But the scolding and debasing manner in which Freisler treated some of the defendants brought about the unpleasant picture which the film portrays.
Q. Did you not take any steps against this manner of conducting a trial which Freisler applied?
A. Immediately after the conclusion of the first session I went to see Thierack and told him that things could not go on in this way and asked him to exert some influence on Freisler. He told me that he would first of all call Freisler to account, and secondly, he would soon appoint a second presiding judge who would have to alternate with Freisler in presiding over the trial. In so doing he asked me whom I considered to b e suitable as presiding judge. On this occasion I called his attention to the then senate president Hebelung because his quiet and factual manner of treating a case had come to my attention at a former trial.
Q. Witness, did you not also call Freisler himself to account?
A. On the following day I had a serious clash with Freisler. I went to see him in his office and submitted a book to him which had the title "Honor Protection in Criminal Proceedings" -Ehrenschutz im Strafverfahren -- It was a collection of articles which concerned themselves with the protection against insults in criminal proceedings. Freisler had written an introduction to this book in which, in a very emphatic manner, he pointed out that the defendant also in particular in any case, as long as he had yet been condemned and regardless of what charges were raised against him in the trial, is to be regarded and treated as an honorable man.
I put that article to him. He became embarrassed and told me only that in political cases other laws were ruling some times. Nevertheless, it was not a rule that he became guilty of such excesses, as was shown in this film which only portrays some, if I may say so, dramatic climaxes.
Q Witness, may I ask you here....the film laster for forty-five minutes, as you know. To how many different cases did this film refer?
A The film which was shown to the Tribunal contains excerpts from about four to five different trials. They lasted altogether about fifty hours -- forty to fifty hours in session. From the entire film of the trial a German short film was already produced, and that also was put together in the same way as the one that was shown here. I saw this German film, and it, too, only showed the presiding judge. Never, however, the defense counsel or the public prosecutor.
Q By the way, how did the defense counsel behave in the cases concerning the 20th of July?
A The majority of the defense counsel made excellent statements in their final pleas, and they were never interrupted in their final pleas, not even by Freissler. By questions during the trial they also were given an opportunity to find out what they wanted to know.
Q The witness Wergin, in his affidavit, Exhibit 146, that is, Document NG-403, and on the occasion of his examination during cross examination stated that you, as far as he had heard in regard to the participants -- had been in contact with the participants of the 20th July 1944. Can you explain how that rumor arose?
A I can explain it only by the fact that I was very good friends with the Staff Judge of the OKW, Dr. Sack -- Colonel Sack. I had a great deal to do with him officially and I got to know him as a man who saw to it energetically that the many signs of corruption which were felt, unfortunately, in the Wehrmacht during the course of the war, that Sack prosecuted these exesses with energy. Moreover, he was a very intelligent man politically, who prevented many of his acquaintances, and friends through political advice from exposing themselves politically.
Only after he was arrested in September 1944 did I find out that on the occasion of the attempt he worked together, closely with Colonel Staffenberg, and I only heard here in Nuernberg that shortly before the collapse, without a trial before the court, the Gestapo shot him to death.
Q Shortly before the 20th of July 1944, did you not have a discussion with Dr. Sack, the significance of which, however, you did not realize at the time?
A That is correct. Perhaps I may say the following in regard to this. This case is connected with the case -- the Kiep-Solf case. Kiep had been employed in the OKW and was well acquainted with Sack. Shortly before the trial Sack came to see me and made inquiries as to how the case was proceeding, as far as Kiep was concerned. I told him what he wanted to know. Then he continued the discussion in approximately the following manner: He said that he had just come from Paris. There he had had a conversation with General Fieldmarshall von Rundstedt. On this occasion von Rundstedt had shown him a letter by the former Mayor Goerdeler, in which Goerdeler told Fieldmarshall von Rundstedt, between the lines, that the war could not have a good outcome any more, and that it was about time that the Wehrmacht undertook something. Now, Sack asked me whether, in the files of the Peoples Court, the name of Goerdeler appeared as being suspicious in some way or other. If so, it was his intention to prevent Fieldmarshall von Rundstedt from carrying on a correspondence with a man who, was already a suspicious character for the police, and to warn Field marshall von Rundstedt. I had full understanding for this, and therefore told Sack which facts per se could be used against Goerdeler were not known to me so far from the files. Nevertheless, however, from the Kiep-Solf case so much could be seen that in the conversations of the accused persons the name Goerdeler was mentioned as one of the men of the future.
And that, perhaps, was reason enough to call this to the attention of Fieldmarshall von Rundstedt. And Sack wanted to do that. Only a longer time afterwards did it become clear to me, especially after I found out about the arrest of Sack, that that inquiry had quite different connections; that, apparently, it was aimed at warning Goerdeler. In fact, during the days of the 20th of July Goerdeler was not in Berlin, and for a time he had disappeared.
DR. GRUBE: May I here interpose a brief remark. By the film which the prosecution showed, apparently the defendant Lautz also was supposed to be quite responsible for Freisler's manner of conducting the trial. Therefore, defendant Lautz requested to me to offer him an opportunity to make some brief statements as to how he himself acted. I beg the pardon of the Tribunal if this perhaps goes into some greater detail than would be absolutely essential.
BY DR. GRUBE:
Q Witness, how did you yourself, act in the trials regarding the 20th of July, and how did you, during these cases, conduct yourself?
A I myself worked on all of these cases personally; at least I supervised them directly. And I believe that in doing so, as well as during the trial, I made efforts to appear completely factual.
Q Can you give examples of your behavior during the trials? May I just remind you of the Hoeppner case.
A Immediately, in the first trial against von Witzleben and others, during the examination of the former Generaloberst Hoeppner an incident occurred. Hoeppner described this meeting with General Olbricht shortly before the 20th of July, at which time all details of the action were discussed and were he received exact instructions as to how he was to behave on the 20th of July as the one who had been selected as the Chief of the home Army, that would replace the one that would be overthrown.
He continued these statements by saying, approximately the following: After this discussion he had returned home very excited, and had decided t o tell his wife about this affair. At that moment I immediately jumped up, interrupted the speech of the and guided him to another subject, because it was clear to me that defendant, every word that he would say from now on would involve the wife of the defendant and his family, and would involve a serious danger for them, but that it could not help him at all.
Q May I then remind you of the Bismarck case?
A Von Bismarck had been Regierungs President in Potsdam and was a good friend of the Police President von Helsdorf of Berlin. Through his close relationship with the latter, he had come under suspicion of having participated in the conspiracy. It was evident from the files that he had denied this at first. Then, however he admitted that, in a manner which made it apparent that something must have occurred in the interim. In his own interest, I considered it essential that the question of his guilt or lack of guilt should be clarified by a court proceeding.
However, I called to the attention of the presiding judge that this contradiction existed and that something would have to be done before the trial. Therefore, one hour before the trial began, we ordered the Chief of the State Police to come to us, and out of his mouth we heard, at least in a veiled manner, that these confessions had apparently not been made voluntarily. Thereupon I confronted him with the choice of either agreeing to the fact that the second transcript would be disregarded, or that evidence in regard to it should be brought in during the trial. Freisler was of the same opinion in the case. The transcript was not used; I asked for an acquittal of the defendant, and the Court acquitted him.
The third and last case which I may, perhaps be permitted to report to the Tribunal because it is especially tragic--is the case of Lieutenant Lindemann. Lieutenant Lindemann was the son of General Lindemann, in the General Staff, who had been one of the most direct participants in the preparations fro the attempt and in the attempt itself. General Lindemann had escaped being captured some time later on the fight. Later, when he was captured, it was discovered that before the attempt, in quite clear language that could not be misinterpreted, he had informed his son of the impending event in all details. This forced us to indict Lieutenant Lindemann because he did not report a crime.
Freisler considered the matter as being extraordinarily serious, and only with the utmost effort, through very long statements which went into great detail as to ethical considerations during the trial, did I succeed in achieving the fact that the young officer got away with a prison sentence only.
Q As is known, Hitler had ordered several different measures which would contribute to the desbasing of the condemned persons of the 20th of July. What was your attitude toward these measures? First of all, what was your attitude toward the question as to whether the death penalty was to be executed by hanging?
A This manner of carrying out the sentence seemed to me personally to be the most unbearable factor of this whole affair. Therefore, I got in touch with the Commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht, and also with General Reinecke, and I initiated an appeal, to no made to Hitler, which was successful to the extent that the Minister, in individual cases, was permitted to order the defendants executed by shooting especially in the case of soldiers, and that what happened subsequently.
The second factor was that if a person was condemned, of necessity it was stated that the property of the condemned person was to be confiscated by the Reich; and it had been ordered by higher authorities that this measure be carried out to the limit, even to the extent that the most personal mementos of the condemned persons should be taken away from the heirs.
Q Can you state an example? May I remind you of the Witzleben case?
A In one case the matter was a follows: The person concerned had a gold watch in his possession which one of his ancestors had received as a present from Frederick the Great. Even this watch was not supposed to be given to his relatives. In this case I received some help via Obergruppenfuehrer Breithaupt, who had been appointed to take care of the possessions of the families, and I succeeded in preventing matters from being carried out so severely.
The third and final factor was that I prohibited my prosecutors-who had to be present at the executions--from taking any steps on their own part if they should notice that, in spite of the prohibition, a clergyman should attend to minister to the condemned persons.
Q Witness, did you not also stop trials, concerning the 20th of July, before an indictment was raised before the People's Court?
A That happened to a considerable extent, and it was due to a special incident that this was caused.
Q May I first, perhaps remind you of the Boermann case?
A In the trial against Goerdeler, I had noticed, with displeasure, that Goerdeler had stated, without it doing him any good at all, all the names of the persons who had harbored him since his flight from the 20th of July until he was captured; and he even stated why he believed that they knew to what extent he was connected with the events that had occurred. This readiness to mention all the names was apparently the reason why Minister Thierack, after the sentence was pronounced, permitted the Gestapo to interrogate Goerdeler for several weeks longer. During these interrogations, Goerdeler, to a large extent, continued the name further persons who so far had not been under suspicion at all. He described their conversations with him, which in part had occurred years ago, some as far back as 1941. Even if he had an excellent memory he could not have remembered them exactly unless he had kept a diary, and this was not the case.
The result was that numerous further arrests tool place, and additional trials. In these trials I emphatically r presented the opinion that if such testimony was not supported by other evidence, it did not justify an indictment, and I succeeded in every case.
As to the Boermann case, he was a professor in Halle, who was also--by Goerdeler--brought into close connection with a conversation which had the character of high treason and which was supposed to have taken place in Halle, and which probably did take place.
To that extent this defendant differed, is an unpleasant way, for example from General von Stuelpnagel who, had been charged with the responsibility that if the attempt should succeed, he, together with Rommel, should bring about the understanding, or, that is to say, the surrender to the Western Powers, and who stated in regard to this during the trial, merely, "I am responsible; no other officer or marshal has anything to do with this."
Q The Prosecution has submitted the Gruenwaldt affidavit, Exhibit 283, in which the Engelhorn, Schack, Schoene, and other cases are discussed. Please comment on these cases and state your opinion.
A This is the last point on which I would like to comment. The Engelhorn cases concerns a group of seven officers from three different offices. Schack and Engelhorn belonged to the Berlin Command and were the subordinates of General von Haase. All these officers were charged with having, on the afternoon of the 20th of July 1944, carried out military actions directly, and with having cooperated in carrying them out, which would bring about the military occupation of Berlin, especially the occupation of the government quarter, and which aimed at the arresting of all of the ministers; and they were charged with actually having begun this, but having only been able to carry it out in part.
The first trial began about the middle of September. During those days I was prevented for the first time to appear personally at the trial because in the afternoon I had to take care of an urgent business matter of a different nature. Therefore I commissioned a very reliable first Public Prosecutor to represent me. But during the morning hours I listened to the trial, was present at the session. The defendant Nobelung was presiding judge. The session was very quiet and conducted in an objective manner. They spoke almost too much. When I left around noon one could not yet judge what applications for penalty should be made. Therefore I gave the commission to the prosecutor to call me up after all the evidence had been submitted and to ask me for instructions. He did so around six o'clock in the afternoon and told me that he intended to ask for the death sentence against four of the defendants; against three, however, to ask for an acquittal. Among those three were Schack and Schoene. He added that the acquittal could not be founded convincingly, perhaps it was not quite without doubt, but anyway he would ask for an acquittal, and I authorized him to do so. After about an hour he informed me that he had made the applications as I had authorized him to do but that the court had interrupted the trial in order to pronounce the sentence the following morning. The next morning, in order to hear the judgment, I went to the Supreme Prussian Court of Appeal, the Kammergericht, where the trials were being held, and there I met my prosecutor, who told me the following, that he had just received a notification from the Gestapo and that new files had arrived which were important for the case. Moreover, the presiding judge, after he had stated the reasons for his application and after the court had adjourned had told him the following.
The court would like to acquit, and there were some indications in the files which, if they were checked and found to be correct, could speak in favor of the defendants. Thereupon I considered it to be correct to order my prosecutor that if the court would afford him an opportunity to make a further statement, stating as a reason that a new examination of the files would be to the point, to ask for an adjournment. While I was still talking to him Freisler appeared in the courtroom, who apparently also had the intention to listen to the verdict. When the court appeared in the courtroom the presiding judge afforded the prosecutor an opportunity, if he considered it necessary, to supplement his statements. The Prosecutor did so, as he had been instructed by me and approved to do. Thereupon the court adjourned for consultation, and after it reappeared in the courtroom it announced a sentence and a rule, an acquittal of one of the defendants, that was the defendant Ramin, and in regard to the six, they decided to adjourn. The next two weeks were used by us to check up upon those facts which we believed would be of importance for a new trial. But the result was neither positive nor negative. The facts remained as before. About the beginning of October two or three weeks might have passed after the first opening of the trial. The files were submitted to me, that is my files, working files, not the files that the court had and from that I saw that a new opening date had been set and that Freisler was to be presiding judge. I myself appeared in the session at this time, because under the general regulation I had to do so. The result of that trial was quite a different one than the result of the first one anyway according to my opinion.
The two defendants Schack and Schoene, both of whom were elderly persons, who were used up, were not up to the examination which Freisler conducted. They involved themselves in contradictions which distorted the picture to such an extent against them, at least that is how I saw things, that nothing was left to me but now to ask for a death sentence against them as the only possible penalty, according to the law. Another defendant, a Lt. Colonel, an Oberstleutnant from the General Staff who, according to the first trial had made the impression of being conscious of his guilt, however, defended himself so skillfully that we could ask for an acquittal, and he was acquitted. Now that came about that in place of the defendant Nebelung now Freisler was presiding judge I found out only afterwards from Nebelung. It happened as follows: Freisler used Nebelung's absence, who was out of town, I don't know why, probably on a business trip, in order to set the opening date of the new trial.
Q: With that I have concluded the cases concerning the 20th of July, and now I come to the so-called defeatist trials, or trials of those charged with undermining of fighting strength. Witness, please state briefly what the law meant by the so-called undermining of strength.
A: In paragraph 5 of the War Time Special Penal Regulations it is indicated that this law is aimed especially at War time conditions and is supposed to assume that no attempts can be undertaken with success to influence the troops at the front and the people at home by means of defeatist propaganda in their will to stand it through, as it was expressed.
Q: Witness, do you have a general explanation for these defeatist trials which took place to a considerable extent at that time in the Reich?
A: The propaganda for total war for resistance at any cost, which was carried on at that time to a very high extent especially influenced the treatment of those cases very strongly. It was in connection with this propaganda that one decree after the other was issued and one order after the other by Thierack which, in themselves, also had an influence on the jurists.
Q: Through my documents in Document Book 1, I have already shown that the competence of the People's Court to sentence defeatist cases was introduced only beginning in February, 1943. Witness, for how long did the special penal regulations for wartime exist on which these trials against undermining of fighting strength were based?
A: This special wartime penal order is from 1936, which was put into effect only on 26 August 1939.
Q: Originally the Reich Military Court was competent for those cases of undermining of fighting force or the other military courts, is that correct?
A: Yes, that is correct, not only for members of the Wehrmacht but also for civilians.
Q: In 1940 the competency in regard to civilians was transferred to the general courts?
A: Yes, that is correct.
Q: Who became competent at that time for the cases of the so-called public undermining of fighting strength?
A: Public undermining of military strength was prosecuted by the senior public prosecutors at the special courts and/or was to be tried by the Special Courts.
Q When in 1943, the cases of so-called public undermining of military strength were transferred to the People's Court, had the law in effect been applied for four years?
A Yes.
Q Is it correct, witness, that the decision as to whether a public undermining of military strength was proved depended upon the following two points: first, what does the legislator mean by an attempt to undermine; and secondly, when was this attempt to undermine committed in public? Is it correct that those were the two nuclei in this question?
A Yes.
Q Is it furthermore correct that when in 1943 the People's Court became competent, these two basic questions of undermining of fighting strength were based on a general jurisdiction originating first from the Reich Military Court, then the Reich Supreme Court, and then of the Special Court - that these decisions existed already?
A The Reich Military Court had in several very basic decisions decided these questions without any doubt.
Q In regard to these points from which it is especially evident that the definition: "public attempt of undermining" had already been laid down definitely in 1943, I shall prove by some further documents. Witness, how did the individual cases of undermining come to your office?
A That differed. In part, the senior public prosecutor at the Special Court who considered the case as leaving room for no doubt submitted the files to me. If, on the other hand - and that occurred in the majority of cases - he harbored doubts whether this was not merely a malicious act, then, as was his duty, he reported it to the Minister of Justice, and the Minister of Justice decided whether a case was to be regarded as undermining of fighting morale and should be transferred to the Chief Reich Public Prosecutor.
This is evident from the affidavit by the witness Franke, which the Prosecution submitted.
Q May I refer to the fact that this is Exhibit 515 submitted by the Prosecution. Furthermore I am referring to Exhibit 97 of the Prosecution. Witness, did it continue the way you described it just now, later on too?
A Later on two more basical changes occurred. A very severe decree of 13 August 1943 was introduced. Minister Thierack required a more expeditious and more emphatic trying of certain especially serious cases of undermining of fighting strength. For this purpose, it had been ordered that the RSHA submitted those cases which were not very numerous, either through the hands of the Minister of Justice or directly to me. I submitted them to a special division because the division which treated other cases of undermining of military strength was no longer in a position, merely due to the large number of cases, to take over this new work also. These cases in the main are those in which the so-called Schnell termine - quick trials took place, which had frequently been discussed here already. Due to the importance of the cases, Freisler also did not let anybody deprive him of trying these cases basically in his senate. Moreover, due to a later decree by the Minister of Justice, it was laid down that in the preliminary investigation of the cases which were to be submitted to the Chief Reich Public Prosecutor, that the Presidents of the District Courts of Appeal should be included in order to avoid too many of these files submitted to the Reich Public Prosecution.
The final decree which concerns these cases, and which I am citing because perhaps it is important in the von Braun case, is the following instruction by the Minister. If an indictment is filed before the Special Court in a malicious acts case -- during the trial the Special Court, however, decides that possibly this might be an undermining of military strength, in which ca.se the Special Court was not competent to sentence - the Special Court should not, through an uncontested decision, refer this to the People's Court but the Chief Reich Public Prosecutor should ask for an adjournment so that the Chief Reich Public Prosecutor could examine the case in every individual case.
If he considered it not suitable, he was to return it to the Special Court. In this way it was intended to prevent that through such decisions against which it could not do anything, the People's Court was burdened with cases which did not concern it.
Q Witness, how were pending cases treated? How were the cases which came to it treated by the Reich Prosecution, and especially how was the conduct of the members?
A When the order came into effect - the order of 29 August 1943 at which time the People's Court became competent, at that time I was on an official trip outside of Berlin. When I returned, I found out that the defendant Barnickel, who at that time was my deputy, had handed over the handling of the cases which came to his division. At that time, he was of the opinion - at least that is what he told me - that his division was less burdened and therefore was in the best position to be able to handle the new incidents of cases. I let matters stand as they were.
First we introduced the following treatment of the cases and we also maintained this for several weeks and months. At certain intervals of two or three days, every case that was handled by the expert or the Referent in the presence of the division chief was reported to me, and then we made a decision as to whether we wanted to file an indictment before the People's Court and for what reasons this was necessary. Varying reasons governed this. In part, the cases were so serious that there was no doubt about this. In part, we considered it necessary in order to bring about certain basic decisions on principle - to bring about the sentencing by the senate of the People's Court. During that time, the number of prison sentences that were pronounced was without doubt larger than the number of death sentences. The enormous incidents of new cases, however, brought it about, and this is also apparent from the situation report which the Prosecution submitted in the beginning of 1944 -
Q I may interpolate here that the defendant is speaking of Exhibit 220 of the Prosecution.
A -- that at the end of the year 1943. quite a considerable number of cases were in arrears. Therefore I decided that in regard to the cases of undermining of fighting strength, to gather then in a special division which would have the task - especially in regard to the backlog cases - to clean it up as quickly as possible. Among these, there were a number of cases of arrest whose expeditious handling was necessary, especially because in a large number of these cases the transfer to a subordinate court was necessary. Therefore I could not act in any other way. No division chief was anxious to be given this new division. Therefore I decided that the defendant Rothaug should take it over. First of all, he was the youngest division chief, and up to then he had been in charge of a division which was so small and insignificant that it was easiest to replace him by a Senior Public Prosecutor.
(A.) From the situation report which I mentioned, it is also evident what the number of cases which came to us was at the time. They amounted to about seven to eight hundred a month. This figure shows me that when I was interrogated preliminary to this trial, I made a wrong estimate. At that time I thought it was twice as high as it actually was.
THE PRESIDENT: We will take our morning recess for fifteen minutes.
(A recess was taken).
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
DR. GRUBE: The Prosecution hasn't arrived yet.
THE PRESIDENT: Proceed.
BY DR. GRUBE:
Q. Witness, you have just said that the number of cases in the undermining of fighting morale increased to about seven to eight hundred cases a month. I would like to put another question to you on that subject. Did that mean that before the People's Court seven hundred to eight hundred cases of undermining of fighting morale were tried every month?
A. No. That figure refers to the number of cases which were submitted to the Reich Prosecution for examination. As I will mention later, only a small percentage of those cases -- I estimate about ten per cent -- were kept back. All other cases were returned to subordinate courts. In my situation report, if I may repeat that, I only gave the number which I did mention there because only at the trial here I saw that situation report again. I ascertained that the figures which I had given in Exhibit 126 from memory were evidently incorrect.
Q. By that you mean to say that the figures in Exhibit 126, the figures which you gave from memory, are too high?
A. That is what I did mean to say.
Q. How did you in general treat these questions of undermining fighting morale?
A. To a large extent the treatment of such cases depended on the clear instructions from the Minister of Justice. It also depended on the basic importance of these cases. To mention one example, I would like to revert once again to the situation report of 9 February 1944, that is Exhibit 220. In that report it says that the undermining of fighting morale, when committed by clergymen, would have to be tried before the People's Court. That was due to a decree by the Reich Minister of Justice. Generally speaking, however, in treating these cases I attached the greatest importance to having every single file examined carefully by the head of the department so that those points would not be left unobserved which would justify treating that case in a more lenient manner. For, in particular, the transfer of these cases as being cases of lesser importance to the District Courts of Appeal or to the Special Courts, to that I attached the greatest importance, as far as it was at all possible. That is proved not only by the testimony of the Witness Gruenwaldt before this Tribunal; it is also evident from Exhibits 178, 474 and 100. For the numbers of cases where criticism was exercised by the Ministry on sentences passed by lower courts and in particular the Weimar Conference, would remain incomprehensible unless many cases, which were more serious, had been transferred to the lower courts by the Reich Prosecution.
In the last analysis perhaps the percentage of the cases which we kept back, as I mentioned before, and of the cases where an indictment was filed, at the People's Court. I estimate those cases at ten percent.
Q. By the way, was Thierack content with written criticism of these cases and their verdicts?
A. No, he was not satisfied with that. Occasionally he also interfered with the District Court of Appeals and the judges who sat there. As far as I remember, that was the senates at Munich and Vienna.
Q. What did he want to achieve by changing the judges on the senates?
A. I believe that he wanted such judges to sit on the senates that in future no further criticism would be necessary.
THE PRESIDENT: You mean senates of the People's Court?
THE WITNESS: No, of the District Courts of Appeal. The District Courts of Appeal at Vienna and Munich.
BY DR. GRUBE:
Q. The Prosecution has cited as examples for jurisdiction of the People's Court in cases of the undermining of Military morale the following documents: Exhibits 140, 141, 144, 158, 159, 160, 181 and Exhibit 402. Of those documents only the Riedel Case, Exhibit 144, contains an indictment which bears your signature. What can you say about the Riedel Case, that is, Exhibit 144?
A. As is evident from the Exhibit, I have to depend on that because I cannot remember that case from other sources. Riedel, during the years from 1921 to 1939, lived under a false name. Previously he had been very active for left-wing organizations. In 1940 the Special Court had sentenced him for political statements. When he had again strongly criticized the leadership of the state and according to the files had also made propaganda for removing the head of the state by force, there was no other way but indicting him before the People's Court.
Q. By that you mean to say that the legality principle obliged you to file an indictment in this case?
A. That indictment had to be filed and I did not consider that case suitable for transfer.
Q. What do you have to say about Exhibit 160?
A. May I ask you to tell me what that deals with?
Q. That is concerned with the Von Brinken case.
A. According to the document, such as has been submitted, von Brinken, who had been accused, at a resort on the Baltic, had made serious utterances against the leadership of the state. In particular, she spoke in favor of the persons involved in the attempt of the 20 of July.