the investigating judge, and not as the prosecution now asserts to the Gestapo. Even if all other view points concerning the legal position of these men were excluded, their actions undoubtedly would contravene international law. For about the following no doubt was left by the powers which were represented at the Hague Conference of 1907: As soon as an area is firmly occupied by the enemy, every resistance by its inhabitants must cease. In this regard I wish to refer to the writing of the well-known Austrian professor of international law, Verdross, as quoted in my exhibit 256.
In order to show cases that men were recruited to join the Czech Legion, the prosecution submitted exhibits 514, 512 and 131. Exhibit 514 contains an indictment signed by Parrisius. It describes in detail the comprehensive and dangerous methods which were used in Bohemia and Moravia to recruit for the Czech Legion. The description is identical with the declarations of the German military counter-intelligence offices in Prague and Bruenn which can be found in the prosecution exhibit 127. The defendants in the exhibits 131, 512, and 514 have either admitted that they wanted to join the legion or convincing reasons for suspicion were available against them. Lautz or Parrisius, therefore, had to indict them. In doing so both acted according to the legal regulations which were binding for them and on the basis of explicit instructions from the Ministry which ordered the Reich Public Prosecutors to carry out such proceedings as it follows from prosecution exhibit 127. Furthermore, the prosecution has submitted a series of documents which concern those cases in which Polish workers, who had come into the old Reich as free workers, tried from there through agents in Switzerland, to get into contact with the Polish organizations which fought in Africa and other places against the German Wehrmacht.