He was regarded as a typical idealist. His kindness and willingness to help was known throughout the SA, by both officers and men. Whenever he could help, he did. There is, however, one point where his views were extreme. Whenever the question of honor and integrity was concerned, he became very extreme. He observed these principles himself and he expected others to do so as well. This was the principle with which he led the SA school. Whenever these principles were violated, he became ruthless in fighting it. This is how he acted; and also, the terms "ruthlessness" and "brutality" were hated by him.
Q. Witness, when, where, and how did you see Petersen again after the collapse?
A. After the collapse I ran into Petersen for the first time in June 1946, here in Nurnberg in the prison. He was here, as I was, as a witness for the defense of the SA. At that time he seemed to me to be in a very bad physical state, One could see the consequences of his internment. His physical state had deteriorated. He complained about a heart disease.
THE PRESIDENT: I don't think that the Tribunal should inquire into matters subsequent to the time covered by the indictment, as to the matter of the defendant's health.
DR. ASCHENAUER: If the Tribunal please, in this connection I shall come to the affidavit which Petersen has given us. This is my last question anyway.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
BY DR. ASCHENAUER:
Q. Please continue.
A. A few weeks later, when I met Betersen again in Langwasser Camp, I saw that he was ill. He would lie down on his bed for days, in the barracks, he could hardly hold his food, and was most unhappy about his ill health. By August of 1946, when he was transferred from Langwasser to Regensburg, Petersen could no longer march.
He was taken to Regensburg in an ambulance.
THE PRESIDENT: just a moment. Is counsel attempting to show that the defendant Petersen is not physically able to be tried by this Tribunal?
DR. ASCHENAUER: No.
THE PRESIDENT: Are you attempting to show that he didn't know what he was doing when he signed an affidavit?
DR. ASCHENAUER: I shell submit another affidavit about that for the following time, by the doctor here.
THE PRESIDENT: I asked you a direct question. Are you attempting to show that this witness did not know what he was doing when he signed some affidavit; that is, that Petersen did not know what he was doing?
DR. ASCHENAUER: I would not put it quite as strongly as you did, Your Honor, but I shall attempt to show the influences under which Petersen gave and signed the affidavit.
THE PRESIDENT: The affidavit has been offered in evidence, it has been received without objection. Now, the Tribunal does not want to express a harsh attitude toward any physical misfortunes that this defendant may have had since he was indicted, but his health is a matter which is entirely irrelevant to this case.
Did you object to Petersen's affidavit at the time it was introduced?
DR. ASCHENAUER: If your Honor please, I objected at that time, and the then presiding judge left it to me to clear these questions when Petersen's case would be heard, which I am doing today. In this connection I shall submit another affidavit by the prison doctor. This is the means whereby I follow the order by Judge Marshall.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, proceed with the evidence briefly concerning the health of the defendant, if you must.
DR. ASCHENAUER: I have no other questions now.
THE PRESIDENT: Any other direct examination?
DR. ASCHENAUER: I have terminated my direct examination.
THE PRESIDENT: Is there any cross-examination?
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. WOOLEYHAN:
Q. Mr. Dechant, you have said that you were not prepared or trained in any way for your job at the People's Court as a judge. I take by that that you never attended law school; is that correct?
A. Yes, quite; I was never trained.
Q. What professional training have you had?
A. I was trained as a teacher, and I then became a teacher at a high school. At the end I was a teacher at the training school for teachers in Schwabach.
Q. Is it true that you have been a full-time officer in the SA since 1933?
A. Yes, I left my school in 1922, became an officer in the Stahlhelm, and in 1933 I was, together with the Stahlhelm, transferred into the SA, when Seldte, the leader of the Stahlhelm became a member of the Hitler Government, I became a full-time officer in the SA in 1934.
Q. And what was the highest rank in the SA that you achieved?
A. My highest rank was Gruppenfuehrer.
Q. Does that roughly correspond to Major-General?
A. In the SA we never made comparisons between military and SA ranks. I mean, shall we say, it would be equivalent to the rank of a commanding general, or lieutenant-general. However there was never any use made of this fact at any time by an SA leader because while the development was a purely military one in the SS, that was not so in the SA.
Q. Were you staff leader of the SA group in Franconia?
A. Yes.
Q. Which includes Nurnberg?
A. Yes.
Q. In November 1939, or 1938, ratner?
A. In November 1938, yes.
Q. And you were staff leader of the SA in Nurnberg during the entire month of November 1938?
A. Yes, I had been in this position for years before and since.
MR. WOOLEYHAN: That is all.
DR. ASCHENAUER: May I take this witness into re-direct examination?
REDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. ASCHENAUER:
Q. Witness, were you in Nurnberg on the 9th of November, 1938?
A. On the 9th of November 1938, I went to Berlin--a week before, actually--and as far as the incidents of November 1938 are concerned, I had no official or personal contact with them, and I can therefore say nothing about them under oath.
Q. Witness, was Gauleiter Streicher your enemy?
A. I wouldn't put it quite so strongly. As a former member of the Stahlhelm I was not too well liked by the Party at first, which is quite plausible. However, the work I did in the training and organization departments made my reputation, but Streicher ignored me by and large.
DR. ASCHENAUER: Thank you very much. No further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness is excused.
(Witness excused)
RUDOLF OESCHEY (Resumed) DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued)
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed.
BY DR. SCHUBERT:
Q. Witness, the last thing you told us about was the guidance discussions and your arrangement and agreement concerning these things with President of the District Court of Appeal Emmert. Please tell us how these conversations were really held.
A. The guidance discussions with Emmert were based on his assurance to avoid all influencing of judges. Roughly, these discussions took this form. At first, in the presence of the President of the District Court of Appeal, the Public Prosecutor, the Chief Public prosecutor, the President of the District Court, and perhaps another few experts of the prosecutor's staff, I discussed the cases of the previous week. Thereupon those cases were discussed and opinions were exchanged concerning those which would be held in the coming week. No attempt was made on those occasions, on my part, to influence the prosecution, nor was the attempt made by President of the District Court of Appeal Emmert or the Senior Public Prosecutor to influence me. I may say that both Emmert and Herr Bems were most tactful in their conduct and observed and respected the independence of the judge.
Q. In this connection may I refer to my Exhibits 14, 14, and 16? The witness Mueller has testified--which testimony can be found on cage 3757 of the record--that he believed he found that your opinion in the guidance discussions was very frequently the decisive one, which would amount to the fact that you used these discussions in order to guide the others yourself. Please give us your comments about that.
A. What Mueller has expressed here is completely incorrect. Mueller himself never took part in any of the guidance conversations, and he therefore is in no position to pass judgment there.
All I can say, anyway, is that these discussions merely served to exchange opinions quite noncommittally, and any attempt to exercise influence was never made by me.
Q. According to Prosecution Exhibit 479, which is the affidavit of Baeumler--in document book III-B, at page 86-it is alleged that you attempted to have the directives which came from these guidance discussions carried out by your associates. I should like to ask you, were the results of the guidance discussions communicated to your associates?
A. Not in one single case. There was no obligation to do so, and I therefore did not do so, because, on the one hand, any special results were not to be reported from these discussions, and also because I wanted to avoid any influencing of the associates.
Q. In the same exhibit, 479, Baeumler says that you had been influenced by directives and points of view which had been passed on to you by the RSHA and the SD. Can you tell us anything about that? How does he make that statement?
A. I never contacted the RSHA nor the SD at any time nor in any manner. What Baeumler says here can only be concerned with the usual reports, which had been customary for a case, to the Reich Office of Criminal Police. Some of these reports were published; some of them were made accessible to the public prosecutor; and these reports were sometimes referr ed to in the guidance discussions. This is probably the reason why, on some occasion, I would drew the attention of one or the other of the associates to these reports to the Reich Criminal Police Office. The reports themselves showed what types of offenses were being committed frequently, what danger existed, what immoral methods were being used, and so forth. Any directives or points of view for jurisdiction did not originate with these reports, out they were not without interest for the judge because from them he could make conclusions about the frequency and violence of a certain type of crime.
Q. Some prosecution witnesses have stated that you had been overworked as an associate and complained that you did not have the time to look into the files before a trial opened. I am speaking here particularly about witnesses Gross, Lips, and Brehm. Please give us your comments about that.
A. It is quite true that occasionally we were badly overworked. As the presiding judge, all I could do was to ask to be given more assistance from other departments. This was done all the time both by Rothaug and myself. It was recognized that we were overworked, but there were not sufficient people to alleviate the situation. For that reason I went to the President of the District Court of Appeal, Emmert, and suggested a method as to how the Special Court could be relieved of certain of its duties. To describe this suggestion briefly, it was to the effect that only matters of some importance and significance--that is to say, matters where heavier sentences were to be expected--should be taken to the Special Courts, whereas other matters which had so far been heard by the Special Courts should be taken to the local courts and penal chambers. This idea could become a reality, and from that time onwards one could no longer say that the various associates were overworked.
The privilege of the associates to look into the files before the trial was never curtailed, as far as I was concerned. It was, of course, up to the associate to see the files. The files were accessible at the official seat of the office, as long as I was in charge, anyway, and they were at the disposal of any member of the court whether he was a judge, a public prosecutor, or a defense counsel.
Q. I shall now come to the way you conducted a trial. The prosecution have charged you with a number of matters in this respect. The witnesses Brehm, record page 3519, and others--and record page 3819, where Baeumler has testified-have given a certain amount of motivation for these charges. Please tell us about all this.
A. Quite generally speaking, I energetically concentrated the trial upon its most important issues. When a defendant was being interrogated I was guided by the experience that he was the best person to shed light on the matter, because, after all, he knew everything from direct experience. Now in order to make the defendant tell everything which was important, in order to find the truth, it was, necessary for the trial to adjust itself to the character of the defendant concerned. And, in order to come to reasonably useful results, it was not always possible to treat him kindly, especially in cases if and when he had no sense for kindness. This applies particularly to habitual criminals, a great many cases of which I dealt with, and who were full of forensic experiences, and, on the other hand, were completely numb as far as the finer instincts were concerned. However, the same also applies to all other demoralized criminals; and particularly, those persons represented the majority of defendants who had to answer for their actions before Special Courts.
When somebody was interrogated, I always showed a large measure of patience at first. This patience, I must admit, was exhausted when, despite all my efforts and despite kind and serious works, I was being lied to in the most clumsy and cheeky manner, or if I encountered complete obtuseness or was provoked with cheeky works. On those occasions I lost my temper and sometimes I would abuse these people orally. I would call them names. I do not wish to embellish or justify this, because it cannot be justified.
A A somewhat extreme temper,but above all, the bad state in which my nerves were, also caused by the deprivations and burdens of the war, caused also by overwork, which made me highly excitable and easily lose my temper is the explanation for this conduct to which the witnesses have taken exception. But the position was not that when I lost my temper that this was the rule. These were simply occasional symptoms and with my disposition it would be natural thing that this state of excitement would leave me as quickly as it came up and the trial went on quite calmly after that.
Q. In Document Book I there are a large number of affidavits which bear out what the witness has said just now. How were there any disciplinary complaints about the way you conducted the trial?
A. I do not recall one singe case, and that makes me assume that the people concerned did not take these things too seriously, nor did they bear me any malice afterward.
Q. In this connection I have reference to Exh. 16. When you lost your temper on these occasions was that at the expense of finding out the truth? Did the truth suffer from that fact?
A. The trial itself did not suffer from these things at all. It was only done in order to find out as much truth as extensively as possible. The defendant himself could say anything that he wanted to prose it for his case. All the elements of exoneration I investigated with all thoroughness, and I adjourned the trial on more than one occasion in order to get hold of more evidence. And this proves that nothing which was of importance was neglected or not investigated.
Q. This again is borne out by a large number of affidavits. Now how did you behave towards witnesses in the trial?
A. It was not my intention, just as it was in the case of defendant, to intimidate witnesses and therefore to cause them to make incomplete or incorrect statements.
Q. The Prosecution have submitted a number of affidavits where you are being charged with having a prejudiced attitude, and also that you showed that attitude quite openly.
Please give us your comments about that.
A. As the presiding judge in charge of the trial, and above all, of the evidence, I -- at least that was my view -- had to have a very precise knowledge of the subject matter. As one could glean from the files which the Prosecution had submitted, together with the inictment to the Court, I always studied the files most carefully and took everything, ail circumstances, whether they were connected with the act or the person of the defendant, whether they were incriminating or exoneration, and scrutinized them as to their probative value as to the question of guilt of innocence, how they should be put to the defendant in order to clear up any possible doubts, and so forth. I also went into the question of the legal aspects cf the case. Of course, that was not all. I also formed an opinion about the case, but this was an opinion which was certainly not final and it certainly did not form a prejudice within me, because on the basis cf frequent experience it was my firm view that only the case in chief in its happy immediacy and with its surprise endings could only furnish the final basis for the opinion which the judge would form. Nothing was loss firm in my mind than the final verdict before the trial started, not even in what we call clear cases, which sometimes only appeared to clear cases, but soon the picture changed in the main trial.
Q. The witness Brehm in Exhibit 485 has testified that before the trial you told the associate judges about your intention about the sentence in form of a rool call, as one might say . The witness has somewhat modified his testimony, which can be seen from the record on page 3522. Please give us your brief comments about that.
A. That is entirely incorrect in this form. It was present usage to have the judges who had participated in the session to foregather in the chambers of the presiding judge before the trial in order to go to the court together. I was only too natural thus to exchange a few words about the cases which we were about to try.
One or the other difficulty or a particularly delicate question of law would be pointed to, and in this or that case perhaps the matter of sentence was also touched upon, but on no occasion was any definite opinion laid down or pressed upon, the associates by me. The letter for the simple reason because I simply didn't have one myself, nor could I find at any time that by these brief conversations an associate judge would be less prejudiced towards the trial.
Q. Did you ever, during the main trial, tell the defendant while he was being interrogated or before he was being interrogated what sentence he could expect, particularly with words like: "We shall put your head before your feet"?
A. That I never did. It was my custome towards the end of the interrogation of a defendant, if he had confessed, which cleared up the question of guilt, of course, to remind him of the illegality of what he had done, or told him about the worthlessness of his personality. For instance, I told a person who had been guilty of looting whether he had not seen in the newspapers or on the posters that looters could expect the death penalty and whether that had not impressed him. Or a habitual criminal I would tell, in view of his heavy criminal record, he had to expect in the case of recurrent act to be treated as a habitual criminal and that the patience of the state with people of bis type would be exhausted. In all cases these things were put to them within the scope of the trial and were no surprise to the defendant concerned, as he could have seen from the indictment what legal provisions would be invoked for the judgment of his acts and what penalties were being announced. This did not mean anticipating the verdicts, just as it did not amount to any influencing of the associates.
Q. Now, witness, Dr. Bauer in Exhibit 157 mentioned the telephone conversation in which Dr. Bauer allegedly by you was told concerning a Pol ish prisoner, and I quote: "Don't make a fuss. After all, we shall put his head before his feet."
I should like to remark that witness Bauer when he was cross examined could not say with certainty whether Oeschey had been on the other end of the line. This is on Page 3603 of the record. Please tell us something about that whether you rang up Dr. Bauer at the time.
A. I never rang up Dr. Bauer in this sense. The case mentioned here by Dr. Bauer, I was acquainted with for the first time in this trial. As it was always up to the Prosecution to clear up the question whether a defendant was still capable of being heard, it might be that somebody asked Dr. Bauer from that side. Then there is the fact that according to Dr. Bauer's description, the Pole had just been handed over to the judicial administration by the police when Dr. Bauer made this telephone call. At that time the case could not have been submitted to the Court at all as yet. At the earliest the Prosecution could have been acquainted with the case at the time, who then quite obviously saw from the files the rugrettable state in which the defendant was, and therefore before the indictment was served inquired from the court physician whether it was possible at all to try the defendant. Therefore I have no doubt that some official of the public prosecution made this telephone call with Dr. Bauer.
Q. To prove your prejudiced attitude, some witnesses have also mentioned what they call the red exclamation marks on your official calender and the fact that you called the meetings in the big court, 600. I should like to keep this as brief as possible. Witness Rothaug had already given his comments about that. Have you anything to add to this?
A. No
Q The prosecution has submitted an affidavit by Eichinger, which is Exhibit 227 In Volume 3-1, on Page 60. According to this you were said to have quoted the criminal record of defendants and have increased their sentence an an improper manner for what reason, not so much because of the act they had actually committed before the trial, but because they had a criminal record, and that in some cases you are alleged to have even inflicted the death penalty. Please give us your comments
A. In all cases against habitual criminals it was essential to have the picture of the defendant's personality made quite clear, and therefore go into the question of his record. For that purpose the Prosecution supplied details of the previous sentences served which they submitted to the Court is evidence. In the case in chief on the basis of those files the whole criminal past of a defendant was discussed In detail with him. when he was examined he had every opportunity on those occasions to say something about every one of his earlier deeds and particularly emphasized that his acts were not as he was charged, based on a criminal inclination, out were caused by different phenomena, or that in his case he case he was a dangerous habitual criminal, and so forth. What witness Eichinger criticizes in this method is quite beyond me. Only this detailed and thorough investigation of his former criminal acts guaranteed a reliable judgement of his character and furnished the reliable evidence for the problem as to whether he was a dangerous habitual criminal of not. If the answer was in the affirmative, whether It was necessary to render him innocuous or whether the degree of his proclivity would justify a more lenient sentence.
Of course a man who has been found to be a dangerous habitual criminal will, in all cases, or at least not as a rule, not be sentenced to death only because of the fast act he had committed, but for the reason that that act and his previous offenses quite obviously stamped him as a dangerous and incorrigible criminal.
THE PRESIDENT: I think that is a reasonable statement on that point. It is not necessary to go further with it.
BY DR. SCHUBERT:
Q Some witnesses have charged you with making improper Nazi propaganda in the court room, Please give us your comments about that.
A Certain glimpses of the obvious which you could catch in the courtroom are being distorted here. In certain political cases such as offenses against the malicious Acts Law or the undermining or fighting morals where i made statements which were concerned either with the men in power or their measures and directives, in order to have the significance and justification quite sure it was important to discuss these things during the case in chief. The contents or these remarks made it not possible to avoid touching on political matters because we were concerned with them as the subject matter during the trial, alter all. That this gave a certain political coloring to the trial is, of course, quite obvious. But on no occasion did i ever go beyond the necessary measure, because I have no talent for making propaganda.
Q In this case my Exhibit 19 is importance. Now I shall come to the measure which we have discussed here before, that after the evidence and proof the public prosecutor would turn up in the judge's chambers and would consult with the court in order to have his proposed sentence coincide with the court's opinion.
That measure as such you need not go into, but I would like you to tell us about this. The defendant Schlegelberger has testified that the idea behind this measure was to have the contact established before the case was opened. Please tell us your opinion about that.
A In carrying out a ministerial directive with the penal courts in Nurnberg all I experienced was this, that the public Prosecutor and the court, after the proof had been taken, contacted each other. When I was the permanent president of the Special Court of Nurnberg the guidance discussions were already being held, with the result that any other form of contact between the presiding judge and the Public Prosecution before the trial became as senseless as it became superfluous. As the purpose of the directive was to avoid any striking discrepancy between the proposed sentence by the prosecution and the actual sentence Itself, we had, will-nilly to establish and maintain this contact after roof had been taken, because It was only at that period of time that we could form an impression whether or not the defendant was guilty and what type of sentence he should be meted out.
Q During these conversations between the prosecution and the court was the sentence laid down, or vertually laid down, at least?
A The sentence about to be pronounced by the Court was not laid down on those occasions. The type of sentence and the limit of the sentence was communicated to the Prosecution,,beyond which In the opinion of the presiding judge the court would not go.
It therefore was also not omitted that the sentence which was pronounced was below the proposed sentence which the Prosecution had asked for. In most cases heard by the Special Court the prosecution, as we have heard so often before in this trial, would as a rule follow the advice by the General Prosecutor or the Reich Ministry of Justice, with the result that in those cases any contact between court and prosecution would take place only in those cases when the prosecutor did not think he could advocate the sentence which had been suggested to him. If the sentence which he was to propose seemed to him to be too harsh, the prosecutor then had the possibility to consult about this point with his superior agencies and receive a different directive.
Q The witness Amtsgerichsrat Meyer said in his affidavit, Which is Exhibit 226, in the Document Book 3-1, on Page 74, that it had been you who gave orders to the public prosecution about the sentence to be proposed. Did you during those conversations attempt to influence the Prosecution improperly?
A I never made any such attempt, not did I ever ask the Prosecution to come and see me in order to use a commanding tone of voice in telling him what he had to ask for. I had no interest whatever in the prosecutor coming to see me and be enlightened about what type of sentence he had to ask for. The Prosecution had every latitude in asking for a penalty, quite apart from the fact, that I would hardly have been in a position to give him any orders, because he was not my subordinate, but was committed by the orders of his superior officers. The testimony of witness Meyer in this case Is, in my opinion, purely fictitious.
Q In this connection I should like to draw attention to my exhibits 15 and 17. The Witness Mueller in a Prosecution affidavit, which is Exh. 149 in Document Book 3-C on Page 53, the Senior Public Prosecutor Schroeder had given him orders to adjust himself to your wishes in cases of disputed sentences. Is that correct?
A What directives were issued by Schroeder to the prosecutors under him is unknown to me. Herr Schroeder arrived at his decision quite independently without consulting me first, and it is hard for me to assume that he gave directives to his prosecutors which would aim at his eliminating himself from his own channels of commend.
Q In this connection, I should like to draw attention to my exhibit 15. The prosecution in a number of affidavits have described your relations with defense counsel. It is alleged that your attitude was hostile to defense counsel and that merely regarded defense counsel as an inevitable evil. Clashed had been frequent. What can you tell us about that?
A Isolated instances are being exaggerated and inflated here. If I may give a very conservative estimate: from among 1,000 defendants who have been tried under my presidency, at least half of them were represented by defense counsel. The overwhelming majority of them were chosen by themselves. This shows at once that the allegations can hardly be correct: that among defense counsel there had been no inclination to appear at all before the Special Court at Nuernberg. It is entirely possible that this or that lawyer did not feel to much inclined to do so, but to generalize from that is incompatible with the actual facts. Those 500 defendants were distributed all over the area of the District Court of Appeal to about 50 or 60 defense counsel, and the overwhelming majority among them were heard in this area in the years of importance here by defense counsel who were active. I cannot imagine that 50 or 60 lawyers would be dealt with me in a condescending or even aggressive manner without stopping me from these practices once and for all.
In the case of these 500 defendants, there were a few isolated cases when clashes occured between myself and defense counsel. Some of these clashes, I suppose, we shall have to discuss in great detail Speaking generally, my conduct and my relations with defense counsel were correct.
Q What the witness testified just not coincides with what Exhibit 230 says in Volume III-I, on Page 97. A number of Prosecution affidavits assert that defense did not feel at case in order to give their final pleas freely. ill you please tell us something about that?
A This is not entirely untrue. The reason for this is not with the Administration of Justice, with the Special Court of Nuernberg, or my person, but the war time phenomena have highly restricted freedom of opinion . There cannot be any doubt that in cases with a political tinge, defense counsel in his statements had to be highly careful unless he wanted to get into trouble with the Gestapo. The Gestapo did not hear about those things through the courts, but by their own officials. Therefore, cases with the political tendency would be investigated by the Gestapo, and were examined with the result that as a rule the Gestapo officer who had made the investigation would appear as a witness during the case in chief, and after his testimony would remain present in the courtroom and would. listen both to the final statement of the prosecution as well as that of the defense counsel and the opinion given by the presiding judge.
I can recall a few cases where defense counsel, because of their statements made in the plea, were reported by Gestapo officials. Furthermore, the meetings were frequently watched by officials of the SD. This state cf affairs, which I quite agree was not very nice, I am not responsible for at all. I did not create it nor did. I support it. No defense counsel was reproached by me for what he said during the case in chief. He did not get into trouble through me for those reasons.
Q In this connection, I should like to have reference to what Ferber testified, which can be found on Page 1436 of the record. Witness Eichlinger has testified in an affidavit, which is Exhibit 227, that it had been wellknown that a hint by the Gau directorate given by Oeschey was quite sufficient to hand ever defense counsel to the Gestapo. What can you tell us about that?
A What Eichinger says, there is an accusation which is completely unfounded; in fact, I did not give any such hints, nor did I ever get a defense counsel into political trouble including Herr Eichinger.
Q In this connection, I should like to draw your attention to Page 3473 in the record. Witness Ferber has said, on Page 1433 of the record where he describes an incident, that you during the trial, told the defense counsel Josef Mueller II, I quote: "I draw your attention to the fact that the Gestapo exists." Will you please tell us about that incident?
Q As to what happened has been correctly described by witness Ferb I cannot remember the precise details, but I can assure you that any intimidation of defense counsel could not have been further from my mind. What I remember is that the motion made by the attorney Mueller was irrelevant to the case, but its contents, particularly under the experiences which I have described just now, represented danger to Mueller that political agencies, particularly the Gestapo, might take him into account for these remarks. I wanted to save Herr Mueller from these experiences because I ,as well as all other members of the justice administration, knew that Mueller's political reputation had become extremely bad and that he had not get into serious trouble only for the reason that he was wearer of the golden party badge of the NSDAP.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q Will you please pardon me, for interruption please? I have a question Mr. Oeschey, that I wanted to ask before the recess. You referred, in your testimony some moments ago, to cases of undermining fighting morale. I take it that you referred to the law which we have described in the document books as undermining the German defensive strength of August 17, 1938?
A Yes, that law dates to August 1938. It's called as Special War time Penal Decree