The proceedings were then to be conducted separately so that the one group of offenders were to remain in ignorance of the fate of the other group. In the case of separate proceedings, that is to say, in the normal case, the NN provisions were not to be applied in the proceedings against those NN prisoners who were not citizens of the occupied territories. In that case, those foreigners were non-genuine NN prisoners, that is to say, they were not real, not genuine NN prisoners. Only if, for reasons of evidence, the two proceedings, by way of an exception, could not be conducted separately, the foreigners who did not come from the occupied territories too were to be treated according to the NN provisions. That provision was necessary in order to guarantee that the secrecy of the proceedings against the genuine NN prisoners was not jeopardized. The non-genuine NN prisoners, therefore, were not NN prisoners who had been arrested by mistake nor had in their case proceedings been extended to persons to whom originally the NN decree was not to apply, but it was the opposite. The NN decree was limited. Whereas that decree originally had applied to all civilians of non-German origin in the occupied territories, without regard to their nationality, from now on it was to apply to those foreigners who were not citizens of occupied territories, only in exceptional cases.
Q: In Exhibits 313, 315, 316, so-called Porto matters are mentioned and so-called Porto prisoners are mentioned. What does that mean and what can you tell us about the treat ment of those matters?
A: The Porto matters are a sub-species of NN matters. The word Porto was the camouflage word for an anti-German movement which was active mainly in France but which extended beyond France to other countries. Among the other countries it also extended to Portugal. That cover name, as far as I know, derives from Portugal. These Porto matters were treated by the general administration of Justice in the same way as other NN matters. To begin with, difficulties had arisen in the treatment of Porto cases because the police had handed over Porto prisoners to the administration of justice without the armed forces authority previously having waived their competency.
The OKW then, as can be seen from Document 314, in principle waived the competency of the aimed forces authority for "porto" matters. That meant from there on the general administration of justice office in accordance with NN-provisions and porto prisoners were dealt with by the general administration of justice.
Q. In Exhibit 311 there is contained a report by the senior public prosecutor at Essen, in which he asks for instructions as to whether the NN-prisoners who had been sentenced to death and which number would be very large were to be transferred to Cologne prison. Please comment on this report.
A. The question as to whether the NN-prisoners who had been sentenced to death were to be transferred to Cologne was not dealt with by me, but by the department for the administration of penalties nor do I think this question is of interest here. On the other hand of interest is the remark by the senior public prosecutor that in the future a very large number of death sentences would be pronounced. I would like to say that the assumption which the Senior Public Prosecutor voiced in his report on 20 August 1942 did not in fact come true. In October, 1942 by having the People's Court involved in NN cases, the serious cases were taken away from the special courts and taken over by the people's court. The special court at Essen passed in effect on only a very few death sentences on NN-prisoners.
Q. Concerning the executions at Ploetzensee, mentioned in exhibits 286 to 283, executions which occurred in September of 1943, were there any NN prisoners who were executed on that date and did you have anything to do with that matter?
A. No, I can answer both questions with no. At Ploetzensee at that time there were no NN prisoners who had been sentenced to death, therefore I had nothing to do with those executions.
Q. The documents which have been submitted by the Prosecution reveal that in your capacity as expert for NN matters you undertook various official trips some of them into occupied territory; it is necessary that you comment on the purpose of your trips and that you explain the work you did there.
A. The first trip was when I went to the Netherlands in 1943.
Q. What can you tell us about that trip?
A. The documents which have been submitted by the prosecution above all exhibits 381 and 324, reveal the previous history and the purpose of our discussions in the Netherlands. They make that purpose so clear, that I have no remarks of any importance to add. I would merely like to draw attention to one point. The documents also show what difficulties we had even at that time with the police who wanted to draw the NN-matters within their sphere of work. At that time we managed to succeed in warding off the attack by the police because the OKW, which had to make the final decision after the initial waivering shared our view to the effect that it was better to let the administration of justice continue to deal with NN matters.
Q. You undertook you second official trip to Breslau in January of 1944. Exhibit 325 gives information on that trip. What can you tell us above and beyond the contents of that document with regard to that trip?
A. The reason for my trip on official duty to Breslau was this; a few weeks previous, the special work on NN cases had been transferred from the special courts at Essen to Breslau. The Breslau authorities were confronted with various questions on which they wanted advice from the administration of justice. On the other hand, my superiors and myself considered it advisable to obtain a personal impression of the men who were dealing with matters in Breslau and to establish personal contact with them. The problems which were discussed at Breslau are mentioned in detail in the document, which has been submitted. I do not believe it is necessary for me to refer to all details of that discussion.
I would merely like to emphasize the following: As is shown by the documents, before the trip I reported to my sub-department chief Mettgenberg as well as Vollmer my department chief about the individual points for the discussion and when I went into that discussion I was in a position to explain the views of the competent department at the ministry.
As to Point 1-A of my notes, which is contained in Exhibit 326, that is for the cases where the death sentenced was to be demanded, the consent of that Reich Minister of Justice is reserved expressly. That was clear that in such cases we considered a particularly careful examination necessary. Under figure 3 of my remarks, it says that in NN-cases also reports were to be made in abbreviated form, that would mean in the NN cases too, the same provisions were to apply which had been issued in 1943 to speed up the treatment of clemency pleas after the death sentences had been pronounced. These orders are contained in Exhibit 379. They had simplified formally the clemency proceedings in the interest of speeding up matters, but they had not changed the fact that at the Ministry of Justice that the clemency plea was subjected to careful examination.
Q. In February of 1944 you again went to Breslau and afterwards went on to Kattowitz, exhibit 504, refers to that trip; what can you tell us in explanation of that document?
A. Document Exhibit 504 deals with the transfer of NN matters from Essen to Oppeln. This transfer took place because of the increased danger of invasion in the spring of 1944. On account of that danger, Minister Thierack at the beginning of February, 1944 decreed that the penal camp at Pappenburg, where the NN-prisoners were housed and who came before the special court at Essen, was to be evacuated on very short notice. Thierack was thinking of housing these NN-prisoners within the area of the district court of appeals at Kattowitz, but it was to be seen whether it would be possible to house the NN prisoners there.
To conduct the proceedings there for that purpose, Hecker from department 5 and I went to Breslau in order to discuss matters there with the competent men of the district court of appeals of Breslau and Kottowitz and to discuss with them the question of accomodations. The question of housing these NN-prisoners was in itself purely a matter to be dealt with by department 5. I had nothing to do with it. But the solution of the question of accommodations was important for the solution of future problems, that is to say what court in the future was to deal with the trial of NN-prisoners. I went to Breslau with Hecker and when the question of accommodations had been settled at Breslau, I went on to Kattowitz by myself to discuss the matter with the general public prosecutor and a representative of the president of the district court of appeals as to what court in the future in the place of the special court at Essen would be able to deal with NN proceedings.
For the result of that discussion I made a note on the 24th February, 1944, which is contained in Exhibit 504, and that constituted a report to my superior. I have no further comment to make on that subject. Following a joint decree from Departments III and IV, it was ordered that in the future, concerning NN prisoners and their trials, who had come from Belgium, France and northern French territories, that these trials would in future be handled by the Oppeln Special Court, instead of the Essen Special Court. I drafted that decree and I co-signed it, but naturally I could not personally make that decision; rather, the final signature of that decree was affixed by the two chiefs of Departments III and IV
Q. In April 1944, you went on an official trip to Paris. Exhibit 326 and Exhibit 332 deal with that trip. What are your comments on that trip to Paris?
A. I went there together with the chief officials of the Administration of Justice at Breslau. The reasons for that trip are revealed in the letter from the Ministry of Justice to the Military Commander in Paris, a letter which is dated 7 February, 1944. The letter is contained in Exhibit 326. The purpose of the trip was to give the officials of the Administration of Justice at Breslau an idea of the situation in occupied France, and it was also to give them an idea of the importance of punishable offenses which they had to deal with. Furthermore, an object of the trip was to establish contact with the offices of the Armed Forces which dealt with prosecuting the same offenses in the occupied territories. My report on that trip to Paris is contained in Exhibit 332. By way of explanation I should like to say the following: During the discussions with the Chief Judge, Hauptrichter, Dr. Boettiger, the most important question to me was the question as to whether the sentences passed by the special court at Breslau were considered adequate by the military authorities in the occupied territories.
The statement that the sentences passed by the special court at Breslau on NN prisoners, in the view of the Chief Judge, with the Military commander in Paris, at any rate were not too lenient, I put down quite intentionally in order to counteract efforts which were being made at the Ministry of Justice for making such sentences more severe.
Q. Your last official trip was the one you made to Oppeln at the end of June, 1944. This is mentioned in Exhibit 335. What are your comments on that document?
A. The conference at Oppeln had a similar purpose, as the trip to Paris. We had a discussion on the situation in the occupied territories in Belgium, and northern France with the Advocate General -- the Generalrichter at Brussels, but the people from Oppeln had not gone to Brussels to see the Advocate General, but it was the other way around. The Judge had gone to Oppeln. Exhibit 335 contains my statements about the main topics of that discussion. By way of explanation I should like to say the following: The sentences passed by the special court at Oppeln, in particular sentences which were passed under the presidency of a man called Buergelbach had for sometime cause the displeasure of my department head Vollmer because they were so lenient. The name Buergelbach had the effect of a red flag on Vollmer. I, on the other hand, always tried to defend the sentences as far as possible, and the remarks I put down on 6 July, 1944 were to have the same purpose. Therefore, I emphasized that the line of policy which had been hitherto followed by the special court, the general line had been approved by the chief judge Schikatsky; and further more, that in spite of the invasion which had in the meantime occurred it was not necessary at the moment to make a more stringent line of policy in pursuance of which sentences were passed.
Concerning the ill treatment of NN prisoners on the part of the German police in Belgium, which I mentioned in that remark, I would like to add that Schikatsky afterwards promised that he would see to it that these abuses would be eliminated. Naturally that promise was very valuable to me. In Berlin, I informed the chief expert of Department IV, Minister Counsellor, Ministerialrat Mielke, of these ill-treatments so that he could see to it that the chief of the security police was informed and that he could see to it that necessary steps were taken.
Q. What are your comments on the punishment in NN cases by the regular courts in general? And what is your own point of view?
A. As concerns the extent of sentences, the scope of the sentences, I was always out to avoid severity. As concerns individual offenses, particularly in respect of espionage and guerilla activities, the death sentence was mandatory. In those cases there was no scope for initiative, but in the majority of cases a wide range of punishment was available. Thus, for example, among the NN cases, illegal possession of arms, statistically speaking played a great part. The order issued by the military commanders concerning that, generally speaking, made the death sentence mandatory; but, in the case of less serious cases, prison sentences were passed. Most other offenses which had to be dealt with by the special courts had similar regulations applying to them, and a wide scope was left to their initiative. As far as that was possible to me in that position as referent, I worked towards seeing to it that sentences were passed, commensurate with the offense and in so doing I had the consent of my sub-department chief, the defendant Mettgenberg to a far reaching extent.
But I also had to battle with strong counter tendencies.
Q. Who was it from whom those counter tendencies emanated?
A. Within the Ministry of Justice it was above all Thierach and Vollmer, who were in favor of a severe line of policy. Outside the Ministry of Justice, among other persons, the president of the district court of appeal of Kattowitz, who, on one occasion tried to have illegal possession of arms punishable by a mandatory death sentence, and after a discussion which took place in Oppeln, at the end of June, 1944, which I mentioned briefly earlier, he broached the question as to whether in the case of illegal possession of arms the death sentence should not be mandatory. And in addition, occasionally, people outside the Administration of Justice tried to have a more severe policy adopted. I can remember, for example, that from circle of the Reich Fuehrer SS information reached us as to whether in a certain case a too lenient sentence had been passed or maybe an acquittal had occurred.
Q. And what position did you take up in this matter?
A. Against these tendencies to adopt a more severe line of policy, I found myself in continuous opposition. I pointed out that in the NN proceedings a deterrent did not lie in the sentence which was passed because that sentence would not be made public, but that the deterrent was that offenders vanished from the occupied territories. Further more, I repeatedly pointed out that the armed forces authorities in the occupied territories had considered the sentences passed by our courts as sufficiently severe.
May I refer to my statement on my official trips to Paris and Oppeln, Exhibits 332 and 335. On my official trips whenever it was necessary -- I also dealt with the experts of the prosecuting offices, and I have discussed the matters of minor offenses with them.
THE PRESIDENT: We will recess until 1:30 this afternoon.
(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)
AFTERNOON SESSION (The Tribunal reconvened at 1330 hours, 4 August, 1947.)
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the courtroom will please find their seats.
The Tribunal is again in session.
BY DR. KUBUSCHOK:
Q.- Witness, before the recess you had discussed the tendency which lead to an increased severity in the penalties. You first mentioned that during your official trips you had made use of the opportunity to talk with the Prosecutors, the General Prosecutors and the Senior Prosecutors to the effect that they should apply adequate penalties. Will you please continue your statement?
A.- I have explained what individual steps I took in order to oppose the tendency to bring about a more severe sentence. However, I would also like to point out that the sentences pronounced by the special courts, especially by the Courts at Essen and Oppeln on the whole were so moderate that my efforts here had to be aimed at my superiors. I again have to mention the names of Thierack and Vollmer. To undertake any steps because of those lenient sentences is the reason why I made efforts to have the lenient sentences which had been pronounces, brought to the attention of my superiors, as little as possible, and if Vollmer has already been informed about the sentences and wanted to object to them, I tried to find reasons for which the sentence was so lenient.
Q.- Please state some details about the practice followed by the Courts.
A.- In the final result, and that is still my conviction today, the jurisdiction of the general courts in NN cases was absolutely adequate. This applies to the matter seen as a whole. It applies as well to the jurisdiction of the People's Court and especially to the jurisdiction of the special courts. In the case of special courts you will see that few death sentences were pronounced whereas the people's courts in a large percentage of cases pronounced a death penalty.
However, the percentage of death sentences is not as high as I assumed in my affidavit of 17 December 1946. That is Exhibit 337. In this affidavit I stated, purely off hand, I would like to say, that the majority, that is, more than fifty per cent of those indicted before the People's Court were sentenced to death. I made that statement at the time to the best of my knowledge. However, I did not have any documents of any kind at my disposal and I had to rely on my memory alone. Today after I could take into consideration the statistical material which the Prosecution has submitted, I would assume that about fifty per cent of the NN cases sentenced by the People's Court were sentenced to death. The death sentences which the People's Court pronounced were I think justified and I can even say from an international point of view, the death sentence was appropriate. They were cases of espionage, guerilla activities, serious cases of aiding and abetting the enemy, as well as the support of enemy parachutists etc. About the offences which were the basis for sentences for the People's Court, the witness Walter Roemer also testified here in this Court. I refer to the testimony of the 24th of April by this witness. I can also refer to what the defendant Lautz said here on the witness stand. After examining the statistical material, I have to correct another sentence from my affidavit of the 17 December, 1946. In that case I stated that aiding and abetting the enemy always practically resulted in a pronouncement of the death sentence before the People's Court. After careful consideration, however, I have no reason for expressing the opinion that the number of death sentences was larger in the case of aiding and abetting the enemy than in the case of espionage and guerilla activity. Here too I assume that the death sentence amounted to fifty percent. Characteristic sentences in these courts were those pronounced for illegal possession of arms. I already mentioned that in the decree issued by the military commander in normal cases the death sen tence was provided and only in lighter cases a prison sentence.
In fact only very few death sentences were pronounced because of the illegal possession of arms. These cases were special cases, as for instance possession of an entire ammunition depot. In a great majority of cases and I want to state that illegal possession of arms, according to numbers, played an important role, because of the overwhelming number of prison sentences, which were pronounced because of the illegal possession of arms. The action by the President of the District Court of Appeals of Kattowice who in the discussion at Oppeln instigated a more severe punishment because of possession of arms, was at that time generally rejected. In the few cases in which because of illegal possession of arms, the death sentence was pronounced, almost without exception, the execution of the death sentence was avoided by clemency pleas.
Q.- The affidavit of Judge Advocate General Dr. Boetticher also deals with the practice of the courts. I shall offer this as Ammon Exhibit No. 3. I shall read the text of the affidavit.
"From 1 July 1942 to August 1944, I was Chefrichter (Chief Justice) with the Military Commander in France. In this capacity the jurisdiction exercised by the special cases Courts at Cologne and Breslau in NN cases also became known to me, since I received copies of the sentences of these special courts. To an overwhelming extent the sentenced cases concerned illegal possession of arms by the civilian population. The death sentences was to be applied to this crime primarily and in all less serious cases the possibility of prison sentences existed. From the copies of the sentences of the special courts which I received I gained the impression that the special courts sentences these crimes rather mildly, compared with the penalty provided. As far as I remember the special courts of Cologne and Breslau only pronounced the death sentence in a very few cases. In particular, I cannot recall that any death sentence was pronounced because of the illegal possession of arms. I, as well as the Military Commander in France, the Judges subordinate to him and their legal advisers, were in absolute agreement with this practice of NN courts and stated that we were satisfied with the results of the taking over of NN cases by the civilian courts.
To that extent, the favorable effect from the taking over of NN cases by civilian courts was apparent. On the one hand we had been forced in view of keeping the matter secret to introduce several special regulations for the proceedings. On the other hand, however, the fact that the sentences were not made public involved the possibility that the necessity of a deterrent, which otherwise was necessary for reasons of military security could be refrained from, and that the offense could be punished by a prison sentence rather than a death sentence." I submit this affidavit of the 30th of July 1947, as Exhibit Ammon No. 3.
THE PRESIDENT: The Exhibit is received.
BY DR. KUBUSCHOK:
Q.- I now come to the clemency proceedings of the Reich Ministry of Justice in death sentences pronounced for NN cases. Please comment on this.
A.- The clemency procedure of NN death sentences was in principle the same as in other death sentences. However, there were some peculiarities. One of these was that the gauleiters did not participate in the clemency proceedings. They did not participate because the offense had been committed in the occupied territory and not within the gau of a gauleiter.
A further peculiarity consisted in the fact that Hitler, as I already mentioned before, reserved to himself the right to make the decision on the clemency plea in death sentences pronounced against women from the occupied Western territories.
Finally, I should like to point out that in NN cases, because of the lack of the possibility of a deterrent, there was no so-called. "lightening" (Blitz) execution. The practice in regard to clemency questions followed by Thierack was, as has been discussed here frequently, severe. It was not easy for a referent to succeed in getting a clemency plea granted by him. Nevertheless, I succeeded in doing so in a number of cases.
However, when I made the attempt to bring about the granting of a clemency plea in several cases, I became subject to the scorn of Thierack in which he made derogatory remarks about the obstinacy which I applied.
Q.- The NN regulations in the execution of which you had to cooperate, - did you have any misgivings about them?
A.- In the application of the NN regulations I was, of course, conscious of their severity. I considered especially severe the strict regulations about the seclusion of NN prisoners from the outside world which made every correspondence of the NN prisoners with their relatives impossible. Furthermore, I considered very severe the regulations which provided that on principle also those NN prisoners, for whom no offense, or at least no serious offense could be proven, should, remain in custody. That I considered very severe. But I kept to the statements that were made when these regulations were issued; that these regulations were necessary in order to suppress the increasing resistance movement in the occupied territories.
The regulations issued seemed to me to be still better than -- and this would have been possible in the case of offenses against the occupying forces in the occupied territories -- death sentences which would have been pronounced as a matter of principle.
As the witness Lehmann testified here, the seclusion of NN prisoners from the outside world was, so to say, the price to be paid for the possibility of greater leniency in sentencing. Under this point of view it seemed to me to be acceptable. That very strong resistance movements existed in the occupied territories which, in a certain sense, could be considered as the second illegal army and thus influenced the military situation considerably, that is the historical fact.
Q.- Did you have an opportunity to give up your NN section and to take over another section?
A.- As I already stated in the affidavit which I made out and which I quoted repeatedly, the affidavit of 17 December, 1946, I did not like dealing with NN cases. Whether a person likes his special professional field is, on the whole, dependent on his inner attitude. In any case, I can say about myself that the activity in a referat, a section in which of necessity severity and above all death sentences appeared, was not to my liking, especially since people were concerned who, as such, were not criminals and who could not be denied a human understanding on one's part.
For that reason, in the Summer of 1944, I made the attempt to swap my section with another section in the personnel division of the Ministry of Justice. At that time it was intended to promote Ministerial Counsel Wittland who was a member of the personnel division. In that case he would have left the Ministry of Justice. The section comprised organization of the courts and civil service law.
At that time I requested to receive this section when Wittland would leave. From August, 1944, until January, 1945, I used part of my time, in order to get acquainted with the personnel department. However, the party chancellory then objected to Wittland's promotion and, therefore, it did not take place and I had to remain in my former section.
Q.- Did you regard the NN regulations as being within the frame work of international Law?
A.- In answering that question, I have to make a clear distinction. The NN decree was signed by Keitel on order of Hitler. The enforcement regulations for the NN decree were, first of all, by the OKW and for the sphere of the Ministry of Justice issued by the Ministry of Justice. The basic enforcement regulations of the Ministry of Justice in regard to the NN decree were worked out not by me as referent, nor in my department at all. Outside of the leadership of the Ministry the penal legislation department, Department 3, was competent for this. Department 4, and I as referent, were in a certain sense merely executive organs in the application of the existing legal regulations.
The examination as to whether the NN decree and the basic executive regulations were in accordance with international law, was therefore up to the people who were competent for the issuance of the decree and working on the regulations and the drafting of the regulations. But the executive organ neither has the duty nor the right for review as has been discussed here frequently.
Of course, as a jurist, I thought about these questions and can say that crimes of that nature as were prosecuted as NN cases can be punished with the most severe penalty according to international law, and that penalties of that kind are also usually applied by all states, as is obvious, I believe; that the courts martial, which otherwise sentences in occupied territory, that this is replaced by a civil court in the home country, is also not contrary to international law.
And now, in regard to the question of limiting regulations of the NN procedure, the essential factor was that a just decision by the court was not prevented by these. In the statements I have made so far I have already pointed out that the limiting regulations of the NN procedure did not exert a negative influence for the defendant in the proceeding.
Keeping the prisoners incommunicado had been ordered by the Fuehrer Order and by the military authorities. The question of military necessity was not subject to renew by us.
International law puts these military interests over the personal interests of the inhabitants of the occupied territories.
From all these considerations I did not see that the NN regulations were contrary to international law.
Q.- Since the prosecution has submitted documents about the conditions in concentration camps against all defendants who continued working in the Ministry of Justice after 1942, I have to ask you too what you knew about occurrences in concentration camps.
A.- My various official positions could not afford me any knowledge about such events. Even at the time when members of the SS did not yet have their independent jurisdiction, when reports about these excesses in concentration camps could thus still reach the Ministry of Justice, my section was not affected by this, and this was entirely regardless of the fact that these reports only provided knowledge of a very small section of actual conditions.
In conversations too, within the Ministry, I heard very little about these matters, probably because they were treated as secret and I was not in a special confidential relationship with the referents who were working on these matters. For those reasons, for example, the occurrences in the Kemma and Hohenstein Camps being known to me only here during this trial, I myself never visited a concentration camp. As far as private knowledge is concerned, I considered being kept in the concentration camp, of course, as something unpleasant, especially since the camps were cut off from the outside world, the uncertainty of the period of detention, the lack of orderly legal recourse. That abuses might have occurred for those reasons I assumed without knowing anything definite about it.
Court No. III, Case No. 3.
Acquaintances of mine who had been in a concentration camp and from whom I might have found out some definite details, I did not have. Although I had quite good relationships with protestant church circles, for example, I did not even know, did not gain any definite knowledge about Niemoeller's being kept in a concentration camp. About systematic killings and mass exterminations I heard only after the surrender.
Q The witness Suchomel makes the assertion in an affidavit that, in the fall of 1942, you were present at a meeting when a lecture about the euthanasia problem was delivered. The witness Suchomel took back his original assertion during cross examination. Nevertheless, for the sake of completeness, I would like to ask you whether you ever worked on euthanasia questions?
A No.
Q That concludes my direct examination of the defendant.
BY DR. GRUBE (Defense Counsel for the defendant Lautz):
Q I ask for permission to address one question to the witness.
Witness, from documents which the Prosecution has submitted for example, Exhibit 327 - it is apparent that the defendant Lautz repeatedly discussed cases with you which were in connection with the NN proceedings. May I ask you, did the defendant Lautz also negotiate with you, when in the fall of 1944, through a so-called Fuehrer decree, the administration of justice had to discontinue its jurisdiction in NN cases?
A No. As far as I remember, at that time Reich Public Prosecutor Parisius was the only one who called me on the telephone, and if I'm not mistaken, I restricted myself, in the main, at the time to referring Parisius to Hecker because he was competent for the questions broached by Parisius.
Q Thank you. I have no further questions.
BY DR. ORTH (Defense Counsel for defendant Altstoetter):
Q Witness, did you ever officially or unofficially discuss with the defendant Altstoetter the Fuehrer decree or the NN cases?
A Not before the surrender.
Q Did you, in writing, inform Altstoetter about the nature of NN Court No. III, Case No. 3.cases?