In spite of that, the sentence was not executed, but the condemned persons were exchanged for five Germans who were arrested in Sweden because of treason and thus they gained their freedom and their lives. Thus, this example shows that, according to German constitutional law, the German state is not obligated to execute a sentence even if one is convinced that the sentence cannot be appealed from any point of view.
I believe that's enough.
Q. All right.
If now you were told or if you saw from the submission of evidence that a sentence was not conclusive from the facts, or that the sentence was doubtful for legal reasons, or even if the Reich Ministry of Justice uttered such misgivings?
A. Do you mean what should be done then?
Q. What should be done then?
A. What should be done then is obvious. If such a sentence was pronounced in which, from the point of view of facts or the law, showed certain errors or omissions, then the public prosecutor had, first of all, to exhaust the existing means of legal recourse.
Q. Is it not up to the discretion of the prosecutor whether, in favor of the condemned person, he wants to begin a legal recourse or a legal aid?
A. That is a question which was already broached here before, but which was not treated exhaustively. It is a matter of course that it cannot be up to the discretion of the prosecutor whether, in the case of a sentence which he considers to be incorrect, he can use a legal recourse or a legal aid. I have already pointed out, and this is of decisive importance here, that the prosecution, in general, has the duty to supervise the legality of jurisdiction. However, the law provides the prosecution only with the possibility to do it, but this means under no conditions, that it is up to the discretion of the prosecutor whether he avails himself of this possibility or not if he considers a sentence to be a wrong sentence.
Rather, this legal possibility is given to him so that he can fulfill his general duty to bring about a legality of jurisdiction. This is in agreement with what I already announced before.
Q. You were speaking about the prosecutor. What did the general public prosecutor have to do with this?
A. The circle of duties which I have described applies first of all to the prosecutor. Above the prosecutor is the general public prosecutor. He is the official supervising authority. That is to say he, on his part, has to supervise the prosecutor in turn to see to it that he fulfills the duties which the law imposes upon him. Thus, as a supervising authority he has to intervene when the prosecution does not fulfill the duty that is imposed upon it and, because he has to supervise that, logically this obligation is also his.
Q. What is the position of the Reich Ministry of Justice, now?
A. The Reich Ministry of justice is the supervising authority over the public prosecutor and the general public prosecutor. The Reich Ministry of justice therefore has the sane obligation as the general public prosecutor, only in a more emphatic way, and with more extensive possibilities of intervention. In other words, also the Reich Ministry of justice has to supervise jurisdiction in regard to its legality and see to it that its subordinate authorities - that is, the general public prosecutor and the prosecutor - fulfill their obligations in this respect. That is essentially the position of the machinery of the administration of justice surrounding the sentence of a judge, with the task and the aim to see to it to create the most extensive guarantees of right that a wrong judgment cannot grow into damage to harm a person.
Q. Instead of a legal recourse or a legal aid could the public prosecutor not suggest that these condemned persons be pardoned?
A. He cannot do so. That is to say, in order to be understood completely, I would like to cite a seemingly exceptional case. If a man is sentenced to a prison term of six months because of fraud and the public prosecutor reaches the conclusion that actually not fraud but embezzlement exists, if he considers the penalty of a six month's prison term also appropriate for embezzlement, he will, of course, let the judgment prevail.
In such a case there are no misgivings either that if he considers, instead of six months, three months more appropriate, to ask for clemency to lower the penalty to three months and would not insist on exhausting the legal recourse here because the interests of the defendant or condemned person are maintained sufficiently. However, these exceptional cases do not affect the basic question. If one is convinced - and this is the principle involved - that a sentence is wrong, and this can happen and it happens daily in the world, than the person concerned has a right to demand justice and not a right to demand a pardon or clemency. An example: if a man, because of arson, under the application of the corresponding article of the law prevailing during the war, is condemned to death and the circumstantial evidence is not considered to be conclusive, then, of course, it is impossible to commute the man's sentence to eight years in a penitentiary because it is conceivable that he is the offender, but, first of all, one has to exhaust the legal remedies. This principle, moreover, is apparent quite unequivocably in the clemency regulations in which it is expressly emphasized that the method of asking for clemency is, in no case, a substitute for legal remedy.
This duty, however, exists also over and above that, I mean, the duty to use legal remedies when clemency has been denied. This is quite clear from the method in which the so-called re-opening of the case was handled which was discussed here frequently which requires the court to be present on the method of discussion up to the place of execution because up to that moment the possibility that legal remedies would be used -- for example by the way of the so-called re-opening of the case -- is still possible.
THE PRESIDENT: Doctor, may I ask you a question the discussion that you have just been giving relates to clemency matters. You were not discussing, were you, at that time the matter of nullity pleas?
A. No, your Honor, I was speaking of the relationship of the method of clemency to the legal recourse in general.
THE PRESIDENT: I understand. Go on.
A. And I only mentioned the possibility of re-opening of a case as an example. And now I may continue. These general principles which I have developed here, of course, apply to an increasing extent in regard to such legal remedies, in which the possibilities of the condemned person are limited by virtue of the fact that the condemned person is only allowed to suggest the legal remedy. As for the example, in the case of a nullity plea, here in such a case, if necessary, the Reich Ministry of Justice which was superior to the Chief Reich Prosecutor at the Reich Supreme Court, the Reich Ministry of Justice then has to instruct that the nullity plea was not put into the hands of the head of the state; therefore, this could not be decided by means of the decision on the clemency plea. Rather in the case of the nullity plea, it was a legal remedy which was put into the hands of the administration of Justice which the Public Prosecution and the General Public Prosecutor could suggest to the Chief Reich Public Prosecutor, and the Reich Ministry of Justice as the superior authority to the Chief Reich Public Prosecutor could order the Chief Reich Public Prosecutor to use it, and it had to be ordered it in the conception of the Reich Ministry of Justice a wrong sentence was in question. The Public Prosecution thus is cooperation with the rest of the Ministry of Justice had to supervise the leg ality of the jurisdiction.
Thus one cannot say -- and this is why I made these explanations -- that our system of law does not provide sufficient methods against possible errors in jurisdiction. It did have these possibilities until the last moment in the individual case.
Q. How did your transfer to Schweinfurt come about?
A. That was a simple, harmless event. One day my then chief the then public prosecutor, came and he know that I would like to remain in Nurnberg. He came to me in order to tell me that the position of a district court in Nurnberg Fuerth would soon be vacant, and he recommended to me to apply for that position and also told me that he wanted, in spite of the fact that I w s transferred to work as a judge, to keep me I did apply for that position and that was certainly not a world- shaking affair because it was a transfer to a position on the same level. Only instead of a position with the prosecution, it was a position as a judge. I made this application and expected that it would be complied with in consideration of the fact that it was a matter of course. However, about two weeks later, to take immediate effect, I was transferred to the district court of Schweinfurt.
Q. Was that unusual, and how did you regard that transfer?
A. It was unusual to the extent that in general, formerly matters that were only put into the form of a request, but actually which were not requested, one could bring to the superior office authorities without involving the danger that special disadvantages would accrue from this. For in effect, it was as follows: Already during the preceding years, because I was used a great deal, I lived apart from my family from time to time, and I had just obtained apartment in Nurnberg for three year, and now again I was without an apartment far my family. I was supposed to be transferred to Schweinfurt to a city where the scarcity of apartments had assumed special proportions. Moreover, in consideration of my stomach disorder, I was already at that time limited. In any case; there were a great number of reasons which were against my wanting to be transferred to the city of Schweinfurt.
Q. Did you know that Haberkern at that time had an important political position in the Gau of Frankonia.
A. For that, you are coming back to the old subject. Of course I knew that. Already in 1933 I found that Haberkern, whom I had met in 1926 in Pfaffenhofen on the Inn, since 1933 immediately after the seizure of power, had been given the position of Gau inspector for the Gauleitung of Frankonia. That was in every newspaper at the time.
Q. Did you again resume your contact with him?
A. Even though I had found out that Haberkern took this political position in 1933, I did not take up contact with him even though I was also living in this city here; and for me it would have been an easy thing to do to again restore these connections.
Q. Why did you not take up connections with him?
A. That has a purely human reson. If I would have found out that Haberkern in accordance with the professions which he had learned before, had opened a butcher shop, I would have been the first one to have gone to look him up in order to restore the old connections of Pfaffenhofen on the Inn, but this was not the case. But due to the seizure of power, Haberkern was given an important political position in the Gau of Frankonia, and this condition in particular prevented me from renewing such connections.
Q. Why did you not at least turn to him now in this matter of transfer?
A. The affair of the transfer was for me as well as for my family, as I have already described an extraordinarily unpleasant affair, because in effect what happened to me was approximately the same thing that would happen to a mere member of the Social Democratic Party in Germany in 1933. He was, just against his will, transferred to another place.
Since, in 1933 I did not take up the connection with Haberkern, because I wanted to prevent even the appearance of such a thing. I, of course, did not approach him the more in this transfer, an affair which for me was extraordinarily unpleasant.
Q. But was that not the usual thing?
A. Of course, anybody could act as he wanted to. At that time it was quite usual or became the usual thing, namely, what had not been the usual thing before. In my opinion in that connection, it was not so much the question of what was general usage at all, but for people of our type it was a question of taste.
Q. How were you employed officially in Schweinfurt?
A. In Schweinfurt I was a member of a civil chamber, of a penal chamber, of the Court of Assises, and in each case I was associate judge. Moreover, I was presiding judge of the jury court, at the local court of Schweinfurt.
Q. What was your attitude toward the NSDAP in Schweinfurt?
A. My attitude toward the NSDAP, first of all, did not change in Schweinfurt either. I was a human being as everybody else, and especially the transfer to Schweinfurt I could not quite get over. However, I would like to emphasize, in order not to create the impression, or as if I wanted to create the impression, that I had been transferred to Schweinfurt for political reasons. Under no condition do I want to maintain that. I rather regard this transfer merely as a stupidity of the then personnel referent dealing with personnel matters.
Finally-- how do I say this -- the clumsiness of NN actually hits one under certain conditions just as hard as any intentional deed.
Q. I asked you for your attitude about the NSDAP in Schweinfurt.
A. Yes.
Q. Just a moment. I haven't quite finished. Do you want to add something?
A. Anyway, my attitude did not change basically. An important change occurred about 1936. I shall come back to this in detail but already at this time I want to emphasize that this change came about in the direction of a positive attitude toward the NSDAP but I remained as ever, in my innermost soul, a follower of Ludendorff until the catastrophe.
On the other hand, the idea, from this critical and perhaps also ambiguous attitude, to damage the National Socialist State in any sphere or in any way, thus, for example, to sabotage it by official acts, that idea was out of the question for me. From the day of the so-called seizure of power until the catastrophe in no circumstances thus for myself I do not demand that out of anger in an individual case or out of a basic negative attitude toward the NSDAP I should not even have toyed with the idea of harming the state, to which I had given the oath of loyalty by misusing my official position.
To me that was not a political question, but a question of the ethics and character. Thus, I can make no report of having helped this or the other person in a round-about way. Whatever I did, I did consciously and with the intent to move within the scope of the law. I did it because in following that line I saw the maintenance of the interests of my fatherland and they were above all else.
Q. The witness Dehm, on the 28 of March, 1947, in the afternoon page 735 of the English transcript - testified that in Schweinfurt a judge and an assessor had reported to him that you delivered educational lectures for future lawyers. Were those political lectures or lectures about laws and who ordered you to deliver those lectures? You are supposed to have used the expression:
"to knock off the bean". What does that mean?
A. First of all, well, I would like to say the preliminary remark; that in Schweinfurt, while I was employed there, I did not deliver any lectures. These are events which were not later, from the point of view of time, and they probably occurred in 1943-44 at that time, in the NS Lawyers League. That is the professional organization for judges, prosecutors, lawyers, administrators of law, economic lawyers. In that professional organization so-called weekend affairs were organized. Their aim was, first of all, to foster comradeship and in addition to advance technical education. Of course, in these educational affairs, political education was also furthered.
Now, people from my home, Wuerzburg, who knew me from earlier times and from other circumstances asked me to come once to such a weekend affair and to deliver a lecture about the development of war tine legislation. I gladly complied with that request.
THE PRESIDENT: We will recess until one-thirty this afternoon.
(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)
AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 11 August 1947) OSWALD ROTHAUG - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. KOESSL (Attorney for the Defendant Rothaug) May I continue, please?
THE PRESIDENT: Proceed.
Q.- Witness, before the recess we came to our stop at the explanation of the occurrences which were mentioned here by the witness Behl. Would you please continue.
A.- We were talking of the week end training centers at Gelsheim, in lower Franconia. This morning I described the events of these week end training courses in general. I said that I was invited to go there to give a lecture about legislation in war time. Such week-end courses, on a voluntary basis, were usually attended by approximately twenty to thirty people. The course itself was held in my home district, and I knew most of the people who attended for a long time, and I had known them personally for a long time. That, in fact, was the reason why I was very pleased to accept that invitation. The fact that lectures of that kind were usually given on a friendly basis, the lecturer sat among the audience and told them what one had intended to tell them. These lectures were not given in the way they were given at a very official occasion.
THE PRESIDENT: Just a minute. There is no charge against the defendant for giving a lecture and the explanation of the reasons for lecturing are entirely immaterial to the Court and we have no interest in them. Assuming that the subject matter was proper, there certainly is no objection to any lecturing on a legal subject. I think that should be made more brief.
A.- I merely wanted to explain to the Tribunal the critical expressions
THE PRESIDENT: We have explained to you. Now, just proceed in accord ance with our suggestion.
A.- Yes, very well. In that small circle it may have happened that in consideration of my personal acquaintance with the audience, I used expressions which perhaps were a little trivial. I do not wish to dispute the fact that perhaps in some connection or another when describing a certain type of crime I mentioned that a person, when he has committed a crime of that kind, will have to be severely punished; and used the expression that a rib will be broken out; and in another expression of that kind may have been that one might let him dangle from a tree; and I may have used expressions of this kind -- the kind of expressions one does use when one is among a circle of close acquaintances. In that way it may have happened that I did use expressions of that type. All I want to stress is that it was not on an official case when I used that expression, but it was among a circle of comrades, where one spoke the language of a comrade.
Q.- How do you explain that people have made such statements about you now?
A.- In my opinion that can be explained if one takes into consideration the situation of these people themselves. The person who reported on that event -- certainly at the time it occurred did not think about it a great deal, but now perhaps he may feel the need to take up a moral point of view concerning the events of the past, and that is how it happens that he brings the matter up as a means to demonstrate the fact what an entirely different person he is, compared to the person who used expressions of that kind, of which I am charged here. Thus, something happens of the same nature as one could observe the other way around after 1933, when people buried into the past to discover and exaggerate certain facts which had occurred then to show that they had been good National Socialists before 1933. Those phenomena can be explained from the human angle and they can be explained from the situation in general.
Q.- Witness, the witness Bohl also stated that before 1933 you had been well known by the uncontrolled manner of the way you conducted a trial. Here you subjected to any criticism before 1933; or, were you reproached on account of the way in which you conducted trials?
A.- It is obvious that if one adopts a so-called uncontrolled manner of conducting a trial, such as the witness Bohl wants to demonstrate here, in that case one gives rise to criticism by such uncontrolled manner of conducting a trial. It is evident from my introductory remarks here that I had always been before the public with my work, as a public prosecutor, as a judge, and I have to say that on account of my behavior in public in my official capacity, I was never subjected to any criticism neither before 1933 nor after 1993; neither from circles of the population, nor from my superior authorities; nor from among attorneys. I can only remember one official complaint that was raised during the twenty-five years I was in office. That gave cause to extensive investigations, and my attitude in the matter was approved.
Q.- Did the press ever attack you?
A.- The press never attacked me either - in particular it did not attack me on account of the manner in which I conducted a trial. I should like to add that the manner in which I conducted trials, a subject to which I am going to refer later, is an entirely individual manner, and essentially a human being cannot change himself, and the manner in which I conducted a trial -- by that I mean the examination of the defendant and of the witnesses -- that did not differ during the various eras. I did not conduct a trial differently before 1933 from the way in which I conducted it after 1933. Before 1937, I conducted my trials in no way differently from the way I did after 1937. At no time was I criticized by any quarters; no criticism was made which would have deserved any attention.
Q.- Did you occupy any political powers in those days?
A.- If I may say so, I did not have a political power situation before 1933, I didn't pay any attention to matters of that kind, and after 1933 -- it was only in the spring of 1938 that I joined the party. Therefore, nobody could really have the idea to attack me for the reason that I held any political power positions or, if I may call it that -that I entertained any political relations in the time before 1933; that couldn't have arisen at all.
Q.- Did your superior authorities monitor your sessions?
A.- If you say monitor a session, well by that one means that the superiors attended the sessions, going into the courtroom and supervising the judge while he is conducting a trial; that they form an opinion as to his behavior, and to his manner in which he manages to bring up matters from the past and bring them to life; for the persons in the courtroom those matters are supervised, and then the so-called official qualification is written out.
Such monitoring of my sessions was carried out regularly, and that was done at all times. I remember very well, for example, that the sessions which I conducted here in Nurnberg, as President of the Jury Court, in 1933, were frequently attended by the President of the District Court. He afterwards praised me in particular because I had succeeded in conducting matters on a lively basis and maintaining them on such a lively basis. I have to add here that man was a leading democrat, that is to say, he was certainly not a man who looked at matters from a National Socialist point of view.
Furthermore, I wish to add that in particular when my superior attended a session, the characteristics which gave a particular character to my manner of conducting a trial were distinctly emphasized by me; that is to say, in such cases, I did not in some way impose any limitations on myself, that would not at all have been in keeping with my nature.
Q.- In this connection the witness Behl reproduced the assumptions of other persons that your appointment to the Special Court at Nurnberg was made because of your particular suitability within the meaning of the leadership of the State, and because of your ruthless execution of the National Socialist ideas of the Administration of Justice. What National Socialist laws did you have to apply in your appointment to Nurnberg?
A.- Not a single one.
Q.- From 1930 until '37 did you work as a judge on penal cases?
A.- From 1930 until 1937 -- I assume that you are referring to the date when I was transferred to Nurnberg. I did work in Schweinfurt, as I have already said, on penal matters; that is to say, I was an associate judge at the penal chamber with the Court of Assises and a presiding judge with the Jury Court.
Q.- At Schweinfurt did you have to apply any National Socialist laws?
A.- Not in a single case. As concerns a single officer of the Administration of Justice, there was no possibility since 1930 to examine my attitude as a judge concerning National Socialist laws because, until my appointment to Nurnberg on 1 April 1937, I did not, in one single case, have anything to do with the application of National Socialist laws.
Therefore, one could not even say that in one penal case or another, in a definite and particular way, I had paid particular attention to maintaining the interests of the National Socialist State, and that therefore, a particular skill should have been ascribed to me. If I seemed useful to them, that could only be due to reminiscences to the era when, for about one year, I was in charge of a Jury Court in Nurnberg. However, that Jury Court too had nothing at all to do with any political matters; it was exclusively occupied with penal cases of a general criminal nature.
Q.- The witness Behl to support his assertion, mentioned and I quote: "that particularly reliable judges in the National Socialist sense were appointed for the Special Courts." Were you a member of the Nazi party when, on the 1st of April 1947, you became the presiding judge of the Special Court at Nurnberg?
A.- Generally speaking, concerning the testimony of the witness Behl, I should like to state that it would be nonsense to deny that no importance was attached to the fact that the judges employed at the Special Courts were not positive in their attitude towards the National Socialist State, for that was in itself a matter of course which could not possibly be disputed because it was in the nature of things that it should be so. One did assume that the judge appointed to such a position would do his duty in such a way as was within the interests of the doctrine of state in existence at the time; that is to say, that he would apply the laws which had been issued by the National Socialist Legislature, that he would apply them in such a manner in which the Legislator wished them to be applied, for that is the final aim of the work of a judge. However, it would be an exaggeration of the state of affairs if one wanted to maintain that persons had been appointed to such positions as judges who had demonstrated themselves as being particularly radical in their National Socialist attitude, radical in their aims and in their intentions.
That is not correct, but the persons who were appointed to be judges at the Special Courts were expected to be politically reliable.
To answer the concrete question, when I was appointed to Nurnberg to be Landgerichtsdirector, Director of the District Court -- which did not mean in itself that I would also become President of the Special Court -- at that time I was not a member of the Nazi Party. I believe I can remember for certain that the judges who were employed at that court at the time did not belong to the NSDAP as members at that time, and they did not belong to any formation of the Nazi Party either, or at least I knew nothing about it. If they had been anything of any importance I am sure I would still remember. That is to say, taking matters as a whole one cannot say that the Special Court at Nurnberg in those days had a staff which consisted of only typical National Socialists.
Q.- To what other National Socialist organizations did you belong at the time?
A.- I can say I only belonged to the usual organizations; it is always the same thing. I belonged to the NS Lawyer's League. The NSV, the welfare organization, which was in fact a welfare organization. I also belonged to the Colonial League, and to the ARP organization. I think that is all.
Q.- Did you hold any position?
A.- I had no function in any of those organizations. I merely made my contributions, which were collected, as was the custom, by someone at my home at some time or other.
Q.- Did your family belong to the Party?
A.- No, they did not; neither my wife nor my daughter belonged to it at that time, and they did not belong to the Party later either.
Q.- Did you, at that time, take up contact with Haberkern?
A.- You mean from Schweinfurt? No, that was not so. I did not make any contact with that man from Schweinfurt.
Q.- The witness Doebig, in his affidavit -- Exhibit 237 -- maintains that it was Denzler's work that you came to Nurnberg. Did you try and get the appointment as President of the Special Court at Nurnberg, and did you approach Denzler on the matter to get that appointment?
A.- The best way of answering that question is for me to describe exactly what happened about my getting to Nurnberg.
One fine day the President of the District Court, who was the highest authority in the Administration of Justice at Schweinfurt, asked me to come and see him. I was told that he had been rung up, either by Berlin or by the President of the District Court of Appeals at Bamberg, and had been told that he was to tell me to apply for the position of Landgerichtsdirector at Nurnberg, Director of the District Court. The whole matter came as a surprise to me inasmuch as about a year before I had called at the Ministry at Munich and had asked to be re-transferred to Nurnberg, not to be promoted but to be re-transferred there to the District Court. The reason was that in Schweinfurt I had not found a home for my family, and on account of my stomach trouble I wanted to live with my family. I was seen by my co-defendant Engert, and I must say he didn't exactly treat me graciously at that time.
When, in that manner, I had been asked to apply for this position in Nurnberg, I asked for a little time to think things over. I took the advice of my family and my friends, and when I was advised in general to do it, to apply, so as not to give any reason for displeasure, I did make my application.
After a little while I was transferred to Nurnberg. It is absolutely untrue to say that ever before did I make contact with Denzler in the matter of such an appointment. I didn't even know that there was a vacant position in Nurnberg and I no longer expected ever myself to be transferred and had no wish to go to Nurnberg since at last I had found a home for my family in Schweinfurt and had moved into it. That matter, therefore, was of purely an official nature and what the witness Behl said in this connection is nothing but to reiterate some nonsense which had been invented somewhere or other.
Q.- The witness Ferber, during his examination - English transcript page 1322 said that when you were transferred it was said that a new policy would now be adopted in the political administration of criminal law and the changes could already be recognized when your coming was heralded with something like politically accompanying music. What are your comments on this matter?
A.- The people who were in Nurnberg and who had something to say in political offices, or had a certain amount of influence, naturally knew me from the days before my transfer to Schweinfurt. That is to say, from the time prior to November, 1934. At that time, I was not yet known in political matters, but even more, on account of the attitude I had at the time, I was very reserved. I believe I must rather have made the impression on those people in those days that I was a bad National Socialist rather than a good National Socialist. If, all the same, those men, when I was retransferred to Nurnberg, had been pleased, the reason certainly was not connected with my political attitude in any way, nor could the reason be my merits for the Nazi Party. The reason why these persons liked me may have been the fact that, before I was transferred to Schweinfurt, I, in this building here, had acquired a certain reputation. Not for political reasons, but on account of the esteem in which my superiors in the administration of justice held me. It is altogether possible that, from that point of view, they were pleased that I came to Nurnberg for the reason that they liked my work.
Q.- Were there ever any complaints about your attitude at the court in Nurnberg?
A.- There is another short remark I would like to make in regard to your previous question.
I was going to say it was a mistake to speak of something like politically accompanying music. Quite harmless matters are here being given a wrong interpretation.
Q.- Were there ever any complaints about the events which occurred when you presided at the special court at Nurnberg?
A.- When the President of the District Court of Appeals, Bertram, had appointed me President of the Special Court at Nurnberg, an appointment which was not immediately connected with my transfer to Nurnberg, I had contact with the Senior Public Prosecutor Denzler, and with the Senior Public Prosecutor Hirsch, and the other men who dealt with political penal cases including Terber. Not one of those men ever told me that any complaints in connection with the events which occurred at my trials had been made, or that on account of such complaints a solution of the conditions at the special court at Nurnberg with my person was to have been attempted.
Q.- Was any case pending which perhaps could have given cause to certain people to be pleased that you were coming because, with you, there was a prospect that the matter would be settled?
A.- A case which was pending, and which played a great part at the time of my transfer to Nurnberg, and which was a thing which went very much on the nerves of the administration of justice, was the Stegmann case. Before the seizure of power, Stegmann had been a SA-Gruppenfuehrer in Franconia. Three sub-departments were subordinate to him, and shortly before the seizure of power, approximately in December, 1932, or January 1933, there was a considerable revolt in the courte of which Stegmann penalized other SA and Party officers.
From 1933 to 1937, that case remained unsettled so that, again and again, complaints were made by the superior authorities. When, on the 1st of April, 1937, I assumed my office, I immediately tackled that case and I settled it during the first half of May, 1937, and I settled it finally. In this case there might have been a need to be pleased with my arrival because nobody liked to tackle this matter because the Gau leadership of Franconia was somewhat involved in the matter.
Q.- How is it possible that Ferber should have been informed about the matter?
A.- Ferber, when I came, was public prosecutor in Nurnberg and he was a political prosecutor in the immediate vicinity of the Prosecutor Buettner, who also played a certain political role but was not, for his part, connected with Senior Prosecutor Denzler who has been mentioned so frequently here. Furthermore, Ferber enjoyed the unreserved confidence of all those agencies. There was no secret which was kept back from Ferber. Therefore, Ferber was and is informed about everything that happened in those days until the catastrophe occurred and he was informed very exactly and I would be satisfied if he would only speak of those matters. Well, in that direction, Ferber was informed about everything.
Q.- Were you interested in making more severe the jurisdiction of the special court?
A.- That was never so. There was no need for that either.
Q.- Were you only presiding judge of the special court?
A.- No, I was also the presiding judge of the Court of Assizes and it is important in that connection to know that the focal point of my work and of the work of the people around me did not lie with the special court, but with the court of assizes. The court of assizes, from the old days, was the local point of penal activity with the district court. It was there too seen from the point of view of the incidences of cases. At the court of assizes, most of our work occurred.