A I believe that the statistics which I have before me will allow me to give proof of that quite easily. How that I have looked at the statistics I am actually inclined to believe that tho number of 90 indictments before the Peoples Court for the year 1943 is almost too high. The statistics show, for the Fourth Senate, a number of judgments of a total of 186. As I said before, the Fourth Senate mainly dealt with cases of treason, and in 1943 it also had to try the cases of undermining of military morale. If from the 186 judgments which the Fourth Senate passed in that year, one deducts the figure 90 for undermining military morale cases, one would find that in the whole of 1943 the Fourth Senate only passed 96 judgments in cases of treason. The statistics show that there would have been far fewer judgments than were passed by the Third Senate, which also worked on treason cases. Unfortunately, this calculation cannot be made with mathematical exactitude, but in my view the statistics show clearly that my estimate must be approximately correct. I would ask you not to believe that these 90 indictments had resulted in, shall we say, 90 death sentences, for in the whole year the Senate only passed 72 death sentences. If in the case of the Fourth Senate I wore to assume that just as in tho case of the Third Senate about 50 death sentences were passed, then for the year 1943 there would remain 22 death sentences for undermining military morale, and that with a total number of 2,500 cases. Purely from memory, however, the figure 22 death sentences seems too high to me, but, as I have said, all that is purely an approximate estimate.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q May I ask you one more question, please? Were all of the indictments which your department filed with the People's Court, filed with the Fourth Senate of the People's Court?
A Your Honor, in principle we only worked with the Fourth Senate in cases of undermining of military morale. Our high treason indictments were sent to another Senate. But as I pointed out earlier, it did happen that Freisler dealt with some of our indictments in his Senate.
Q Did any other department file indictments for undermining military morale with any Senate of the People's Court?
A Yes, Your Honor, apart from my department there was Department I which dealt with undermining of military morale cases, and Department I filed all its indictments with the First Senate.
Q Your statistics are limited to the work of your department, as you have given them?
A The statistics which I have given, Your Honor, refer only to the work of my department.
BY DR. TIPP:
Q Concerning the practice in dealing with undermining of military morale cases. Herr Rothaug a little while ago made statements here, and I believe that there is a certain amount of contradiction between his statements and yous. Perhaps by a few words, you can clear up that apparent contradiction.
A Yes, but I should like to call that not a contradiction but rather a difference, for Rothaug spoke about the period after the first of January 1944; whereas my statements referred only to the time up to the 31 of December 1943. Quite apart from that, every department and every department chief in these as well as in other matters, had his own customs.
Q Concerning Dr. Barnickel's practice in passing on cases, I shall later from Document Book II submit Barnickel Document 30 on Page 104.
That is an affidavit by Dr. Wilhelm Stegemann on 21 July 1947. Dr. Stegemann was Expert with the General Public Prosecutor in Hamburg, and he was an expert who dealt with the undermining of military morale. In that capacity, he worked together with Dr. Barnickel for a long time.
Your Honor, I believe this would be a moment for the recess, because I am now going over to a new chapter. If the Tribunal would like me to continue now, naturally I will do so.
THE PRESIDENT: We'd like to have you continue until three o'clock. You have ten minutes vet.
BY DR. TIPP:
Q Witness, I am now coming to the next chapter. Who was it at the People's Court who had to deal with sessions?
AAs a rule, the referent with the Reich Prosecution.
Q Did the prosecutor receive instructions from the department concerning the sentence he was to ask for?
AAs a rule, a few days before the trial opened, the referent came to see his department chief and made a suggestion to him. He, after all, was the man who knew the case best. The department chief commented on the case. A definite directive to the effect that a certain sentence had to be asked for, I never issued. I always described my opinion as being just my view, I assume that the matter was handled in a similar way in other departments. But I don't know for certain. I always told my referents above all, that first of all the sentence for which they would have to ask would have to be made dependent on the evidence and on the impression which the defendant made at the trial, etc.
Q Were there any special rules in cases where the death sentence was to be asked for?
A I believe that has been mentioned hero. If it was possible that the death sentence might be asked for, a report had to be made to the Chief--the Behordenleiter.
He then commented on the matter, but also said that it would have to depend on the result of the evidence at the trial. During the latter course of the war, in many cases, in particular if the law made the death sentence mandatory, such a report was not made.
Q Now another question. The prosecution has stated here repeatedly that the free decision by the court was curtailed because between the prosecution and the court contact, or guidance had been ordered. Did such contact exist at the People's Court too?
A No, of that close contact, which several prosecution documents have mentioned, I heard here for the first time. We didn't have that at the People's Court. I never heard anything about guidance there. I never heard anything about any instruction to make such contact, as was evident from these documents. But please understand me correctly: on the other hand, this whole idea of making contact has been known to me from the time when I was a public prosecutor myself and that was in the days before the First World War. But it wasn't that the public prosecutor tried to exercise any influence on the sentence to be passed by the court, but the prosecutor informed himself about the views of the court so as not to deviate too much. That sort of contact existed almost all over Germany, and it always had existed. But it was entirely at the discretion of the public prosecutor whether he wanted to make contact or not.
Sometimes the court, for its part, approached the public prosecutor. I knew of contact being made at tho People's Court only in that form. I repeat: contact between the prosecution and the court, meaning that jurisdiction was to be guided -- that I had not known of until I attended the trial here.
Q May it please the Court, concerning these last points, I would like to refer to documents which have already been introduced.
The first document to which I want to refer is Barnickcl Document No. 9, Exhibit 10, Page 29 of the Document Book. The witness Bodo Meier made statements on those points. Furthermore, I would like to refer to Barnickel Document No. 10, Exhibit 8, Affidavit By Bexmann, on Page 35 and 36 of the Document Book. Further, the affidavit by Dr. Bach, Barnickel Document 11, Exhibit 120, Page 40 of the Document Book; and finally, Barnickel Document 12, Exhibit 11, also in Document Book I, Affidavit by Dr. Lenhard.
At a later time, I shall offer Barnickel Document 27 from Document Book II, Page 90. That is an affidavit to which I have already referred by Heider; and Barnickcl Document No. 29, Affidavit Weltz of 21 July 1947, also in Document Book II. All these witnesses further explained the questions which Dr. Barnickel has just touched upon.
Witness, I think I have now finished discussing questions with you which deal with the procedure before the trial opened. I am how going to the next group of questions, and I ask you what was the work of the Reich Prosecution with the People's Court after the sentence had been passed?
AAs we all know, tho judgments of the People's Court immediately acquired legal force, unless there was a question of the clemency plea. After tho sentence had been passed, the prison was asked to accommodate prisoners. There were special forms on which the personal data of the defendants were entered, the sentence was entered, the computation of the term etc. Those forms could be signed by the Rechtspfleger. But there was an instruction with tho Reich Prosecution, according to which the department chief had to sign the form which had been completed by the Rechtspfleger.
Q Witness, we are now going over to the sphere of execution of punishment.
THE PRESIDENT: We will take a 15 minute recess.
(A recess was taken)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed.
BY DR. TIPP:
Q: Witness, before the recess, we came to discussing execution of sentences. Hecker, who has repeatedly been a witness in this court, on the 7th of July, 1947, stated that the authority for the execution of punishment by the peoples' court was the Chief Reich ProsecutEr and that that task was. carried out by the office chiefs. (Geschneftsstellehlelter). Previously you have said that there were several decisions which had to be signed by the department chief. You mentioned already one such decision. The prosecution has submitted two documents against you in this connection which I should like to discuss with you now. There is first Exhibit 266 of the prosecution, Document NG 598, from Document Book 3- A. It concerns the case Schoppa, Franz. I should like to discuss with you the letter of the 8th of March, 1943, which is part of that document. It Is signed by you only in typewritten form and it has the letterhead "The Chief Reich Prosecutor with the People's Court." When it was submitted on the 18th of April of this year, the prosecution, as can be seen on page 2395 of the German transcript and page 2353 of the English transcript, stated the following: "The defendant Dr. Barmickelwrites to the commandant of a prison camp and asks the latter to carry out the program of transferring prisoners to the Gestapo in special cases."
Witness, may I ask you to comment on that document, and particularly the point of view of the prosecution which I have just quoted?
A: I base myself first on the assumption that I signed that document also in the original. However, I should like to state that, as far as out routine was concerned, it was quite possible that the original and the copy had different signatures.
However, I should not like to go into any detail. It is a little complicated and I base myself on the assumption that I did sign the document. However, if it is stated, according to the transcript that I had asked the commandant of a prison camp to carry out the program of transferring prisoners to the Gestapo in particular cases, that is probably an error. It was rather the case that a directive, which was frequently mentioned by the witness Hecker, had come down from the Minister of Justice to the effect that Poles had to be turned over to the Gestapo who had been sentenced to a term of more than three years. That transfer was carried out directly by the Reich Ministry of Justice and the Chief Reich Prosecutor had nothing to do with it. The document which is under discussion now, and which one of my office chiefs (Geschaeftsleiter) had drafted, was not concerned with a transfer at all, with which we had nothing to do, but only with the computation concerning the end of the term. It is suggested in the letter that that should be established later and expresses thereby without any doubt that we expected that these prisoners would be turned back to the administration of justice. Otherwise, it would have been quite impossible to concern oneself with figuring out the duration of the term.
Q: Witness, what did you know about the purpose of those transfers of prisoners?
A: I can say I didn't know the least thing about it. I was of the opinion that it was a question of manpower allocation, but, of course, of that entire subject I know less and could only know less than the witness Hecker. He was in the Ministry of Justice, whereas I had no direct contact with it.
That whole matter, and Hecker pointed that out was kept strictly secret, particularly because the real purpose of that transfer, such as it has been discussed in this trial, was quite unknown to any outsider.
Q: Could you explain to the Tribunal how it came about that such important matters remained unknown, even to the Chief Reich Prosecution with the Peoples' Court?
A: On the basis of the so-called (Verschluss-sachenanweisung) directive, the directive to keep matters in closed envelopes, a matter which to be kept secret, could be kept from the outside world. That directive was carried out very strictly and any violation could be punished as treason. That went so far that, in the case of so-called top secret matters (Geheime Reichssachen) a mere inquiry about a matter of that kind was considered quite irregular. Apart from that directive, since the 25th of September, 1941, there was also the so-called fundamental Fuehrer order which extended the duty to maintain secrecy.
Q: May it please the court, with reference to this subject I want to offer a document which may be of particular interest to the court. It is found in Document Book 1, on page 15. It is an affidavit by the defendant Dr. Barnickel made out on the 12th of May, 1947. The document contains the original text of the fundamental Fuehrer order of the 25th of September, 1941. In this connection, it will be interesting for the court that the wording of that Fuehrer order, even in the case before the IMT, was not available. At that time, by cooperation among several high offices, the approximate content was compiled, but the original text, the original wording, could not be submitted. Dr. Barnickel had copied that Fuehrer order which was available at the time in every German office, had kept the text with him, and has put it down here in this affidavit.
May I ask that this document be received as Barnickel Exhibit #13?
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel undoubtedly understands the position which the Court has taken with reference to the receiving of affidavits from witnesses who are available and are testifying. However, in this case, I think we may make an exception because your only purpose in offering it is to present to the Tribunal the text of a document. Well allow Dr. Barnickel to incorporate this as a part of his verbal testimony, by reference.
Dr. Barnickel, you vouch for the accuracy of the quotation which you have made in this affidavit, do you?
THE WITNESS: Yes, Mr. President, I do.
THE PRESIDENT: For convenience we'll receive it as Exhibit 13.
Counsel understands this is a special case?
DR. TIPP: Yes, Your Honor.
BY DR. TIPP:
Q: Concerning the question of maintaining secrecy on transfers and their purpose, may I remind the court of the statements made by the witness Hecker on the 7th of July, 1947, on page 4781 of the German transcript and page 856 of the English transcript?
Witness, now I should like to deal with the next document Prosecution Exhibit 267, Document NG 614. It is found in Document Book IV-A on page 74 of the German and page 50 of the English text. The prosecution document contains four individual documents, all of them are from the trial against a Pole, Kubiak, among other offenses for treason and high treason. From the opinion of the peoples' court of the 5th of November, 1941, which has been submitted, we can see that all defendants were sentenced to six years in a penitentiary.
To discuss the opinion itself is not necessary, I think. Then, there is a letter from the Chief Reich Prosecutor with the People's Court of the 6th of May, 1942, over your signature. It is directed to the superintendent of the Penitentiary Schiratz, and the prosecution stated the following when it submitted this document: "It is ordered by that that Kubiak and three other Poles, who were sentenced together with him, should be sent to a more severe penal camp."
Witness, can you tell us briefly about this document?
A: That was not an order made by me, but the circumstances are the following. As I have said before, after a sentence had been pronounced, a so-called request for reception was sent to the penal institution, in which among other things, the penalty pronounced was mentioned. In the case before us - Kubiak -- the senate had passed a sentence of six years' penitentiary each. As later the directive was issued that the Poles had to serve their terms in penal camps, that decision, of course, had to be altered and that was made mandatory by the law, and one must not think that I had given an order to my office chief to effect that change. He, on his part, drafted that request and then submitted it to me for my signature, Since there was no doubt, according to the sentence for Kubiak, that the convicted individuals were Poles, there was no alternative to signing that request. That was mandatory. Moreover, if we would not have requested that change, either the person in charge of supervision of the penal camps, who was the general public prosecutor, or even the management of the institution itself, would have had to effect that change. Apart from that, I want to emphasize that the witness Hecker said that, in practice, tore was no difference in the administration of penalties for Poles and Germans.
Q. The statement by the witness Hecker, which was just mentioned, is to be found in the transcript of the 7th of July 1947, on page 7474 of the German transcript and page 4850 of the English Transcript.
THE PRESIDENT: May I ask you a question about that?
As I understood your explanation, you justified the order or suggestion signed by yourself, in which you said that the Poles were to serve their sentence in an aggravated prison camp, by referring to the law which required you to do just that in view of the fact that they were Poles. Wasn't that your testimony?
THE WITNESS: Yes, Mr. President. The provision was that, as far as the administration of penalties was concerned, they should be separated. That was a discrimination between the Poles and Germans but as Hecker said, in practice, it was not carried out that way.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, it was carried out in this instance, wasn't it? They were sent to the special prison camp for Poles pursuant to your direction, weren't they?
THE WITNESS: No, Mr. President. As I understood the statements made by the witness Hecker, that institution.......
THE PRESIDENT (Interrupting): Well, I'm asking you. You directed that they should go to the Polish prison camp, didn't you?
THE WITNESS: According to the law, that change had to be made, but the practical execution is something different and, as far as that was concerned, I have to assume, Mr. President, that, in practice, it was not carried out, but that the Poles stayed where they were.
THE PRESIDENT: You think that your order was not carried out in this particular case?
THE WITNESS: Not only in this particular case, but, in general. That was a fact of purely theoretical importance. It was just on paper. There was a provision and one had to follow it, but whether it was carried out, in the final analysis, or whether it was not carried out, it was done on paper.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you personally know whether your order was carried out or was not carried out in this particular case?
THE WITNESS: No, Mr. President, I'm not in a position today, of course, to state what might have happened in the Case Kubiak. I can only state it in general.
THE PRESIDENT: All right.
It appears from another exhibit that Kubiak died in a concentration camp at Auschwitz.
BY MR. TIPP:
Q. Excuse me, Mr. President, I'm coming right now to discussing that and maybe I may continue. It is not a different exhibit, but it is found on the following pages of the same exhibit, Exhibit 267. I'll refer to it immediately.
The next letter in the same exhibit is a letter with the letterhead "office of the Penal Institution Schiratz" of the 15th of January 1943. That letter is directed to the Chief Prosecutor with the People's Court. In that letter it is stated that, upon directive by the Reich Minister of Justice, the administration of penalty on Kubiak had been interrupted and that he was turned over to the Gestapo at Litzmannstadt for the purpose of having his transferred to the concentration camp Auschwitz.
Witness, you have a photostatic copy of that letter before you. May I ask you to tell the Tribunal whether, on the basis of that photostatic copy, you could say whether it was ever submitted to you?
A. Yes, well, after.....
Q. (Interrupting) Excuse me, witness. Do you mean to say "yes"? Or was that just a turn of phrase?
A. Well, that "yes" was just an introduction to a sentence. In this case it would be important if I said just "yes".
According to the photostatic cony which I have here, it is quite clear that I have never seen that letter. I have said before that not the entire mail received in the department was submitted to me, but that from the office I received only that with which I had to deal.
That letter, however, did not have anything to do with my sphere of work. If it had ever been routed to me, the handwritten notation which is below the text, under figure 1, would have to read: "To be submitted to the department chief", but that was not done; but the office chief had made a notation for his list of reports but never routed it to me. One can also conclude that from the fact that the letter neither beats my signature nor my initials.
As for the text of the letter itself, I should like to point out that, according to the wording of the letter, the transfer of the prisoner was not directed by the Chief Reich Prosecutor, but by the Reich Minister of Justice. My office chief, therefore, merely was informed about a disposition which had already been taken.
Q.- Here for the first time the concentration camp Auschwitz is mentioned, witness. May I ask you whether at that time you had any knowledge about that concentration camp?
A.- According to my recollection, which I believe to be absolutely correct, I heard the name Auschwitz for the first time when we went through all the newspapers after the catastrophe. May I also mention in this connection that the transfer of Poles to the Gestapo, the turning over of Poles to the Gestapo, by the Reich Ministry of Justice became known to the Reich Prosecution, for the first time in 1943, and, as I have said before, a short time thereafter on account of the reorganization of the office of the Reich Prosecution, I had no longer anything to do with any questions of that kind.
Q.- Now, witness I am coming to that part of the document which was already touched upon by the question of the Presiding Judge. It is a letter from the Secret State Police, the Gestapo of Litzmannstadt, of the 25th March 1943, addressed to the Chief Reich Prosecutor in Berlin. In this letter the Socket State Police states that Kubiak on the 13th February, 1943, had died in the concentration camp of Auschwitz. That letter is before you in the form of a photostatic copy. Could you please establish on the basis of that photostatic copy whether that letter was submitted to you?
A.- The same applies here that I have already stated before. I did not see that letter either. The handwritten notation reveals that my office chief, who was a different one at that time, on the 2nd of April, 1943; took note of that letter. To the left of that date we see the letter "B"; but that "B" is not my initial -- is not an initial by me by any means, but it is the abbreviation for Berlin. My initial looks quite different, as can be seen by looking at a number of documents.
Q.- May I refer to the statements made by the witness Hooker on the 7th July, 1947, on pages 4776 of the German and 4851 of the English tran scripts.
Furthermore, may I refer to the Barnickel Document No. 16, submitted and received as Barnickel Exhibit No. 7. It is the affidavit by Justiz Secreataer Werner Tiedemann, of the 12th July, 1947. Tiedemann worked as department office chief, under Mr. Barnickel. I submitted that document in the photostatic copy to him; he commented on it, and perhaps I may be permitted to quote that short passage; the passage is on page 2 of the original document, on page 57 of the document book. I quote: "Concerning the document which has been submitted to me, in the form of a photostatic copy, NG-614, Exhibit 267, I have to say the following: The letter, dated 15 January, 1943 (page 13 of the photo copy) was not submitted to the head of the department by the chief of the administrative office Struck. If it had been submitted, the 'handwritten order of 27 January, 1943, which has been initialed by Struck, would have to bear a note to this effect. The same applies to the letter of 25 March, 1943, phototastic copy page No. 14; the handwritten note on this document is initialled by the chief of the administrative office Schroeder. His initials are next to the date of 2 April, 1943. The letter "B" on the left hand side of the date is the abbreviation for Berlin."
THE PRESIDENT: May I ask you a question? What class of prisoners were confined in the central camp Schiratz?
A.- Well, Mr. President, I have to state frankly that this is asking a little too much. I don't know whether there were only penitentiary prisoners or other prisoners. I want to say in this connection that in the question which we are about to deal now, that subject is touched upon, and I will have to explain that the chief Reich Prosecutor and the Reich Prosecution, as such, had nothing to do with the actual administration of penalties. The administration of penalties was a matter for the general: public prosecutors. Therefore, I apologize -
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, but you made an order which was an order, as you say on paper, directing that these men should serve their sentence in a particular kind of a prison camp.
Did you then know whether there was such a prison camp or where it was when you made the paper order? Was it, per chance, at Schiratz?
A.- I don't know if I understood correctly, Mr. President. May I point out that in a document which was discussed before, Exhibit 267, on page 3, the address is to the Chief of the central institution Schiratz the manager of the central institution Schiratz. In that place the convicted individuals were at a time when that change had not yet taken place even on paper. I hope that I have expressed myself clearly. If I may ask you, Mr. President, now to look at the letter of the 15th January, 1943, of which I have a photostatic copy, which we have discussed you will find, Mr. President, that the defendants at that time that is to say about a year or three-quarters of a year later, were still in the same institution. In the meantime, therefore, nothing occurred; no change occurred.
THE PRESIDENT: That was the reason I asked you whether you know if there was at Schiratz central camp an aggravated prison camp. I understand that your letter of 4th May, on paper, directed that they be put in such a camp, and on 15th January -- or on 14th January, they were in the Schiratz camp and were removed to Auschwitz. Why should we not infer that the order was carried out at Schiratz?
A.- Mr. President, if I remember correctly, if you will excuse me if I refer to Hecker again; the witness Hecker it was who said that no change was made in Schiratz, and it seems to me that the letterhead of the two letters would indicate that, but again I ask to be excused if today after more than four years I can not describe these things in all details, because, as I have explained before, I handled these matters only for a few weeks altogether, but Hecker has explained and I can only say that in my -
THE PRESIDENT: You needn't quote Hecker; we are familiar with his testimony.
You don't know, do you, whether the more severe prison camp was maintained at Schiratz or not, for Poles?
A.- Mr. President, in my opinion there was no aggravated penal camp there.
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead.
BY DR. TIPP:
Q.- Witness, the questions as put by the Presiding Judge lead us to the next question, which is the one to whom the witness Hecker, who has become quite famous here, referred to. He pointed out the difference which existed in German law between the administration and execution of sentences. Will you tell us once more, witness, did you have anything to do with questions of the execution of the sentence?
A.- No, the Reich Prosecution had nothing to do with that, because carrying out the execution of the sentence, as I said already, was not a matter for the chief Reich Prosecutor, but for the general public prosecutors. That is the reason why in all of those six years during which I belonged to the Reich Prosecution I never visited a prison, a penitentiary, or a camp, a penal camp; that is, with the exception of one case which we shall soon discuss.
Q.- Therefore, you had no supervision, no right of supervision over these institutions?
A.-Well, I personally wouldn't have been the right official for that; only the chief of the entire office of the Reich Prosecution and he had no right of supervision over these institutions either -
THE PRESIDENT: Assuming for the moment that you had no supervision over the manner in which prisoners were treated in prison or prison camp, still you did have some responsibility for seeing that they were put into a prison after the sentence had been pronounced: did you not? You had to get them there and someone else had to supervise the conduct of the prison after they got there?
A.- That is quite correct, Mr. President. The Chief of the Reich Prosecution with the People's Court had the obligation of administration of penalties, that is by an order on his part, he had to initiate these matters, but then he had nothing further to do with it.
THE PRESIDENT: That is all.
BY DR. TIPP:
Q.- The question of execution of sentences in the case of prison terms is clarified I believe now. What happened in the case of death sentences?
A.- That I believe has been described here so often that I can be very brief about it; only for the sake of clarity, may I say that in the case of the death sentence, first the clemency question had to be examined; then when the decision from the Minister was received, to the effect that tho execution had to be carried out, the chief Reich Prosecutors set the date for the execution and at the same time designated the official of the prosecution who according to paragraph 454 of the code of procedure, penal code of procedure, was obliged to attend the execution which took place in a prison. That, as far as we were concerned, was nothing sensational; it was a duty which one could not shirk; the designated official who had to attend, was chosen according to the law and a roster was drawn up for this purpose. It did not make any difference whether one had had anything to do with the matter, with the particular case or whether one hadn't.
Q.- When the Prosecution submitted documents in this connection one document was submitted against you. It is Exhibit 493 of the prosecution; Document NG-925; from Document Book 111-B Supplement; In this exhibit there is contained a report from you concerning the execution, of Erich Deibel: by sentence of the People's Court of the 6th June, 1942, Deibel had been sentenced to death for preparation of high treason, Witness, will you please comment briefly on the contents of the report which you made concerning the execution of the sentence?
A.- In connection with that I can only say that in this case on the basis of the roster which I have just mentioned, I was designated to represent the Reich Prosecution by attending the execution. Anything else which is said in this report about the execution was according to the most detailed directives which existed for that occasion on quite a general basis. May I also say that if I remember correctly, that execution was the last one which I attended; that was due to the fact that originally only the department chiefs and their deputies had the obligation to attend the executions. In the course of the year 1942, however, all the section, heads were included on that roster so that it was no longer necessary to have the Reich Prosecutors on it.
Q.- One problem we still have to go into is the so-called extra ordinary objections. About that you have given us a statement which was submitted by the Prosecution as Exhibit 174, Document NG-321, in Document Book III-E. Herr Klemm when he testified expressed doubts as to whether at the time when you made that statement you based yourself on the right prerequisites. Therefore, I should like to ask you to comment on the statements you have made.
A.- First, if I may correct you, according to the document which I have before me, the document is NG-312.
Q.- Possibly; any rate, the exhibit number is 174.
A.- Yes, I did think over this statement that I have made, but I see no reason to make any corrections.