In this document for the first time, there appears a different legal evaluation of the offenses committed by Grasser in contrast to the evaluation by the Senion Public Prosecutor in Munich. In Document 184, it appears again that the examining magistrate assumed only one offense had been committed. Here one can see a certain difference in the legal opinion of the investigating magistrate and the Public Prosecutor. Document 185 deals with the position of judge concerning the indictment and the motions by the prosecution. It shows that the Judge is not bound by the legal evaluation of the prosecution nor by their motions.
Document 186 contains the provision of the Dode of Criminal Procedure, according to which a defendant has to be notified of any charge of the legal evaluation, if the court should charge its point of view. Document 187 contains a sentence of the former Bavarian Supreme Court, and here already in 1934, this court sentenced Grasser for Communist activities. Document No. 24 is a reproduction of an opinion of the Reich Supreme Court concerning the Malicious Acts Law; also, in Document No. 40. Both opinions make it clear that the point of view was a rather severe one as to the application of the Malicious Acts Law.
Document No. 6 contains an opinion wherein the Reich Supreme Court elaborates on the relation between malicious acts and undermining of military morale, and in particular, defines the term "public." The question as to whether it was an offense against the Malicious Acts Law or a case of undermining of military morale played an important part in the Grasser case; in addition to that, the question as to whether it was committed in public. Document No. 191 contains three decisive rulings by the Reich Supreme Military Court where the concept "public" is given a rather wide scope, and according to which one had to assume also in the Grasser case that the offense was committed publicly.
Document 174 contains a desertation about the competency of the Special Courts in cases of undermining of military morale. At that time, in 1940-1941-1942, temporary the Special Court was made competent for cases of undermining of military morale; whereas, later, for cases of undermining of military morale, the People's Court became competent.
The last document No. 20 is particularly important in the Grasser case because Rothaug did not change his evaluation of the Grasser case. From the decision by the Reich Supreme Court, which is contained in Document No. 20, we can see that Rothaug, as a judge, was not authorized to make Doebig's opinion of the Reich Ministry of Justice as the basis for his decision, and to deviate from his own opinion as a judge. This decision by the Reich Supreme Court specifically recognizes principle according to which Rothaug acted.
That concludes the submission of my documents for today. I offer the documents from Document Book IV, which I have just discussed, as exhibits.
THE PRESIDENT: All exhibits in document book Rothaug No. IV, are received in evidence, being Exhibits 121 to 140 inclusive, and covering in chronological order Documents No. 120 through 20. I shouldn't say "chronological order"; I mean in the order in which they appear in the index.
We understand that Document Book V-A is ready.
DR. KOESSL: Document Book V-A is ready, I believe, but I wanted to submit it in connection with V-B and VII and VIII, which are still in the Translation Department.
THE PRESIDENT: We understand that VI-B has been distributed.
DR. KOESSL: Yes, Your Honor, but cases are dealt with here concerning which there are supplements in Book VII and VIII so that I would prefer, if possible, to submit them together.
THE PRESIDENT: I don't see how you can discuss more than one exhibit at a time. Why can't you start with V-A?
DR. KOESSL: I could start it, of course, but it was because there is a supplement to the cases discussed in V-A, which is in Book VII.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we are going to take up one book at a time and one exhibit at a time. We suggest that you start with V-A.
DR. KOESSEL Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: The prosecution should have V-B; it has been distributed.
MR. WOOLEYHAN: It may be that I just haven't seen it, Your Honor.
DR. KOESSL: May I continue with Document Book No. V?
THE PRESIDENT: Book V--A, is it not?
DR. KOESSL: V--A, Your Honor. First the Gaishauser Case is referred, to. The individual documents are clear by the discussion of the Gaishauser Case with the defendant in the witness box. I believe that I may submit these documents as Exhibits 141.
THE PRESIDENT: You are offering all of the exhibits in the book?
DR. KOESSL: As Exhibits 141 until 160.
THE PRESIDENT: Exhibit 163, I think.
DR. KOESSL: Yes, Exhibits 161 and Exhibit 162 no longer deal with the Gaishauser Case, nor do they deal with the Schegerer Case. They have to do with the Heller-Muendel Case. They are decisions and the legal requirement for the case concerning the auto trap law which plays a part in the Heller-Muendel Case.
I offer the documents in Document Book V-A as Exhibits 141 through 162.
THE PRESIDENT: Exhibits 141 to 162, inclusive, are each received in evidence, being your documents from 60 to 48 in the order in which they appear in the document book No. V--A, Rothaug.
DR. KOESSL: Concerning the documents which deal with the Gaishauser Case, the passages referring to the witness Meiler and her statements are of significance; also the passages concerning the motions made by the attorney Kroher. The case has already been discussed in detail. As for the Schegerer Case, which was submitted by the Prosecution as Exhibit 164, the unanimous evaluation of the case by the Senior Public Prosecutor in Regensburg, outside of the sphere of the Special Court, and by the Senior Public Prosecutor in Nurnberg and the General Public Prosecutor in Nurnberg in their reports is significant. The documents No. 11 and 48 deal with the auto trap law which was the basis for the sentence in the Heller-Huendel Case. That concludes my submission of documents for today, Document Book V-B has not yet been examined by the Prosecution.
MR. WOOLEYHAN: We have examined it and we are ready for Dr. Koessl to proceed.
THE PRESIDENT: All right, you may proceed with V-B.
DR. KOESSL: Then, I am ready to submit it right away too, Your Honor.
MR. WOOLEYHAN: I have an objection -- I am sorry, it hasn't been offered yet.
DR. KOESSL: I offer Document Book V-B, documents No. 125 through 199, inclusive, in the order in which they are listed on the index, as Exhibits 163 through 188, inclusive.
MR. WOOLEYHAN: May it please the Court, I object to the entire contents of this document book. It appears on the index that this book consists of extracts from three case files. The defendants in each of those cases were raised in this proceeding here only in that their names were mentioned in Exhibit 238, which was a list of death sentences passed by the Nurnberg Special Court. Since no charges were raised by the Prosecution that these defendants were in any way improperly tried, but only noted in one exhibit the fact that they had been tried and sentenced to death, I object to the entire book as being immaterial, on the same ground that I objected to the Kraeutlein Case a while ago.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, may we ask what was the purpose of the offer in which you presented evidence of the number of death sentences?
MR. WOOLEYHAN: Aside from the actual case files, or other evidence showing the method of trial of a particular case, the only purpose of that list of death sentences is to show the volume of business handled in capitol cases by any or all of the defendants connected therewith. The list was intended to show volume, method of trial we hoped to show by case files and testimony; and, further, that list was also to show that many of the defendants mentioned in evidence before this Tribunal as having been sentenced to death were, in fact, executed.
In other words, contributing to the corpus delicti.
DR. KOESSL: I wanted to deal with these three cases because in a way they are significant to show that the prosecution was of the same opinion as the Special Court, and that particularly the initiative for greater severity did not come from the Defendant Rothaug. Furthermore, to show what the fundamental ideas and principles were for the application of the Public Enemy Law. I also wanted to show by submitting the Tiefel Case what means of recourse there were against the sentence by the Special Court, by way of reopening the trial, and in the final analysis I wanted to show that the regular courts outside of the sphere of the Special Court had the same legal conception in applying the Public Enemy Law and other war time laws as the Special Court. Moreover, it was somewhat surprising to find in a decision by the Senate of the District Court of Appeal of Nurnberg that this Senate did not exhaust the meaning of Article 26 of the competency decree which in this case was to the disadvantage of the defendant.
THE PRESIDENT: The hour of 12:15 hag arrived, and we will recess until 1:30 this afternoon -- at which time we will rule upon the objection.
(A recess was taken until 1330 hours, 29 August 1947.)
AFTERNOON SESSION (The Tribunal reconvened, at 1330 hours, 29 August 1947.)
THE PRESIDENT: I believe that the objection of the Prosecution was directed generally to all of Document Book V-B; is that correct?
MR. WOOLEYHAN: That is correct.
THE PRESIDENT: V-B. And we understand that V-B contains excerpts relative to cases which were listed as halving resulted in the death sentences; is that correct, Dr. Koessl?
DR. KOESSL: Yes, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal feels that not withstanding the limited purpose for which the Prosecution now claims it introduced the list of death sentences, notwithstanding that fact, there was some implication when the exhibit containing the list of death sentences was introduced, that it was in support of a contention that Teutonic laws had been severely enforced, and the Tribunal feels that if the list of death sentences was received in evidence, as tending to show statistics of severe sentences, that the Defense should be entitled to introduce a reasonable, limited amount of evidence for the purpose of showing the basis for those sentences. In fairness to the Defense, and notwithstanding the limited purpose expressed by the Prosecution, the Prosecution' s objection is overruled and the exhibits will be received in evidence. I take it you are offering all of the exhibits in Document Book V-B.
DR. KOESSL: I offer them, and that is as Exhibits 163 through Exhibit 180 inclusive, in the same order in which the documents are listed in the index of Document -Book V-B. Concerning the Bellmer case which is dealt with first, I want to draw the attention of the Tribunal particularly to Document No. 129. That document contains a decision by the General Public Prosecutor at Nurnberg in which the General Public Prosecutor draws the attention of the Senior Public Prosecutor to the fact that his intention to ask for only five years in a penitentiary is entirely beside the point, and that one had to consider whether the death sentence should not be asked for.
Here again, we see that the suggestion that the death sentence should be passed was not initiated by the Special Court or by Herr Rothaug, but by the superior authorities of the prosecution. The same thing probably led to the death sentence being asked for in the Grasser case and led to the prosecutor Dorfmueller abandoning original intention to ask for a penitentiary sentence and, in fact, asked for the death sentence. By means of the files of the Special Court in the Sollfrank case, I wish to prove that the Senior Public Prosecutor in Weiden, who had nothing to do with the jurisdiction of the Special Court, on his own initiative had transferred the case to the Prosecution in Nurnberg for the indictment to be filed with the Special Court. Here, too, we see that a prosecution office which was outside the work of the Special Court had the same opinion which the Special Court and the prosecution of the Special Court held, and that the prosecution itself thought of applying the more severe war-time provisions. In the Tiefel case it is of particular interest how the procedure for the reopening of trial and the possibilities of contesting a verdict passed by a Special Court developed. In Documents No. 200, 198 and 199, these are the last three documents. I am presenting the various provisions of Articles 16 and 26 of the Competency Orders. In Document No. 200 the original version of the provision is contained according to which the verdicts of the Special Court -
MR. WOOLEYHAN: May it please the Court, I don't have Document 200.
DR. KOESSL: I shall produce it later. It is contained in my document book.
HR. WOOLEYHAN: I have never seen it.
THE PRESIDENT: It is in our document book here, page 160, Document No. 200.
DR. KOESSL: This document No. 200, in Article 16 of the Order of the Reich Government concerning the establishment of Special Courts, and in Section II of the Article, reopening of trial in the case of verdicts passed by the Special Courts is dealt With.
That Article 16 is almost literally the same as Article 26 of the later Competency Orders which is contained in Document No. 198. This Article 26 of the Competency Order, just as the former Article 16, provides for reopening of trial in regular court, that is to saw, the revision of a verdict passed by a Special Court by the penal chamber of the regular district courts, and by the Senate of the District Court of Appeals. That version was in force during the time when Rothaug was the presiding judge of the Special Court, and only two months before he left that office, a new version of Article 26 of the Competency Order was promulgated. That new version is contained in Document 199. That shows that since 1943 and is since the end of January or the beginning of February of that year, the verdicts passed by a Special Court were no longer reviewed by regular courts, but from that time onwards, the Special Courts themselves were competent to decide whether a trail was to be reopened. That provision, however, did not come into effect while Rothaug was still in Nurnberg for in the meantime he had been transferred. The Tiefel case shows how such a motion for reopening of trial was carried out in practice and how proceedings were then brought before the penal chamber, through regular legal channels, and how when the appeal was made the matter came before the Senate of the District Court of Appeal. The Senate in this case demonstrated a very narrow construction and did not even exhaust all possibilities to revoke the verdict passed by the Special Courts.
I have now concluded my presentation of documents.
THE PRESIDENT: Does that conclude all the documents which you propose to offer?
DR. KOESSL: I still have some supplementary volumes -- Volume VII and Volume VIII; they contain photostats and affidavits. Some of those will follow later, because of new documents being submitted under crossexamination.
THE PRESIDENT: We assured Dr. Breiger that he might start his examination of the defendant Cuhorst this afternoon. However, we find one book of exhibits by the defendant Lautz, with about six exhibits. Could you present those at this time? What is the name of the book -Lautz -- IV Supplement. Are you prepared to present that? It should take only a few moments.
DR. GRUBE: Yes. It will just take me a few minutes to get the book when I get it here I am ready to present it.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Breiger, it will only take a few moments to complete this book, and then we will hear your witness.
DR. BRIEGER: That is perfectly all right.
THE PRESIDENT: Is this your last book?
DR. GRUBE: Yes.
DR. GRUBE: Your Honors, up to now I neither received Supplement Book IV in German or in English and it is difficult for me, therefore, to refer to page numbers if I present them singly. I think it will be possible for me to present them if in every case I give the number of the document.
The first document which I wish to offer from this book is Document 87. It is an article from Deutsche Justiz, Dr. von Verdross, about "The Partisan". I offer this document as Exhibit 256.
THE PRESIDENT: It may be received.
DR. GRUBE: Document 297 which appears on the following page, that document I will skip. I do not intend to introduce it here.
THE PRESIDENT: That is 297?
DR. GRUBE: 297 is the Document which I do not intend to introduce since the various points with which this affidavit deals have already been covered by other affidavits by the examination of the defendant Lautz and affidavits.
The next document I offer is Document 298 on page 22 of my document book. I offer it as Exhibit 297.
THE PRESIDENT: It will be Exhibit 257, won't it?
DR. GRUBE: I beg your pardon -- 257; I believe I put the wrong figure down on that piece of paper.
The next document, 299, I am skipping again. That brings me to Document 300 on pages 33 and 34. This is an affidavit by sister Wiesner from the monastery Welz. I offer this document as Exhibit 258.
THE PRESIDENT: That is Document 300?
DR. GRUBE: That is Document 300.
THE PRESIDENT: 258.
DR. GRUBE: The last document from this volume is document 301. This is an affidavit by Rudolf Stallinger. The document has been certified by the Voecklabruck City Office. Municipal Office, and it also bears the stamp of that municipal office.
MR. WOOLEYHAN: May it please the Court, I object to this document as being improperly certified under the rules for statements in lieu of oath.
DR. KOESSL: Your Honor, I believe the oath is correct, according to the rules of Ordnance 7. It was certified at the Mayor's office and then may I point out that that is a very small place and there is no Notary and, therefore, the extraordinary provision of Ordinance 7 is applied there and, therefore, it was permissible for the affidavit to be certified at the mayor's office.
MR. WOOLEYHAN: Your Honors, neither the title nor the signature of any buergermeister appears on the exhibit.
DR. GRUBE: That stamp is there, the stamp of the parish, and the seal is there, too.
THE PRESIDENT: Exhibit 258 is not in proper form at this time to be received.
DR. GRUBE: I want to reserve the right to myself to present this document later in the proscribed form.
THE PRESIDENT: You may do so. We will reserve Exhibit No. 259 for this document.
DR. GRUBE: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Defendant Cuhorst may take the witness stand. (Hermann Cuhorst, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:)
THE PRESIDENT: Hold up your right hand and repeat after me the following oath:
I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.
(The witness repeated the oath.)
JUDGE BLAIR: Was the entire oath repeated by the witness?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
DR. BRIEGER (Counsel for defendant Cuhorst): Your Honors, may I begin the examination of my client Herr Cuhorst?
So as not to keep the Tribunal unnecessarily, I shall do without asking him questions concerning the professional career of my client and so as to expedite matters I refer to the affidavit presented by the prosecution, NG-644. Document Book III, Supplement page 49, Exhibit 475, and therefore I am immediately plunging into Medias Res.
HERMANN CUHORST DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. BRIEGER:
Q. In the charts concerning the organization which has been presented by the prosecution the Senate President of the District Courts of Appeal were not entered. What is your position?
A. The President of the Senate at the District Courts of Appeal had the advantage of a Ministerial Counsellor. Their nominal salary was somewhere between 9,500 and 12,000 Reichsmarks but there was a bonus, a Ministerial bonus, on that.
The next rank was held by the President of the District Courts, that is to say, the President of the bigger District Courts. The next higher rank -- is that of the General Public Prosecutors.
Court No. III, Case No. III.
Q. How many Senate Presidents were there in Stuttgart?
A. At the District Courts of Appeals in Stuttgart, there were six Senate Presidents.
Q. How many Senate Presidents were there at all District Courts of Appeal in the Reich together, referring to the whole Reich?
A. In the Reich there were 181 posts for Senate Presidents in the District Courts of Appeal.
Q. Do you happen to know by comparison how many there were with the Reich Supreme Court and, later on, with the Peoples' Courts?
A. At the Reich Supreme Court I estimate there must have been about 18 and with the Peoples Court 6, but those Senate Presidents hold a different rank.
Q. Witness, were you a member of the SS?
A. No, I wasn't.
Q. From when to when were you a member of the FSS -that is to say, a sponsoring member?
A. I was a sponsoring member of the SS from approximately 1934 until the beginning of 1939.
Q. What was your monthly contribution?
A. One Reichsmark.
Q. Did you at any time become a member of the SS or did you become a candidate for membership? Please, in your answer refer to the membership book which I am handing to you.
A. By being a sponsoring member of the SS I neither became a member of the SS nor did I become a candidate member for the SS. In the membership book, of which I have a photostat before me, it says expressly -- and I quote:
"By being accepted as a sponsoring member of the SS the applicant does not become a member of the active SS nor does he become a member of the NSDAP, the Nazi Party."
DR. BIREGER: Later I shall hand to the Tribunal my document No. 76 as Exhibit No. 1, For the sake of simplicity I will at the end of my examination present all my documents together to the Tribunal.
Q. As Gaustellenleiter of the Nazi Party, were you in charge of an office? Did you belong to the Amtstraeger, to the functionaries of the Gau leadership?
A. I did not have an office nor was I authorized to sign nor did I have any subordinates.
Q. For how long had you been a Gauspeaker?
A. Since the 1st of January 1933.
Q. How many Gauspeakers were there in Wuerttemberg?
A. My guess is that there must have been at least 60.
Q. Did I understand you correctly? Did you say 60?
A. Yes, I said 60, but there may have been quite a few more than that. I didn't know all of them.
Q. Do you mean to say by that there was not very much contact between the various Gauspeakers?
A. No, the Gauspeakers were distributed all over the country.
Q. At what intervals did they use to make their speeches -- before and after 1933, that is?
A. during the election campaigns in 1932 and 1933 I spoke at small meetings fairly frequently. Up until 1938 I spoke at general political meetings about 15 or 20 times a year. From 1959 onward I only spoke very rarely. Maybe I made 10 speeches a year. In 1942 and 1943 I made even fewer speeches and in October 1943 for a reason which will be discussed later, the Party cold-shouldered me.
Q. Witness, you say that just now during the war years you made fewer and fewer speeches.
Was that due to the fact that you were kept more and more busy by your work as a Judge?
A. That is one reason. The other reason is that the political activity of the Nazi Party became limited. In particular, meetings became restricted.
Q. That is sufficient for me on that point.
What ranks were there with the Gau?
A. The highest rank in a Nazi Gau was the Gauleiter; the second rank was that of the Deputy Gauleiter; the third rank was that of a Gauhauptamtsleiter; the fourth rank was that of a Gauamtsleiter; the fifth rank was that of a Gauhauptstellenleiter, the Gau Main Department Leader; and the sixth rank was that of the Gaustellenleiter, the Gau Department Leader.
Q. Witness, what official function was yours?
A. I had the rank of a Gaustellenleiter, Gau Department Leader.
Q. May I ask you whether that was the lowest rank in the Gau?
A. If you omit the so-called Gau assistant, Gaumitarbeiter, then my rank was the lowest rank.
DR. BRIEGER: With reference to these problems, I shall present to the Tribunal Cuhorst Document No. 32 as Exhibit 2, and Cuhorst Document 63 as Exhibit 3.
Q. Would you please tell us why at the end of 1937 you again became a criminal Judge? I am referring to the personal file in Exhibit 406, Document Book VIII-A, NG-583. You may go into detail here. I think the Tribunal will agree to your doing so.
A. In 1937 I was Presiding Judge of the Fifth Civil Senate at the District Court of Appeals in Stuttgart. From the 16th of August until the 11th of September 1937 I was on leave.
I resumed my office on 13 September 1937. I resumed work on that date. When I returned to work the personal referent before the courthouse in Stuttgart got hold of me, stooped me, and told me that the President of the District Court of Appeals asked me urgently to take over the Special Court and he had been asking for me while I had been away on leave there had been an argument between the Reich Ministry of Justice and the person who was then the Presiding Judge of the Special Court at Stuttgart, District Court Director Flaxland. Flaxland, at the request of the Ministry had to be replaced by a new man. I then contacted Flaxland and afterwards discussed the matter with the President of the District Court of Appeals. After that conversation a meeting of the Praesidium of the District Court at Stuttgart was called and at that meeting, on the 21st of September 1937, I was appointed Presiding Judge of the Special Court.
Court No. III, Case No. III.
The notation of this appointment is included in the documents presented by the prosecution.
At the same time, effective 1 October 1937, I was appointed President of the First Penal Senate at the District Court of Appeal in Stuttgart.
Q. Unfortunately, for the moment I have to interrupt my questions. My questions concerning the rank were somewhat detailed, only to exclude all translation errors. Now my attention has been drawn to the fact that there has been an accident with the translation into English. The post of the Gauamtsleiter, the Gau Office Leader, and the post of the Gaustellenleiter have been translated in the same way. May I point out to you that that cannot be correct?
I now continue:
Did you yourself try to get to the Special Court?
A. No. The Fifth Civil Senate, in the circumstances prevailing then, was altogether to my liking. I had not heard anything of the Internal events at the Special Court in Stuttgart which led to the resignation of Flaxland, as I was away on leave in Caryhthia and in the mountains.
Q. Did the Party contact you about assuming that office?
A. No.
Q. Before the 15th of September, 1937, did anybody make contact with you in connection with that subject?
A. Nobody. The Personnel Referent talked with me after my return from leave, before I had entered the courthouse at all.
Q. In 1937, when you took over the Special Court, was there another change in the judges at the Special Court?
A. No.
Q. What caused you to take over the Special Court?
Did you have any financial advantages?
A. It was the urgent request of my superior, the President of the District Court of Appeal, Dr. Kuestner, which led me to resume that office. In particular, he told me that in the course of the disputes with Freisler and Ministerial Director Crohne at the Reich Ministry of Justice, either Freisler or Crohne had told him that if he, the President of the District Court of Appeal at Stuttgart, would not find a suitable judge for the Special Court, he would send Prussia a judge, they would manage it.
Concerning the advantages, I should like to say that by assuming the position of presiding judge at two courts I had neither financial not other advantages, but, in accordance with my nature, I had to expect difficulties with the Reich Ministry of Justice. That is what I knew from the beginning.
Q. Witness, please tell us what happened in the summer of 1944 which caused you to finish your work as a judge?
A. May I have a look at the personnel file?
(Document submitted to witness)
A. (Continuing): The personnel files which have been presented by the prosecution-
Q. Do you happen to know the exhibit number? Is it noted down there?
A. Exhibit 406, NG-627, Volume IX-A, page number unknown. It is only from these files that I can see the reasons for which my work as a judge came to an end. As the documents have already been presented, I do not need to read them out. However, I would ask you to allow me to evaluate them in brief.
On page 13 of the German book there appears a note headed, "Ministerial Director Letz; Trip to Berlin." That note points out that a certain "MD-4" has expressed himself exceedingly unfavorably about my work as presiding judge at the Special Court in Stuttgart.
That man, "MD-4", was the Ministerial Director and Chief of Department IV at the Reich Ministry of Justice, Vollmer.
The rest of the contents of this document show that my career could be considered as finished, and that the Personnel Referent, in order to get rid of me at the Special Court, was supposed to suggest to the Minister that I was to be transferred to the District Court at Heilbronn. The District Court at Heilbronn, on the Neckar, is the most unpopular district court in the area, and already my deceased father had refused to become the president of that court.
Ministerial Director Letz thereupon went to Berlin to discuss the matter. The result of his conversation with Minister Thierack appears on page 14 of the personnel files. I was to be replaced, and I was to be placed at the disposal of the Armed Forces, as, evidently, I was able to do war service.
On the 1st of September, 1944, the president of the District Court of Appeal at Stuttgart was informed that in the course of the total war effort I was to be replaced; I was to leave my office as President of the Special Court in Stuttgart and was to be placed at the disposal of the Armed Forces.
All further details can be seen from the document, which I saw for the first time here in this courtroom. The reasons for the complaint made by Department IV are obvious, and will also be seen from the other documents.
Q. Witness, if I am correctly informed, the President of the District Court of Appeal in Stuttgart, your Chief President, as we term it, on the 12th of September, 1944, told you in person that the Reich Ministry of Justice had placed you at the disposal of the Armed Forces.