A It did not come immediately from my Ministry; it came from an institute called "Seehaus Service". That was an institution that was run jointly by the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Propaganda, and which had a large machinery of more than 1000 people who monitored foreign radio stations. There was another similar institution, the socalled Research Office, which also worked with great accuracy, but with not the same speed.
Q From your position, you will be able to answer my question as to whether the Ministry of Justice had sources of special information atout the war situation?
A I consider that improbable, in fact, I consider it out of the question.
Q Can you tell us something as to whether the Ministry of Justice had information about the detailed plans of Hitler and Himmler?
A I consider that, too, out of the question.
Q Mr. Fritsche, the Prosecution in case III has submitted various documents which are to prove that the administration of justice maintained particular relations with your Ministry and particularly with your chief, Dr. Goebbels. I may point out to the Tribunal, I am now putting to the witness, Exhibit 66, that is NG-218, Document Book I-D, in the German text, page 132 following. This document contains a statement of 2 December 1941. I do not think I am wrong in saying that at that time, you were working at the Ministry.
A Yes.
Q It is signed by Dr. Schlegelberger, and addressed to the departmental chiefs; that is to say, the various chiefs of departments at the Ministry of Justice, and in regard to the relations between the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Propaganda, and the relations with Dr. Goebbels, the following is stated:
"Reichsminister Dr. Goebbels, therefore, has instructed the press and propaganda service to take into account that necessity in the case of ell publications" --- this concerns the necessity of strengthening the power of resistance of the German people.
I am continuing to quote:
"At the same time he asks that all events in the administration of justice, which could serve that aim, by being given particular emphasis, should be imparted to the Ministry of Propaganda. Furthermore, he initiated that all sentences which for some reasons had not been understood by the public or by the press were not to be immediately published in the press with adverse criticism, but were first to be passed on to the Ministry of Justice for examination".
Herr Fritsche, I assume that you have some information concerning the preliminaries for that apparent agreement between Goebbels and Dr. Schlegelberger, particularly as concerns the attacks in the press against sentences passed within the administration of justice?
A I do not remember that agreement, nor do I remember that on the basis of such an agreement Dr. Goebbels had issued appropriate instructions, but I do remember very well the struggle which was waged for many years by the Ministry of Justice against especially hasty criticism exercized by particularly sharp organs of the press of the sentences passed by the German courts. The Ministry of Justice was always complaining about improper attacks made by the press on sentences which some editors considered to be too lenient. As a result of those efforts by the Ministry of Justice. I very frequently had to admonish such aggressive organs of the press to practice restraint in their criticism of sentences.
Q During your official work in those days, did you hear about the attacks made in "Das Schwarze Korps", the periodical of the SS?
A The "Black Corps" was the paper which gave more cause than any other for such objections as I have just described. It was always necessary to admonish "Das Schwarze Korps" to be more careful. Because of the difficulties with "Das Schwarze Korps" , they were threatened several times to have their publication stopped altogether.
Q Herr Fritsche, I am now going over to quite a different point. In the trial here, it is of particular importance whether workers from the East, in particular from Poland, came to Germany voluntarily or not. Defendants and witnesses in this trial here have claimed that they were of the opinion that those people who worked here in the German Reich had come voluntarily. I am asking you, since you were at the Ministry of Propaganda at that time, what did the German public know about the so-called slave labor at the time. Secondly, I would like to ask you what, in your view, did the officials at the Ministry know about the same question?
A Concerning the subject, knowledge about slave labor, I have already made a detailed statement before the IMT. Concerning the question which you put to me, I have to emphasize explicitly that at that time, in the public, there was no basis for the whole concept of slave labor, such as it has been described today. I emphasize expressly that the representative of the Labor Kommissar of those days, Sauckel, at the news conference again and again emphasized that the workers from the various occupied territories had come voluntarily.
He did, to be sure, frequently speak of agreements which had been concluded with the governments of various occupied countries concerning the availability of workers from those territories, for example, agreements with the French government. However, the concept of slave labor was never mentioned in that connection, nor was there ever any basis which allowed conclusions to be drawn as to that concept. The German public saw hundreds of thousands of foreign workers go for walks on the roads; they saw them work freely in their places of work. German workers worked side by side with foreign comrades, at their own place of work.
It came as a great surprise to me, during the trial before the IMT, that Sauckel testified there that only an infinitesimally small number of foreign workers had come voluntarily.
It must be added that in my position as head of the German Press Department I very frequently dealt with the difficulties which arose from the fact that in recruiting foreign workers in occupied territories, too, far-reaching promises had been made which afterwards were not adhered to, for example, concerning food, accommodations, the possibility of sending money home in foreign currency, and so forth. My knowledge about such matters was also the knowledge gained at the press conferences and the conference that was held after the main conference. Therefore, as far as I see it, that was the only information which the ministries possessed, beyond the information available from the newspapers. I except, expressly, the Ministry of Labor, which I assume, within its own sphere of work, knew more details than the other ministries and the public.
Q. Did you know that there were supposed to have been difficulties because the individual employers, particularly in Poland, took workers away from one another?
A. Such cases were discussed frequently, particularly when journalists returned from trips or when others reported on their personal impressions at the press conference or the subsequent conferences.
Q. Was the German public informed about the agreements with states, as, for example, with France, about the loan or making available of laborers within the German Reich; that is to say, an exchange from one enterprise to another?
A. I have already mentioned that. Reports were made concerning such agreements with the governments of occupied countries.
Q. Did the reports only say that there were foreign workers in Germany, or were those matters stressed by way of propaganda in the press and over the radio?
A. They were particularly stressed. For example, certain German radio stations, at certain times of the day, dropped their general programs and inserted special programs for Polish, French, or other workers within the territory of the German Reich. There were also special events about which a great deal of propaganda was made, and it was an essential part of Germany's domestic propaganda to point out particularly that the representatives of so many European nations were working together here. Conferences were held, too, and public reports were made about them.
Q. Do you happen to know anything about am ordinance issued by Himmler in June of 1944? It was also published in the Reich Law Gazette. It was an ordinance whereby awards were given to Eastern workers, a coat of arms was put on their left sleeve, and that order by Himmler pointed out that these workers were a great help to the German manpower.
A. I do not remember that particular ordinance, but it does not appear to be outside the scope of what was customary in those days.
Q. I would now like to put a different question to you, Herr Fritsche, which relates to the knowledge of the German public, until the collapse, of events in the concentration camps. What did the public know about concentration camps, and how did the press and the radio inform the German public on that subject?
A. The German public, first of all, knew the fact that concentration camps had been established. In 1933 there was a public announcement that concentration camps had been established. The reasons that were given for it were that political conditions were abnormal. The German public showed many symptoms of unrest concerning such a phenomenon, which was not easily explainable out of a normal sense of justice in normal, peaceful times.
When, however, in 1934 it become known that the number of inmates of the concentration camps had been reduced to a very small figure, the German public calmed down. Various Quarters - the names of which I cannot give now from my recollection - did, at intervals, issue information about the concentration camps. The RSHA, among others, described the sanitary conditions in the camps, the problem of accommodations, food, etc. That information was altogether gratifying.
Approximately at the beginning of the war, Heydrich, who was then the chief of the RSHA, placed himself before the German and international press to be questioned back and forth about concentration camps. He gave figures concerning the number of inmates in concentration camps, which were far below the number of prison inmates in normal times.
Q. Excuse me if I interrupt you, but will you tell me when Heydrich made that statement?
A. As far as I know, it was in 1940.
In addition, there was also a vast number of rumors in circulation about the concentration camps. At the very beginning, in 1933, I myself heard about cases of ill-treatment which, because I believed the persons concerned were competent, I reported to the then Minister President Goering and the Minister of Interior Frick. I soon received an answer to those written reports to the effect that these matters were being investigated, and about three or four weeks later I was told by the Press Referent, and the head of the Gestapo in those days, Diels, that the guilty persons had been brought before a court. Other officials or representatives of public opinion will have had similar experiences.
The German public considered the 30th of June 1934, first of all, a purification of all those instances of incorrect behavior which had actually occurred in concentration camps. Until the outbreak of the war, comparatively little was heard about the subject of concentration camps. That subject became acute and timely again only at the moment when, during the war, the enemy radio stations spread details about atrocities and inhumane conditions in concentration camps.
I had taken down every single one of those, not hundreds but thousands of reports, and had them recorded, and, as far as it was possible for me, I had those matters checked. I was always told that those atrocities were not true. I emphasize that these matters were disputed in a form which, at the time, appeared credible to me. Naturally, I always made available to the German press and radio those denials of foreign reports about atrocities in concentration camps, which, above all, possessed also the raw material of those reports which had not been denied.
Q. If I understand you correctly, you said that you had foreign press and radio reports checked. Would you tell the Tribunal in what way those foreign radio and press reports were examined? Was that examination reliable? I would like to put it this way: Did you set up any way of making reliable examinations, or did you simply rely on such denials?
A.- I passed on such reports all the time to the RSHA, which was the competent authority, and the RSHA did not restrict itself to saying simply such and such a report is wrong, but in some cases it said that there is some nucleus of truth about this but the case has been distorted or exaggerated. In other cases the RSHA said, this is pure invention. I was not able to exercise control over individual cases but I tried to exercise a general control, and I believed I could do that by questioning individual SS leaders at the informal conferences after the main conference about the impressions which they themselves had gained at concentration camps. Thus, a journalist by the name of Raschke once gave a detailed report about a trip through all German concentration camps.
JUDGE BRAND: The Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.
(A recess was taken.)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
BY DR. SCHILF:
Q.- Mr. Fritsche, we talked about the knowledge of the concentration camps among the German population and about the fact that you investigated reports from abroad. In conclusion I should like to ask you, did that discussion about German concentration camp during the war continue, or were there any changes?
A.- Public discussion about concentration camps, of course, was put in the background in the same measure as aerial attacks on German cities increased. During those days and years the German population had worries which were more acute than to check reports which came from abroad and which up to that time had always been denied.
Q.- That concludes that question. But I ask you now to explain to the Tribunal what the German public knew about lynching of shot-down or parachuted Allied fliers and what the German public in general knew about the fact that Allied fliers had committed so-called terror acts.
MR. LA FOLLETTE: I object, Your Honor, for the reason that what the German public knew is not relevant. The issue is what did the defendants in this particular dock know about that.
DR. SCHILF: May it please the Tribunal, may I say something in this connection? The Prosecution has submitted Exhibit 417, that is document 1676-PS, an excerpt from the Voelkische Beobachter of 28 and 29 May, 1944, by Dr, Goebbels. That article in the Voelkische Beobachter is entitled "A Lord Concerning the Enemy Air Terror." Furthermore, the Prosecution submitted exhibit 440, that is NG-1306 in Document Book I Supplement. I forgot to mention that Exhibit 417 is in Document Book 1-A. In the second document, Exhibit 440 in the form of an affidavit by Hans Beljowek, detailed statements are made concerning the fact that the circular decree of the Ministry of Justice was in an immediate connection with the article by Goebbels in the Voelkische Beobachter. The witness on the basis of his expert knowledge is in a position to elucidate as to what extent Goebbels put these questions before the German public.
Here the question arises for all defendants whether they knew anything about it that Allied fliers at all committed so-called terror acts, and furthermore as to whether Goebbels published a proclamation to the population to lynch the so-called terror fliers. This, in my opinion, is of the greatest importance.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal is ready to rule. The question was what did the public know about the murder of Allied fliers. That question is irrelevant to this inquiry and the objection is sustained. Counsel has, however, indicated that he desired to. elicit from this witness answers as to what information the Goebbels propaganda ministry may have passed on to the general public. He may answer as to that, but the question as stated is objectionable, and the objection is sustained. We are concerned with the knowledge of the defendants.
BY DR. SCHILF:
Q.- Mr. Fritsche, you have heard the decision of the Court. Will you please answer that question as far as it has been admitted? That is to say, did the propaganda ministry inform the German public about these questions, and if so, how?
A.- By Dr. Goebbels an article was issued which was submitted as a document in the trial before the IMT and which I had in my hands at that time. Now after the war the conclusion was drawn therefrom that Dr. Goebbels in that article incited to the murder of foreign fliers who after the destruction of their airplanes saved themselves by parachuting down. Neither in that article nor anywhere else did I find any similar public incitement on the part of Dr. Goebbels.
THE PRESIDENT: Of course, witness, we are not concerned with your construction as to the meaning or effect of the instrument to which you refer. The question which was permitted you to answer relates to what, if any, information was given by the Ministry.
THE WITNESS: Then according to my recollection in the fall of 1944 -- it may have been somewhat earlier, that is, in the summer of 1944 -- a series of reports were transmitted, particularly abroad. These reports were a pure invention on the part of Dr. Goebbels, who dictated them personally and made them available to the editors of foreign broadcast stations. These reports dealt with cases which allegedly had occurred in a German village where an Allied flier who allegedly had shot people walking to church or just promenading on a Sunday and who had been shot down and was subsequently lynched by the population. Dr. Goebbels, and that I could observe, by circular letters asked the Reich Propaganda Offices throughout the Reich to collect material of that kind, but did not receive reports on a single case. It is indeed quite improbable that a flier who has just made an attack on civilians would now drop just within the area of these civilians by being shot down. These reports were invented by Dr. Goebbels and circulated abroad in foreign countries in order to stress that enemy fliers should not believe that they could perform attacks which are beyond the customs of war without being punished for it and just being considered prisoners of war afterwards. These reports were not, however, circulated in Germany and not made available to the German public, because the German public could recognize without difficulty that these reports were false simply by the names of the places, the dates, and so on. In addition to that program I know another one, that is to say a third one on the part of Dr. Goebbels. That was after the air attack on Dresden in the beginning of 1945 when he requested me to make propagandists preparations for the utilization of the fact that as a reprisal for the airraid on Dresden 40,000 Allied fliers were to be shot in Dresden. That task, as I have stated before the International Military Tribunal, did not carry out, but I informed a foreign minister of those facts and took measures which later led to it that the planned action was not carried out.
Q.- Will you please tell the Tribunal when that occurred, the matter which you just discussed, after the airraids on Dresden?
A.- I can no longer tell the date. I know the day of the week. I remember the day of the week. If I remember correctly, it must have been a Thursday, the Thursday after the day or the Thursday of the week during which the airraid took place on Tuesday.
Q.- That was in 1944 or 1945?
A.- In 1945.
Q.- If I understood you correctly, Witness, then until that time you did not receive any instruction from Dr. Goebbels to request the German population or any other agency to do anything against Allied fliers?
A.- I have not received any request of that kind from Dr. Goebbels until the time I mentioned.
Q.- Until that time did the German press of the German radio at any time make a similar incitement, maybe outside of Goebbel's instructions?
A.- Not as far as I know. I considered it quite impossible, because otherwise I would have had to know about a request of that kind.
Q. You mentioned material, before, that Goebbels wanted collected all throughout the Reich through his propaganda agencies. According to my information , it is alleged that in the Propaganda Ministry, a film was shown which was captured from a British plane and which was shown within the Propaganda Ministry. Did you attend that showing, and was that case used for propaganda purposes?
A. The matter happened slightly different than how you described it. It was not the showing of the film, it was the following: One day a liason officer who worked for Dr. Goebbels with the Luftwaffe, a certain Lieutenant Boenninghaus, came with a film which had been captured from an Allied plane that was shot down. It was, one of these films which are taken automatically at the same time while firing a rapid fire cannon on board of an airplane and which would show the target during the attack. On that film, which was not shown but only demonstrated as a negative, one could see that the flier who had been shot down , with his last shots aimed at a group of three peasant women who moved about in a field. One saw on the subsequent pictures the various positions in which the three women in extreme terror fled in various directions. One threw her shirts over her head. The other one threw herself on the ground, and the third kept running.
That film, as far as I remember, Dr. Goebbels intended to show to the public. That would have been a tremendous incitement of hatred and passion, which during the days of war were very strong already. Only on the basis of a special information, this intention was changed and the film was not shown publicly. That information came also from Lieutenant Boenninghaus and it was the following. Lieutenant Boenninghaus stated that among Allied fliers , it was not considered fair to attack individual civilians, and that one knew that fliers of whom such attacks have become known, when they returned to their air base would be punished by their comrades by disrespect, by exclusion from the officers' club, by excluding them from parties and similar things.
Lieutenant Boenninghaus stated at that time what really counted was to underline the good and fair soldierly spirit of the Allied fliers in their combating such abuses of the weapons which were used by the individual soldier. Therefore, even in the case of polemics in the press, a clear distinction was made between Allied fliers who had just dropped bombs or who had just participated in larger air raids and other Allied fliers, who, if I may use that expression, performed a private manhunt of their own.
Q. At any rate, that material was never shown to the German public nor published by the foreign radio or foreign press?
A. To my knowledge, that film was not utilized nor published.
Q. Mr. Fritsche, you mentioned, concerning the article by Goebbels from May '44, that is Exhibit 417, that you had first read it in the IMT Judgment. We do not want to discuss the contents. Maybe you remember the case. I have shown it to you in the recess. Goebbels brings a number of quotations from primarily British papers. On the basis of your knowledge of these matters, could you say whether Goebbels invented those quotations?
MR. LA FOLLETTE: I object, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: He may answer.
THE WITNESS: I could not say that these quotations specifically which you mentioned there were taken from that or the other source. I could only say what the general procedure was concerning quotations which Dr. Goebbels used. All those quotations were prepared by an institution which looked like archives. That was the so-called Referat, German speeding service --Schnelldienst---which I had established once shortly before the outbreak of the war. I could observe quite frequently that Dr. Goebbels manipulated with these quotations by inserting a very strong tendency, but I could never observe that he actually falsified a quotation. In order to make it a little more clear, he selected the strongest portions of a sentence and left milder portions out. If there was a choice in translating a word, he chose the strongest term possible, but I have never observed that he actually falsified a quotation.
Therefore, I assume that also as for the quotations used in that article, the same applies which I otherwise observed.
Q. Exhibit 440, which I mentioned already, NG-1306, Document Book I Supplement, is an affidavit by an official with the prosecution in Stuttgart. That official stated the following, I quote: "I remember a decree dealing with the handling of procedure against those people who killed parachuted enemy fliers." With that he points to a decree by the Minister of Justice. He continues, and I continue to quote: "It came, that is the decree, at any rate after the proclamation by Dr. Goebbels concerning the killing of enemy fliers, which at that time appeared in the press. According to my recollection, that decree was issued after the destruction of our office building in Stuttgart, that is to say, after the 12th December 1944". I believe even that it was in January 1945, and I continue to quote: "Either that decree explicitly referred to the proclamation in question by Dr. Goebbels in the press, or which is also possible, I may have immediately remembered that proclamation, when reading the decree."
I should like to ask you, Mr. Fritsche, what you have to say concerning that statement that a decree is brought in a certain connection with a proclamation by Goebbels. I do not know what the witness means. If I understood you correctly, a proclamation by Goebbels in the press did not become known to you except for the one that we have just discussed.
MR. LA FOLLETTE: I object, your Honor, for the reason that this witness has testified that Goebbels issued this press account and the witness in the affidavit said he read the article in the paper. I can see nothing in the question that indicates that this witness knows anything else about any to her decree that was referred to than the account that was in the newspaper. The question also asked him whether he knows whether the witness was referring to this decree or some other, and of course this witness doesn't know that.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you more briefly state the specific question which you wish the witness to answer without your own explanations and the Tribunal will then rule on it.
BY DR. SCHILF:
Q. You have already said that apart from the newspaper article, by Goebbels, you did not know of anything else; particularly, you did not know about a proclamation issued by Goebbels. Did I understand you correctly?
A. You understood me quite correctly.
THE PRESIDENT: That proclamation appears in the evidence to be marked "Top Secret," does it not?
DR. SCHILF: Mr. President, I have just quoted the affidavit by Beljorek. Beljorek says that he had received a secret decree from the Ministry of Justice, and when he received that decree he stated here that he had the opinion that there was a connection between that decree and a proclamation by Goebbels. My question to the witness is now whether apart from the newspaper article in the Voelkische Beobachter, he knows of any proclamation by Goebbels.
THE PRESIDENT: He may answer if he knows of any proclamation by Geobbels.
THE WITNESS: I do not know any proclamation by Dr. Goebbels to the public in the sense which you have just described.
BY DR. SCHILF:
Q. Than I have no further question on this matter. Now we come to a new subject about which I want to put some questions to you. Do you remember an order by Himmler which is supposed to have been published in the middle of January '45 concerning evacuations in the Eastern German territory, particularly in the Oder territory? It is asserted that Himmler made a public statement that without his approval nobody could go back to the west from the Oder area --- that no official agency could be evacuated -- and that also the civilian population had to stay put.
A I know of such orders which prohibited at the moment of danger. I have heard many complaints from various areas, not only in the Order area, against such orders, because it occurred frequently -- and it occurred everywhere in the end -- that first it was prohibited to flee and then, when it was too late, it was recommended to do so.
Q Do you remember specifically a decree by Himmler of January, 1945, concerning the Oder area?
A I know a decree of that time was issued; I could not any longer tell whether it was issued by Himmler; but, since I was not far from the Oder area, I remember that that point was promulgated very strongly in the Oder area.
Q A further question. In March 1939 you were chief of the German Press Department; is that correct?
A Yes.
Q In March of 1939 the so-called protectorate was established. I ask you: did at that time the press and radio, that is to say the Ministry of Propaganda, consider the establishment of the protectorate a bilateral treaty concluded by Dr. Hacha the President of Czechoslovakian State and Hitler; and, did it inform the public that that was a bilateral treaty?
MR. LAFOLLETTE: If your Honor please, I object to that part of the question as least which asked as to what the German Reich considered the establishment to be. If this witness wants to testify as to what was actually sent out in the way of propaganda, I shall not object. I object to the question in its form.
THE PRESIDENT: The objection is sustained, subject to the limitation which the Prosecution has suggested.
Q Mr. Fritsche, my question , therefore, is how was this treaty presented to the German public.
A In the official publications that treaty was considered a free covenant concluded between two interested partners. From abroad rumors and reports were received which were -concerned with the fact that President Hacha was limited in the free expression of his will, and that story was illustrated by stating that President Hacha was given a drug during the conference with Hitler. I took advantage of an opportunity, which occurred by coincidence, to ask the personal physician of Hitler at that time whether he had given that drug to President Hacha. He said that it was a special drug against a heart disease and President Hacha was so happy about it that later he has requested to receive more of it.
Q Was the German public informed about these details?
A No, the report about that alleged narcotic drug was denied.
Q I have a final question, now, in my capacity as counsel for the defendant Klemm; did you know Klemm?
A I knew Klemm from the time when he studied at Koenig Albert Gymnasium several classes below me, at Beipzig.
Q Did you have any contact with Klemm, when in 1944, he became under secretary in the Reich Ministry of Justice?
A Yes. I called on him concerning various cases where broadcast listeners, who were not personally known to me, approached me with various requests. At that time I called on the under-secretary in the Ministry of Justice over the telephone, I did not know that I happened to know him personally, and , in the course of the conversation, we found out that we had known each other before.
Q In what matters did you call on Klemm?
A In various matters. I remember one case; it was a case of an actor who was accused of undermining military strenghth; and his mother, who was quite unknown to me. had written to me. In such cases I never used to try to straighten out something which I could not really straighten out, but all I did was to bring such cases to the attention of the competent agencies in a somewhat sympathetic sense.
I did that in this case, and as I heard later during the trial before the IMT, that actor was only sentenced to a very mild sentence because upon close investigation of the case that suspicion of undermining the military strength was dropped. In another case it was a matter of communist activity, and, if I remember correctly, the sister of the defendant had written to me. In that case a death sentence was pronounced; and then because the sister of the defendant, whom I did not know, personally came to see me several times, I then made an attempt to speak to Minister Thierack. In that I succeeded with the help of Klemm. A very carefully prepared clemency plea was filed, but it was not successful. Such cases, according to my recollection, occurred frequently, but I think these two examples should be sufficient.
Q Did you gain the impression that Klomm, in the cases for which you intervened, was willing to help, that is, to bring about a decision of clemency?
A I had the impression that he was certainly willing to help.
DR. SCHILF: May it please the tribunal, I have no further questions to this witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Schilf, on numerous occasions you have used the word "pardon"; and I think perhaps the record should show that in your use of that word you have included either a complete pardon or a commutation of sentence, is that not correct?
DR. SCHILF: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: In our English practice, "pardon" means a complete forgiveness of the entire crime, and I think the record should show the use in which you have employed that word in the past. Am I correct?
DR. SCHILF: Yes, Mr. President, May I state briefly whenever I personally -- and I believe also if my colleagues -- speak of a pardon, Gnadenerweis, they always me a the commutation of the sentence no complete pardon.