A.- That varied according to whether the sentence had been a prison sentence or a death sentence. If it was a prison sentence, it was the task of the Reich Prosecution, just as it was that of any other prosecuting office, to see to it that the condemned person was moved to the prison which was provided for him according to the instructions of the Ministry. All further measures -- the treatment of the prisoner in the prison, his transfer to another institution, his employment -- did not concern the prosecution. That was entirely a matter for the administration of the prisons, which was under the jurisdiction and supervision of the Reich Ministry of Justice.
Every time a death sentence had been passed a report had to be sent, and with that report the head of State had to be asked whether he would make use of his right to exercise clemency, that is to say, whether he wished to commute the death sentence to a prison sentence.
Q,- May I interpolate a brief question?
DR. GRUBE: The witness is referring to Exhibit 278.
Q. (continuing)- In what way was the decision of the head of the State brought about?
A.- A report was made, and added to it were ail files and all those statements made by all authorities whoso opinion on the clemency plea had to be heard, including the opinion which the Senior Prosecutor or the Chief Reich Prosecutor who made the report held himself.
Q.- What was your own task in these two cases: Death sentence or prison sentence?
A.- In regard to files concerning cases where the sentence had been for a prison term, I did not deal with those myself. There were special officials to deal with such cases; they were the so-called Rechstpfleger the administrators of law. They dealt with such cases under the supervision of the public prosecutor in charge of the case, or under the supervision of the head of the department. That explains why my name does not appear at all on the indictment of Kubiak, NG-614, Exhibit 267;
Szczerbinski, NG-597, Exhibit 134; and Szopa, NG-598, Exhibit 266.
After a death sentence had been passed, a report on the clemency plea had to be rendered by the public prosecutor in charge of the case. He prepared that report, he drafted it, and it was submitted to me after the head of the department had examined it.
Q.- If the person who had been condemned to death and his defense counsel had not submitted a clemency plea, in such cases did a decision have to be obtained from the head of State or other authorities on the clemency plea?
A.- That report had to be made under all circumstances; it had to be made too where no clemency plea had been made. It even had to be made in the rare cases when the condemned person had expressly stated that he did not wish a clemency plea to be made. Such cases did occur.
Q.- Can you state in virtue of what provisions that obligation to make clemency pleas officially existed?
A.- That provision is contained in the Code of Penal Procedure.
Q.- In what article?
A.- In Article 453. And it is also evident from Paragraph 13 in the Clemency Plea order.
Q.- May I state that Article 13 of the Clemency Plea Order is contained in Exhibit 278 of the Prosecution.
How did you have to proceed when you had to report to the Minister of Justice?
A.- The public prosecutor in charge of the case, first of all, had to obtain the opinion of all the agencies listed under Paragraph 13; that is to say, he had to obtain the opinion of the Court, of the prison, for some period, and he also had to obtain the opinion of the prosecution. In the case of civil servants who had been sentenced, their superior officers had to be heard. When all these agencies had given their views, it was then the duty of the public prosecutor to examine the clemency plea for its correctness, for example, when the convicted person had stated that he had committed particularly courageous or decent acts and that they should be considered.
Q.- What attitude did you take?
A.- I attached the greatest importance to having these investigations carried out very carefully. That is the reason why the clemency procedure so very often took such a long time with the Reich Prosecution.
Q.- I am now coming to Exhibit 449; which was submitted by the Prosecution, Please comment on that exhibit.
A.- Exhibit 449 concerns the first measure which the Ministry of Justice adopted to have the clemency pleas processed more quickly. The letter from Freisler shows that the Chief Public Prosecutor, that is myself -- and the same applied to all Senior Public Prosecutors -- had been instructed to make the reports shorter.
At that time that merely meant that there was no need in the report of a clemency plea to give a report on the facts of the case. Originally the clemency plea had to start by recounting the facts of the case and by giving an opinion and details as to what extent the sentence, either for material or legal reasons, might give rise to misgivings.
Q. Exhibit 279 reveals that in September 1943 the Minister of Justice ordered that the Public Prosecution in the future no longer was to obtain the opinion of other agencies on the clemency plea, but without giving an opinion should pass the files on to the Minister of Justice unless there were misgivings about the sentence as such. That decree, as is shown in the document, was directed to all Public Prosecutions, and I would ask you to tell us what the effects of this decree were on clemency proceedings.
A. The date of the decree, September 1943, shows that that decree followed closely the events which occurred in Ploetzensee, events which have been mentioned here before. The decree wanted to make certain that in the future the clemency plea problem would be dealt with more quickly. But even after this new arrangement the convicted persons and their defense counsel still had sufficient time and opportunity to submit clemency pleas and to give their reasons for them. But one thing had been made more difficult. The examination of these clemency pleas for their correctness was no longer possible for the prosecutions in the majority of cases. The prosecutors now had to restrict themselves to adding the pleas to their reports without changing them. The time limit laid down in the decree was, as a rule, not adhered to because the offices at the People's Court and the Reich Prosecution were so overburdened that it was impossible for them to submit the files within the time limit set. Owing to that, occasionally there was sufficient time to make further investigations in the matter of the clemency plea. However, the opinion of the court, the prison, and all other agencies was no longer heard. They had been of importance before.
Q. Please give us your opinion about Exhibit 281. That is the note of 14 October 1944 by the Minister of Justice and letter of 7 October 1944 by the Minister of Justice in which the clemency plea procedure of the Reich Prosecution was criticized because it took so much time.
A. Yes. Well, I have already mentioned that. All those decrees to expedite the clemency pleas failed to a certain extent because in effect it was impossible, because of overwork, to comply with them.
Q. The Prosecution further has submitted Exhibit 530 which states that the Minister of Justice on 17 January 1945 ordered that the death sentences were to be forwarded to the Reich Minister of Justice within a few days after they had been pronounced. Can you give us any further details?
A. Yes. I said that that decree for expediting was partly only on paper, because unless the facts were very simple and unless the sentence was brief and unless the office for once was not so busy, -- it was only if those conditions prevailed that reports on the sentences were made within three days, but I don't believe that that happened often.
Q. I do not wish to deal with the question as to what was your general attitude to the jurisdiction of the People's Court. I merely want to ask you what was your attitude in respect of the question as to whether a clemency plea was to be supported or not.
A. Always in my former offices, too, I have considered it a matter of course that it was my duty in clemency pleas particularly to treat this work with particular seriousness. Whenever there was a justifiable reason for clemency I suggested that clemency be exercised. So-called "clear cases" which were mentioned here never came to my notice. Therefore I never sent in a, report, "This is a clear case. There is no need for you to occupy yourselves with it for any considerable time." Therefore it was highly undesirable to me when in 1943 by the decree of the minister those restrictions in clemency matters were imposed on me.
Q. When you mentioned a decree just now you were referring to Exh. 279?
A. Yes, Exh. 279. The courts, the senates, and the courts in the Laender, the Special Courts, Senates, all regretted it very much that they were no longer in a position to give an opinion in the clemency plea. I know that from my former experience when every day I was in touch with the penal courts what happened was that in the court it had already been mentioned during the consultation that for certain reasons we do want to comply with the laws and propose such and such a sentence, but we will ask the Public Prosecutor to ask for clemency for the Convicted person. That was no longer possible. Or it was only possible in the rare cases when the Court did so officially. That did happen.
Q. In respect of your suggestions for clemency did you make any difference whether the convicted person was a German citizen or a foreigner ?
A. I considered only the facts and not to the person.
Q. From the vast number of examples can you cite two decisive cases which would demonstrate your attitude to the clemency plea?
A. I should like to explain my attitude by choosing the Sturgkh case as an example. The Court is already familiar with that case for another reason.
A. May I interpolate here, the clemency which was granted to Graf Sturgkh is mentioned in Prosecution Exhibit 359.
A. Graf Sturgkh was a relative of the other Graf Sturgkh who had been murdered . He was an Austrian Legitimist, and before the German troops had occupied France he, with the Austrian Legitimists, that is to say with the members of the Hapsburg House, had made contact with members of the Hapsburg family for the purpose of eliminating the Germans from Austria. He had been put into the hands of the Germans and had been placed before the People's Court. In this case I had not agreed to ask for a death sentence. The Prosecutor at the first did not ask for it, either. Yes the senate sentenced Sturgkh to death.
The sentence seemed unusually harsh to me because what he had done would hardly endanger the security of the Reich, for in my opinion the influence which he wanted to exercise in favor of the situation at the time had very little chance of cussess. Therefore I was resolved from the very beginning , as far as I was able, to suggest that clemency be granted, but I had decided to do so in a form which would avoid my application being dropped in the wastepaperbasket. That was made more difficult because the Senate had not only given very good reasons for the sentence it had passed, but that also in its opinion on the clemency plea it had expressed itself in favor of the execution of the death sentence ....The clemency plea which was submitted on behalf of Sturgkh also referred to the tragic events in his own family. In order to save time I handed it on to the Austrian authorities to have the contents examined. Before it had been returned the sister of the condemned man whom I didn't know called on me. She was in great excitement and very worried because she had already called on various officials, none of whom had been able to give here any comforting news.
Court No. III, Case No. 3.
I indicated to her that in my opinion there was some hope in the case, even though that did not depend on myself. I gathered from her words that she hoped through some direct approach or other to place a clemency plea into Hitler's own hands; and that first of all she had attached importance to the fact that no decision should have been made which might jeopardize this step of hers. I helped her on that. I delayed the matter further until finally I was certain that she had been able to get rid of her petition. Then I forwarded my files with the official clemency plea to the Minister of Justice, and at the end I said that according to reliable information in my possession Hitler had become interested in the matter; and that, therefore, it seemed essential to me that the Minister should not refuse to grant clemency in the near future but that he should submit the case to Hitler; and, as a result Graf Sturgkh was granted clemency. As far as I know, and as far as I remember, the death sentence was commuted to ten years imprisonment, and after he had served only some of that term he was discharged.
Q Witness, do you know what position Graf Sturgkh holds today?
AAs far as I know, he is a member of the Board of Directors of the victims of Fascism, an Austrian organization.
Q May I say here that is part of my document books. I shall submit affidavits by Count Sturgkh and Countess Sturgkh which will reveal that Sturgkh said that he owed his life exclusively to Lautz. Witness, can you mention another case which will demonstrate your practice in clemency matters?
A That is the first case, and that occurred in Alsace. The facts of the case were like this. In the autumn of 1942, at the Reich Military Court (Reichs Kriegsgericht), two big cases from Alsace were pending. In one case the facts were these. In Strassbourg a fairly large group of people had joined together, that is to say, people from the Alsace; I mean they were French people; most of them small officials or business men, but there were some workmen among them too. It was the aim of the group to hide French prisoners of war who had escaped from camps in the Reich, when they were passing through Strassbourg; to give them civilian Court No. III, Case No. 3.clothing; to give them money and food; and to help them escape across the southern part of France to join De Gaulle's Army in North Africa.
Many of those prisoners wanted to go to North Africa; some of them, of course, wanted to go home. That trial was transferred by the Reich Military Court to the People's Court. When the investigating judge had finished his work on the case -- that was approximately in December, 1942 -- the indictment was filed by reason of aiding and abetting the enemy, and it was filed at first against seven persons. The trial was heard at Strassbourg at the beginning of January, 1943; Freisler was the presiding judge. I attended the proceedings and, therefore, I was in a position, having received the impression of the trial, to tell the prosecutor what my views were in regard to the sentence for which he should ask. Only in the case of three persons who were incriminated most heavily I gave my consent for him to demand the death sentence. The senate, however, pronounced the death sentence on five persons. Therefore, I decided in this case, too, to work energetically for the clemency plea. Things were made more difficult for me, because first of all the senate had taken up a definite attitude completely different from my own; and, secondly, because the Gauleiter was asking with great emphasis for execution of the sentence. Later on, however, I succeeded in overcoming the opinion of the Gauleiter. That had further effects on the second trial which had been pending before the military court where also several heavy sentences were passed. In both cases many clemency pleas were granted.
Q In both trials together there were twenty-three defendants; were there?
A Yes, there were.
Q One of the people to whom the clemency plea was granted was a Dr. Wenniger, wasn't it?
A Yes, that is right.
Q Can you tell us what position the Frenchman Dr. Wenniger holds today?
A He is the Chief of the Administration of Justice in the French Zone.
Court No. III, Case No. 3.
Q May I say that the French Government has made available to me several documents which refer to that case. I shall submit them as exhibits.
MR. LaFOLLETTE: If your Honors please, I am not advised as to whether the Marshal has been able to serve the Court's order -- I am advised now that he has served the Court's order on Frau Huppertz; I am advised that there is a ten page plea of Doctor -- the response or answer of Dr. Marx's which was filed with the Secretary General, which is now being translated. I also am advised that there was about a four page response left with the Secretary General in this Court at noon approximately. I don't know whether that has gone to the translation department or not. Of course I do not know whether issues of fact are raised, but I feel that it is safe to presume that there are, even if issues of fact are not raised in these answers it would occur to me, if I may suggest to the Tribunal, that this whole matter might be heard on Tuesday, the 29th, and that we might notify the respondents, Dr. Marx and Frau Huppertz, that this matter will be heard on Tuesday, the 29th of July, and that on that day the proceedings in this Court should suspend. There seems to be no occasion for the defendants to be present. I have submitted a formal order to the Tribunal, assuming that there were issues of fact. I believe that is valid. The Tribunal probably doesn't wish to act on that until it has seen a translation of the responses.
THE PRESIDENT: I might say that we have had opportunity to learn a sufficient amount of the answer filed in German by Karin Huppertz to know that issues of fact are presented.
MR. LaFOLLETTE: I am advised -- I think I can say accurately from what I have heard from the Secretary General -- enough is now learned that issues of fact are presented in the response of Dr. Marx.
THE PRESIDENT: It is called to my attention that you have provided in the formal order that the issues of fact shall be heard on Tuesday, July 29th, and that the defendants, and each of them, shall be present at and shall attend such hearing. You refer to the defendants in the contempt proceedings, and not the defendants in this case.
Court No. III, Case No. 3.
MR. LaFOLLETTE: Yes, your Honor -- the more appropriate word would have been respondents, I quite agree; but that is the intent of the language used. I hope that with this explanation the Court will feel that it can either order that, or I can make it -
THE PRESIDENT: It is clear to my mind what you mean.
Court No. III, Case No. 3.
THE PRESIDENT: The order, as submitted by the Prosecution, provides for a trial upon the issues of fact as they shall appear from the pleadings on Tuesday, the 29th day of July, and for other appropriate matters relative to the securing of witnesses. The order is approved by the Tribunal and goes into effect as of this moment.
MR. LaFOLLETTE: May I ask, does the Tribunal desire to have a transcript of this for the record? There are adequate German copies, your Honor -- whichever the Tribunal desires.
THE PRESIDENT: The Marshal is directed to give notice of the contents of the order to each of the respondents by giving to them a copy in the German language of the order.
MR. LaFOLLETTE: Thank you, your Honor. There are adequate German copies available. And now, may the record show that the Prosecution delivers to the Secretary-General a list of the witnesses which the Prosecution desires to have subpoenaed to testify on behalf of the Prosecution.
THE PRESIDENT: You may deliver the list. This proceeding grows out of it, but is not a part of, the main trial in the case of the defendants now in the dock. The hearing on the contempt proceeding will, of course, be in open court but the defendants and their counsel will be excused from attendance on Tuesday, and on Monday evening we will recess this trial against the defendants in the dock until Wednesday morning.
MR. LaFOLLETTE: Yes, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: If any of the defense counsel desire to be present they may do so on Tuesday, but they are not required to be here, and the authorities having in custody the defendants should be notified that the defendants need not be produced in court on Tuesday.
DR. GRUBE: May I continue?
BY DR. GRUBE:
Q Witness, what in your experience was the practice in clemency pleas on the part of the Ministry of Justice?
A There was no clear line of policy.
Court No. III, Case No. 3.
Q What happened when the clemency authority, that is to say, the various Prosecutions, had reported to the Minister of Justice?
A When the head of the state had given his decision to the effect that he would not exercise his right to clemency, that decision was imparted to the public prosecutor -- in my case to the chief Reich Prosecution -- in writing and simultaneously an instruction was issued to execute the death sentence. That so-called instruction for execution of sentence mentioned all particulars which had to be observed during the execution.
Q Did it happen that a condemned person or his defense counsel made a clemency plea or made a second clemency plea when the ministry of Justice had already issued orders for the death sentences to be executed?
A That happened.
Q What steps did you take in such cases?
A Such pleas were passed on to the Reich Ministry of Justice through the quickest channels and even there was merely another hour to go until the execution. Frequently such pleas were cause for postponement of the execution.
What was even more important was the question as to what would happen if, somewhere else, as the witness Poemer testified here in Munich, an execution was carried out in such cases where it was obvious that an application for reopening of the trial entitled a public prosecutor to postpone execution.
Q In your capacity as an authority administering punishment, did you ever have a sentence of the People's Court executed without having obtained a decision by the Ministry saying that clemency was not to be granted without having received instructions for execution?
A Naturally that never happened.
Q I am now reverting to Exhibit 530. Under No. I of the circular decree from the Reich Ministry of Justice of 17 January 1945 it states that on account of a disruption of communications the general public prosecutors had been authorized, after examination of the clemency problem to order execution insofar as that seemed desirable for maintaining peace and order. In exceptional cases the competency of the Ministry for de Court No. III, Case No. 3.ciding upon clemency pleas and ordering executions, was transferred by the Ministry to the general public prosecutors.
Will you tell us, please, whether that decree also applied to you?
A It did not apply to me. It did not have to apply to me either because I was in the same place where the Ministry of Justice was, and communications between our two offices was never disrupted. Anyway, we could always be reached quickly by messengers.
Q The Prosecution apparently also stated the fact that the death sentence sometimes was not executed by beheading but by hanging. You have already mentioned that the order for execution from the Ministry always stated exactly by what method the execution was to take place. Can you tell us whether, by German law, the Ministry could also order that the death sentence was to be executed by hanging?
A The Minister could do so on the basis of the law of 1933, I believe it was, of the 29 March. He, on the basis of that law, could decree so in the name of the government. If he did so that had to be mentioned expressly in the order for the execution.
Q I now come to the executions at Ploetzensee in September 1943. I am referring to Exhibits 286, 287, 288, 289, 301 and 450 of the Prosecution. The document opens with a letter to the Minister of Justice of 9 September 1943. I am referring to Exhibit 286. In that letter you evidently refused to accept responsibility for the occurrences in Ploetzensee on 8 September 1943. Why did you do so?
A I can give a brief explanation of that. In reply to my inquiry at the Ministry of Justice, when I had heard of the events, on 7 Septembber I was told that the Ministry exclusively would deal with the matter and that I was not to play any part in it. Therefore, when I heard that a mistake had occurred and that persons had been executed by mistake, in whose cases no decision had yet been made on the clemency plea, I refused to accept responsibility.
Q You did so by your letter of 9 September?
A Yes. By that letter of 9 September and that was acknowledged for the general public prosecutor at the Kammergericht as the responsible Court No. III, Case No. 3.superior officer of the prosecutor who was in charge of the execution was asked to make a report and I was not.
DP. GRUBE: Thank you. Your Honor, I am now coming to a new group of questions. Perhaps it would be a good time for recess.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn until Monday morning at the usual hour of 9:30.
(Whereupon,the Tribunal adjourned at 1630 hours, until Monday, at 0930 hours.)
Official transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America, against Josef Altstoetter, et al., defendants sitting at Nuernberg, Germany, on 28 July 1947, 0930-1630, Justice James T. Brand presiding.
THE MARSHAL: The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal 3.
Military Tribunal 3 is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.
There will be order in the court.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Marshal, will you ascertain if the defendants are all present?
THE MARSHAL: May it please Your Honors, all the defendants are present in the courtroom with the exception of defendant Engert, who is absent due to illness.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Engert has been excused; let notation be made.
DR. GRUBE: May I continue with my examination of the witness Lautz.
ERNST LAUTZ - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION - Continued.
BY DR. GRUBE:
Q The witness Havemann in his examination on 10 April 1947 stated that on 20 April 1935 in Brandenburg thirty-three persons who had been convicted by the Peoples Court had been executed. Will you please comment on that, witness?
A I believe it should read 1945.
Q Yes, you are quite correct; 1945.
A That testimony by the witness Havemann is correct. It was also correct when he said that those condemned persons had, for weeks and months after the sentence had been passed on them, been sitting at the Brandenburg prison. Whether the number which he stated is correct, I cannot tell from memory. What happened was this:
At Brandenburg prison at the beginning of the year 1945 a fairly large number of persons were kept who had been sentenced to death by courts in Berlin. Among them were people who had been sentenced by the People's Court. For several weeks no executions had taken place; that was on account of the air war. For communication between Brandenburg and Berlin it was considerably disrupted. I did not urge matters, but I left things as they were. In April 1943, however, Hansen, the General Prosecutor from the Supreme Court of Prussia, who was responsible for the prison, called on the Minister of Justice and said that he could not guarantee for safety at the prison unless those sentences were executed. Thereupon, Minister Thierack in a number of cases which had been examined and finally decided upon at the Ministry for weeks and months, ordered execution. On 18 April 1943 Ministerial Counsel Franke, whose name has been mentioned here several times, handed me in due from the execution orders and a car was made available. Originally, the executions were to taken place on the 19th of April. An unusually heavy air raid by the RAF which occured on that day prevented the executions from taking place on that day. I made my report to Ministerial Counsel Franke in the evening, and pointed out that execution would now have to be postponed for several days as on the 20th of April, Hitler's Birthday, no executions had ever taken place. After a little while he rang me up and said that the Minister was insisting that the executions were to taken place on the next day, that is to say, on the 20th In view of the situation to point of view such as I had stressed should not be taken into account, and on the 20th of April the execution were carried out in accordance with the order.
Q A supplementary question, witness: Had the Minister made a decision in every case that the clemency right was not to be exercised?
A Yes, I have said that already, that this was a decision which Thierack had signed.
Q The prosecution has introduced Exhibit 299. That exhibit concerns negotiations about the question as to whether, and in what form, the relatives of executed persons were to be informed of the fact that executions had been carried out. In that document there is a note which reveals what point of view you had on this question. Will you comment on that subject, please?
A Information that a prisoner had died - whether he had actually died at the prison or whether he had been executed by virtue of a death sentence - that was a matter for the administration of the prison deal with. As it was my experience that the administration of the prison frequently did not carry out that duty, and that the defense counsel did not always notify the relatives either, I, in the interest of the relatives, considered it necessary that the Minister of Justice should give a ruling which made it certain that such notification was made. Therefore, I suggested that in principle the prosecution offices, that is to say, in the case of the Peoples Court, the Reich prosecution should be asked to notify relatives, with the exception of cases an express prohibition made that impossible.
Q The prosecution in introducing the Exhibit 299, which we have just discussed, on 21 April 1947, German transcript Page 2429, gave explanations from which one might deduce that according to your suggestion only the relatives of German prisoners were to be notified that execution had been carried out. Please comment on this.
A When I made my suggestion I did not differentiate between Germans and foreigners. That is evident, too, from the note of 28th April 1944, which is contained in Exhibit 299, and deals with my question, and it makes it quite clear.
Q The prosecution furthermore introduced Exhibit 362. That exhibit deals with the correspondence about publication of the execution of death sentences passed by the People's Court in the Protectorate. What can you tell us about that, witness?
AA public announcement saying that a death sentence had been carried out was ordered. As such placards in the cases of sentences against inhabitants of the Protectorate could not be produced in Berlin because of the lack of certain printing letters, that they had to be printed in Prague. That was a purely technical matter which was of no significance.
Q A final question on the subject of the execution of punishment. Were the authotities for execution under German law authorized to examine whether the order for execution and the sentence on which the order was based, were justified in accordance with the facts?
A No, they were not authorized to do so, I believe that is the same in other countries. The executing authorities had merely to examine wheter the order for execution was correct. That is to say, whether it had been issued by the competent authority, and whether that authority had observed the official form. In the case of death sentences, that is, whether a denying decision had been obtained from the head of the state. That examination was always undertaken.
Q The prosecution has submitted documents which show that certain groups of persons who were in the hands of the Administration of Justice were transferred to the police. Jews, Poles, Gypsies, asocial elements, etcetera, were transferred - such as had been laid down in the agreement which was made on 18 September 1942 between Himmler and Thierack, and in the circular decree which accordingly on 22-10-42 was published by the Minister of Justice. In particular, I am referring to Exhibits 39 and 264. Furthermore, I am now concerned with the evacuation from prisoners when the enemy was approaching, which evacuation had been provided for in the directives issued by the Reich Ministry of Justice. I am referring especially to Exhibit 290. Did you, as Chief Reich Prosecutor, have anything to do with these two schemes?
A No. The documents made it obvious that these measures were carried out on the basis of directives sent by the Ministry of Justice, directly to the prisons. As I was not in charge of the prisons, I could not have prevented such transfer; and that is how one can explain the fact that none of the documents contained instructions to me.
The witness Hecker also described that state of affairs in that way to the Tribunal here.
Q What do you have to say in that connection about Exhibit 134 and Exhibit 267, which the Prosecution introduced here?
A Those documents contain proof that such instructions were sent by the Ministry of Justice directly to the prisons. As to the documents which you have just mentioned, I have only seen them now for the first time.
Q After those two measures had been taken, did you not receive notification that the prisons transferred prisoners to the police?
A The circular decree of 22 October 1942 was known to me.
Q May I just interpolate a question? You are referring to the circular decree of 22 October 1942, which is Exhibit 264?
A Yes, Exhibit 264.
Q Thank you.
A No doubt I did hear that Thierack had those measures put into effect, but I did not know the important decree of 21 April 1943; that is Exhibit 268. That decree gives instructions in detail as to the places to which the prisoners were to be transferred by the prison, that is to say, Auschwitz and Lublin. That decree was only addressed to the General Public Prosecutors who were the authorities responsible for the prisons. I was not informed of the decree. That this agreement between Himmler and Thierack which was kept carefully secret was linked with the intention to exterminate prisoners through work only came to my notice at this trial.