THE MARSHAL: Persons in the Courtroom will please find their seats.
The Tribunal is again in session.
MR. LA FOLLETTE: I neglected to offer Exhibit 639, which is the Property Record Compilation - I do so now.
THE PRESIDENT: It is received. You had offered 638 before the discussion.
MR. LA FOLLETTE: Yes, I think so, Your Honor. In any event I offer it again if there has been that deficiency.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, it is received. I think it was received before. Counsel understands, I an sure, the limitation on the sur-rebuttal evidence, it is restricted to the specific matters shown in the rebuttal of the Prosecution.
DR. WANDSCHNEIDER: Yes, Hr. President, I ask to be permitted to begin the examination of Dr. Rothenberger.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
SUR-REBUTTAL EXAMINATION DR. ROTHENBERGER BY DR. WANDSCHNEIDER:
Q First, I should like you to comment on the case Buhk which has been presented by the Prosecution in rebuttal. What did you have to do with the case and what is your knowledge of the case?
A I an referring to Exhibit 595. It cannot be seen from the document whether I was informed about the case. I do remember, however, after looking through the document that one of my referents reported the case to me in 1934. He told me that a communistic official by the name of Bunk, was at the town house in Hamburg, that is at the office of the President of the Police of Hamburg, hit while being interrogated, he was beaten, that he was brought to Fuhlsbuettel the next day and that at Fuhlsbuettel in his cell he was found hanged the next morning. The handkerchiefs which had been tied together were attached to the file as the basis of evidence.
Then a post mortem took place and the statement made by the official doctor at the post mortem showed that Buhk had died as a result of hanging himself, that no internal injuries had been found, and that the question as to whether on account of violence, injuries to the lungs had occurred, still depended on further examination of the lung tissues. Then this subsequent examination took place and with the result that no internal injuries to the lungs had occurred. The General Public Prosecutor, I was told, had instituted the investigation against unknown individuals with the result that the investigation was stopped for the reason that according to the statements made by the Medical Expert death had occurred as a result of his suicide action. Also the proceedings for ill treatment were discontinued because no culprit could be found.
Q. What do you happen to know about what your personal referent discussed with Judge Wenzensen?
A What my personal referent discussed with Judge Wenzensen I do not happen to know. If he made reproaches to him as Judge Wenzensen has stated, then I wouldn't have considered it right at the tine because Judge Wenzensen acted absolutely correctly. A suspicion, such as is being raised today, to the effect that the Communist Buhk had been hanged, at that time there was no suspicion, and only at this trial have I heard of any such suspicion.
Q You were asked about the case Buhk in your cross examination. Why have you said at that time you could not remember the case, and in this connection I refer to the transcript, pages 5405 and 5408. Would you comment on this, please, Dr.Rothenberger?
A I was washed at that time about a case Buhk. The name Buhk I remembered neither at that time nor today. I wouldn't recall it at all if it weren't in the file and at the time I asked the Prosecutor, in order to refresh my memory, during what year the Buhk case was supposed to have occurred and he told me the years 1941 or 1942.
JUDGE HARDING: I have a question.
Q Assuming that the report as to this man's death showed it was suicide and there was also evidence he had been mistreated, why was that dropped, that wasn't involved in the suicide, that was independent of how he killed himself.
A Yes, my referent reported to me and it can also be seen from the file that these proceedings, too, also were stopped by the General Public Prosecutor because one could not find the culprit. There are two decisions for stopping the investigation to be found in the file, and one is on account of ill treatment.
BY DR. WANDSCHNEIDER:
Q Then the case Kosa - Dr. Elkan - was put to you, Dr. Rothenberger This is Exhibit 598. Did you know anything about that case at the time?
A Yes, of that case I knew. It occurred in June 1933. A criminal proceeding was pending for professional abortion against Dr. Elkan and that Dr. Elkan during his interrogation was said to have been ill treated and to have broken an arm. The General Public Prosecutor made the suggestion to institute penal proceedings against the police official Kosa. who was responsible for that. In that case the Reich Statthalter called me to his office, and, therefore, first, before I had a decision on the part of the Reich Statthalter, I sent an intermediary decision to the General Public Prosecutor, to the effect that for the time being he should not institute an investigation against Kosa, and that further instructions would be sent to him, The conversation with the Reich Statthalter took place in the presence of his then Gaufuehrer and Gau legal adviser Dr. Reker, who was of the opinion that these matters were incidental to a revolutionary period and, therefore, should not be prosecuted. He suggested to the Reich Statthalter that the proceedings should be quashed. Until the year 1935 the Reich Statthalter had that authority in Hamburg. My objection against that concept did not succeed at that time.
I was only for three months in office and had me influence on the decisions of the Reich Statthalter, and, therefore, I had to carry cut the instructions received by the Reich Statthalter to quash these proceedings. That is the reason why it was not prosecuted.
Q Dr. Rothenberger, it is claimed that if Kaufman had the formal authority to quash it, that it still wasn't substantively right, wasn't that your opinion at that time, and isn't it today?
A Yes, absolutely.
Q Then Kaufman did not act correctly. Did you have any further difficulties of that nature with Kaufman at the beginning?
A In my first direct examination, as well as in my situation reports I refer to Exhibit 76 - I have pointed out that during the first years after the seizure of power it was extremely difficult to safe-guard the interests of the administration of justice against the Reich Statthalter, and he was not at all friendly to the administration of justice.
Q In this Exhibit 76 which you have mentioned we are concerned with the report of the then President of the district Court of Appeals to Dr. Rothenberger of the administration of justice, and one sentence states there that the Gauleiter in 1933 was not at all friendly to the administration of justice and in a later report of 1942, the defendant points out -
THE PRESIDENT: Aren't you referring to exhibits which are already in evidence?
DR. WANDSCHNEIDER: I refer to an exhibit which has been submitted as Exhibit 76.
THE PRESIDENT: That is not a part of the sur-rebuttal.
BY DR. WANDSCHNEIDER:
Q We come now to the case of Reuter. Dr. Rothenberger, the rebuttal document for the Prosecution is Exhibit 599. May it please the Tribunal I found put from the transcript that that exhibit which is 25 pages long was received a few days ago, whereas I thought it had only been submitted for identification.
When on that day a large number of exhibits were received I had no opportunity to find out, that this is a letter of the former Senior Public Prosecutor of Hamburg Reuter, of July 1945, that is to say after the war. Therefore, obviously it is not a captured document. Therefore, it is of course of importance on principle for me to know that the document can not be used as evidence on the basis of the rules of this Court, quite apart from the formal question, I have a few factual questions I should like to discuss with the defendant in connection with the documents, and since at that time I couldn't look through a document of 30 pages, it would have been too much, I should like for the Tribunal to decide on the admissibility of the document as an exhibit. Recording to Ordinance 7 the defense ought to have an opportunity to be heard in connection with the question of admissibility and at that time I did not have the opportunity to look through it.
THE PRESIDENT: You may discuss the probative value of it with the witness. It was received without objection and many days have passed by.
BY DR. WANDSCHNEIDER: Yes, Your Honor.
Q Dr. Rothenberger, the essential point contained in this letter by Dr. Router of July 1945, is that a four-men conference between him and the Reich Statthalter Kaufman and the General Public Prosecutor and the Chief of the Gestapo had taken place, and at that conference observations concerning ill treatment were discussed; would you like to speak about that?
A Such an "agreement among the four of us" as Reuter mentioned has never been made between the persons concerned. Never did a conference take place of these four people about that subject, nor did I receive any instructions from the Reich Statthalter in this connection at any time, as it could have been possible.
Q I refer to the notation made on the file by the Senate President Von Der Degen on Page 25, Exhibit 599. That file note reproduces a conversation between Reuter who at that time was still living, and Von Der Degen and in a few lines it is said here that "the existence of the secret agreements mentioned on page 11, an agreement between the Reich Statthalter, Dr. Rothenberger, Dr. Drescher and- Streckenbach, is known to me only by the report from Judge Wenzensen. He knew about that agreement, having been told by a Kommissar of the Gestapo. That was as far as I know, on the occasion of a discussion of the case Buhk; as I remember the name of that Kommissar was Kraus. In other words, these facts stated by Reuter were third hand knowledge.
Q How did Dr. Reuter come to make these charges against you in his report in your opinion, Dr. Rothenberger?
A I cannot evaluate that off hand, only indirectly on the basis of my thorough knowledge of Dr. Reuter's character. Dr. Reuter had been Prosecutor in Hamburg, I knew him since 1921. Since I was in the administration of justice for a long time, I happened to know that already in 1923 he made a similar report, only with an opposite text, to the Chief of the Administration of Justice, Dr. Noeldecke, that can be seen from page 20, Exhibit 599. In that report the main problem was that he wanted to become Senior Public Prosecutor in Hamburg, and raised serious charges against the other candidates for that position. Personally in 1933, I had the following experiences with him. A few days after I assumed office, that is to say in March 1933, he came to see me, submitted an extensive memo to me, several poems and speeches by him which he had made in a nationalistic organization. That organization is mentioned in the document on page 22 under the name Deutsche Bund.
Q You can read that sentence by which Reuter characterized himself and his political attitude at that time.
A It says in my -
Q Will you take the next sentence?
A Yes, it is stated that Adolf Hitler himself was for moderation in dealing with the Jewish question at times. He also pointed out that I, as well as my organization, the Deutsche Bund, were always primarily against transgressions committed by Jews and their encroaching on German ways of life and aside from that I had the attitude of pure objectivity as far as individual Jews were concerned.
Q Thank you. That is sufficient, Dr. Rothenberger.
A When he handed the memorandum to me in March 1933, he made the specific claim he was a protagonist of the National Socialist movement and that the injustices committed against him during the time of the Weimar Democracy, because he had not been promoted, had to be made good, and that he wanted to become Public Prosecutor in Hamburg. When I refused, he turned to Rudolf Hess. That can all be seen from that document, page 19, and Rudolf Hess sent all of these reports and articles and poems and speeches to me again. They were the same matters that had been submitted to me before directly.
Q That is sufficient, Dr. Rothenberger. Now to summarize the characterization of Reuters, what else did he deal with in that document in order to put himself in the foreground?
A From that document, which by the way, has neither a beginning nor an end which I am unable to evaluate as a whole, it can be seen that he once stated a request to be appointed Defense Counsel for Schacht in the IMT Trial and that he also asked - he was retired at that time - to be reappointed as Judge or Prosecutor in Hamburg.
Q These two passages are on pages 23 and 24 of Exhibit 599. From that letter, about which one does not know to whom it was addressed, the first two pages are missing. Dr. Rothenberger, then this report states you had some connection with the case Dusenschoen.
Do you know anything about that case?
A I do not remember ever having had anything to do with a penal case against Dusenschoen. Reuter does not assert in his memo at all that I had quashed the Dusenschoen case but on page 11 he states that I had mode a statement against the quashing, but that in the end the Reich Statthalter had quashed the case. I don't know anything about that and when Reuter was questioned about that matter by the today President of the District Court of Appeals, he said: "How this case has come to Dr. Rothenberger, I don't know. Apparently discussions took place about the matter between Dr. Rothenberger and Dr. Drescher and the Reich Statthalter."
Q This again refers to the file note by Senate President Von Der Degen and at the end of the exhibit, page 3, there is a passage which Dr. Rothenberger has just quoted. Mention is also made about a report made by the Public Prosecutor about the ill treatment in concentration camps. Do you happen to know about that?
A I do not remember at all that any such report ever reached me.
Q What did you do in other cases when the perpetrations were committed by the Gestapo, Dr. Rothenberger?
A I intervened in each case in which the Gestapo had interfered, I intervened in Hamburg as well as in the Reich administration of justice. As far as Hamburg was concerned I endeavored to straighten out these matters locally by discussing it with the Reich Statthalter. I did not always succeed, particularly after 1935 when a decision about these interferences was to be made in Berlin. From that time on, therefore, I considered it my duty in each case of any such interference to report orally and usually at the same time in writing to the Reich Minister of Justice about it. For that reason I had an accurate list compiled in Hamburg about any such interference which became know to the District Court of Appeals in Hamburg.
Q You mean the file which I offered to the Court for identification the other day from the District Court of appeals in Hamburg?
A Yes.
Q And that is the investigation from the Hanseatic District Court of Appeals at Hamburg. I received an affidavit to testify where that list came from and which I shall submit tomorrow. It will show that it was a list which was compiled by a referent at the Hanseatic District Court of Appeals.
THE PRESIDENT: What is the exhibit number?
DR. WANDSCHNEIDER: 78, I am just told, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Rothenberger Exhibit No. 78?
DR. WANDSCHNEIDER: Yes, Your Honor.
BY DR. WANDSCHNEIDER:
Q Now, Dr. Rothenberger, on the basis of that document, will you please discuss two or three examples of cases where you have made objections and sent reports to Berlin and tell us first please why you approached Berlin?
A In my bi-monthly reports on the situation I had to contact the Reich Minister of Justice, Dr. Guertner, because decisions about these interferences had to be made by the RSHA, that is to say, by Berlin. The local offices in Hamburg did not have any authority for that. I have asked for these situation reports on the 20th of May of this year by formal application because that would illustrate the individual cases which are contained in this exhibit but up to now I have not received them.
Q May I ask you now to discuss a few individual cases from that tile of the District Court of Appeals.
Q That file contains material from the District Court of Appeals, referring for one thing to the perpetrations committed by the SS through newspaper articles of all sorts, by criticizing sentences, this being primarily the so-called correction of sentences, that is to say, the revision by the Gestapo of sentences handed down by the courts.
Q Well, we have frequently discussed that matter of correction of sentences. If I mentioned individual cases I meant cases where you can show how you reacted in other fields which were complicated, in difficult cases concerning policies, with regard to Jews, racial pollution, that is more interesting now.
THE PRESIDENT: The question as to how he reacted has been gone into at great length. You will have to limit yourself this time to any explanation or denial of the matters specifically mentioned in rebuttal.
DR. WANDSCHNEIDER: Yes, Your Honor. It's not the time for general explanations, now of course, but we are here concerned with two or three complete definite eases and the steps that the defendant took.
A (By the Witness) There is, for instance, the half-Jewish witness Schneit, a Polish woman, who was arrested in a race pollution case against a man by the name of Leis, in Hamburg, and where I intervened to have the witness released from imprisonment.
Q (By Dr. Wandschneider) On the previous page I think there is something to the effect that you intervened - that Jewesses who were sentenced for race pollution should not be taken into protective custody, and made protest against it.
A Yes, there aye eight cases mentioned by name.
Q Will you please tell us the name of the document?
A German copy pages 23 and 24. There are eight cases of Jews who, after serving sentence for race pollution and in spite they had served that term, were arrested by the Gestapo, and in which cases I had demanded of the Reich Minister of Justice that this must be revoked.
THE PRESIDENT: Is that 78 also?
DR. WANDSCHNEIDER: 78, yes, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: The date, please - when these cases came up?
THE WITNESS: The cases are - may I mention, Mr. President, that this is a collection of all cases of the years 1936 to 1939 - and the cases which I have just mentioned cover those years 1936 to 1939.
THE PRESIDENT: That is sufficient.
BY DR. WANDSCHNEIDER:
Q Only one more case, because the Court can look at the document itself. Is it correct that in cases of suits against Jews to vacate their apartments, you were against that - you did turn against the fact that they were turned out of the apartments just because they were Jews?
A Yes, that can be seen from page 4 of the Exhibit.
Q That is all I want to discuss in connection with that document. Concerning correction of sentences, you have already made some remarks in the beginning, Dr. Rothenberger.
A May I just refer to pages 35 and 35-a. These pages show that material was forwarded to the Reich Minister of Justice currently.
Q. Dr. Rothenberger, would you please comment now on Exhibit 591, also a rebuttal document. It is concerned with the case where you stated that under certain circumstances it would be right to let a person go off without further punishment after his or her protective custody. Will you please explain what you mean by that?
A Exhibit 591 is a file note made by one of my referents. That file note refers to three separate reports which unfortunately are not attached. As far as I can remember this is what happened: It was an occurrence of the year 1934. After the seizure of power, of course, there was an increasing number of cases of so-called malicious acts - cases of statements made against the new regime, As a rule, the police took these people into protective custody. After they were interrogated they were turned over to the Special Court - that is, the files. The Special Court - and that is already known here at first had to bring about a directive, an instruction by the Reich Minister of Justice and the Deputy of the Fuehrer before it could institute the trial.
At that time when so many cases occurred, that took several months. My suggestion, which was put down by the Referent here, was to the effect that in the case of the so-called "small gripes" - that is, the cases of less importance, that protective custody imposed previously by the police on these people should be sufficient so that these people should not have to wait for many months for a trial through which they would still incur a punishment.
Q All right. Now, the case we want to deal with next is Exhibit 592, a letter by an attorney in Hamburg to the Reich Bar Association in Hamburg. What did you have to do with the cases mentioned in this letter - also arrests by the Gestapo after sentence had been pronounced?
A I only have the English translation hero, but I can see from it that this is a letter from an attorney in Hamburg to the President of the Bar Association, of the year 1943. That is at a time when I was no longer in Hamburg. Of the cases which are mentioned there, there arc two cases where, after the sentence had been pronounced, the Gestapo is said to have arrested these people, I do not know anything at all. First of all, because that letter was not at all directed to the District Court of Appeals; secondly, because in 1943 I was not in Hamburg; and thirdly, because but one case which is said to have been pending in 1934 and 1935 occurred at a time when I was not yet President of the District Court of Appeals. I do not know these cases.
Q Dr. Rothenberger, it has just been pointed out to me that an error occurred. You said that the Special Court has to bring about the decision by the Deputy of the Fuehrer through the Reich Minister of Justice. Is it true that it was not the Special Court, but the Prosecution?
A Yes, the Prosecution had to do that, - not the court itself.
Q Now, we come to the next case - the case of Jansen, which was discussed in detail in rebuttal. It is Exhibit 598. Will you please comment on this case Jansen?
A This exhibit also up to now is available to my counsel and myself only in the English translation and it is quite incomplete. There are only excerpts from the file, and particularly the very long and extensive opinion in the case Jansen - if I remember correctly there were 45 pages - unfortunately is not included. But on the basis of that file, just the same, I have a certain recollection of that case. It occurred in 1934/1935. The then Defendant Jansen was a well-known SA Leader in Hamburg. I did not know him personally. In 1931 or 1932 - I cannot be sure about that - for committing a political attack on a Communist he had been sentenced to seven years in a penitentiary. And then in 1933, covered by the political amnesty he had been released. That fellow Jansen, at the end of 1934, on New Year's Eve, had a fight with a former political opponent, Dreika; and before the Judge Wencenzen who has been heard here as a witness, a case was pending on behalf of that fight.
Q Dr. Rothenberger, the case is known here in its main lines. I am just interested to know for what reason you raised an objection against the Judge Wencensen because that is the essential part here.
A The Local Court president had told me already during the trial that considerable difficulties had arisen, that is, between the judge, the defendant, and the witnesses. That was why I had sent one of my Referents to the trial, in order to report to me what was going on. And after the sentence had been pronounced, I received a wrong complaint about the manner in which the triad was conducted by the judge when sentencing. And among other points - I do not remember at all the reasons given - it was stated, and that can also be seen from the files available here on page 18 of the English translation, that for several times the Judge had reproached the Defendant and the witnesses that they had acted in a Jewish Talmudic manner, which at that time, of course, was considered an insult to an SA man.
And the second technical objection which was raised against him and which I remember because it can be seen from the file -- otherwise I do not remember the other occurrences in connection with that case -on behalf of the manner in which he conducted the trial; that he did not take the witnesses of the defendant under oath - whereas he did take under oath all witnesses of Dreika who had acted here as a co-plaintiff. Whenever I received such a complaint about the manner in which a judge conducted a trial, I was obliged to request an explanation in writing, and since -- on the basis of the report which my Referent gave me - I thought that these complaints were justified, I reproached Judge Wencenzen. Thereupon, I was requested to see to it that the judge be removed from his position. I considered that wrong and unjustified and going far beyond the necessary and, therefore, I suggested - because he had come into suspicion of not having been objective in this trial -- that he be transferred from penal cases to handling civil cases. This was not intended to be nor was it a punishment for a judge. I just considered it appropriate to remove him from the danger zone into which he had gotten as a criminal judge.
Q And what happened to the Jansen case in the retrial? Can you tell us something about that, in connection with the statements made by the witness Skok?
A The Witness Skok?
THE PRESIDENT: Tell what happened in the second trial.
A (By the witness) As can be seen from page 24, no, page 23 of the file, the case, upon request by the prosecution, was discontinued. The reason given was that Greilkar? Dreika? had stated that he had no further interest in having these proceedings continued, and because the guilt of the defendant be insignificant and the physical consequences of the attack were of no importance.
THE PRESIDENT: Is that the case in which the SA man ordered his subordinates to vacate his place of business -where they beat up the proprietor at the place of business?
A (By the witness) No, no, that case we are still going to discuss.
THE PRESIDENT: Which case is that?
A (By the witness) That is the case of a political fight with a political adversary, Greilkar. If the Witness Waldo stated the assumption that he had been transferred to a different chamber on account of that case, then that is, first of all, incorrect; and secondly, would have had nothing to do with it. I believe that also the Witness Waldo, just as every other judge, would have discontinued proceedings, after Greilkar had made that statement.
Q We are now coming to the Karots case, Dr. Rothenberger - the Karots case which was also brought up by the Prosecution. It is Exhibit 590. Will you please discuss that case?
A Karots on the Reperbahn, that is an entertainment place in Hamburg, got into a conflict with the police official of the Security Police (Schutzpolizei). Before the case came to the Prosecution, Karots, in the presence of the commanding officer of the Security Police, apologized expressly for what had happened. He also apologized to the president of the police in Hamburg personally. That is how the case came to the Prosecution, at that stage, and the prosecution demanded - considering these facts, the facts of the apologies - that the case be discontinued and the Defendant Karots not be prosecuted. That can be seen from page 1 of the file. Judge Oelkers, who was heard as a witness, refused to give his consent to discontinue that proceeding. That consent was mandatory according to the legal provisions.
Q Did Oelkers speak to your deputy Letz about that case?
A Yes, the witness Oelkers has stated that Herr Letz, upon instruction from me, had told him that he absolutely approved of the Witness Oelkers opinion as a judge, but that, considering negotiations between the injured person and the injurer, he thought it was better if that case would not come to trial.
THE PRESIDENT: What is the date of that case?
A (By the witness) April 1939 - August - no, March -March/April 1939.
(Continuing) And as can be seen from this file, taking that into consideration, Letz talked to the judge of the next higher influence, told him about the facts, about which the judge had not been informed, because it could not be seen from the files, and then the judge of the second instance had consented to have the case discontinued taking into consideration that that agreement had been established between the injured person and the injurer.
THE PRESIDENT: When did this provision, to which you referred as a rule of law, take effect? I refer to the provision that the consent of the court was required for a dismissal of a case.
WITNESS: As far as I remember, that is a very old provision from Paragraph 153 of the Penal Code of Procedure of the year 1879.
THE PRESIDENT: In any event, it was in effect in 1933 and 1934, too, was it?
WITNESS: Yes, yes; yes, indeed?
THE PRESIDENT: Was it in effect at the time when as you said you were required to dismiss the case against the Party man who caused some one's arm to be broken? You remember testifying, that you had to carry out the instructions of the Reichsstatthalter to quash the case. Did this rule, to which you have been referring, apply to that time and occasion?
WITNESS: No, no, Mr. President; that is an entirely different thing because, in the case where the man had broken the arm, The Reichsstatthalter made use of his authority to quash a case - an authority which he had by the law, without consent of the judge; whereas here it is a question of a dismissal by the prosecution.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, that is what I am getting at. In the case where Kauffmann instructed you to quash the case in which abuses had been perpetrated against a man resulting in his arm being broken -- what was the law there which required you, in your official position, to quash the proceedings because the Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter had ordered you to do so?
WITNESS: The so-called quashing authority for a case used to be with the Parliaments, and in 1933 it reverted to the Reichsstatthalter, of Germany, the Reich governors.
THE PRESIDENT: What statute was that? What decree?
WITNESS: I could not give you the date by heart, Mr. President; it must have been immediately after the seizure of power. I could look it up. And that authority reverted to Hitler after 1935, after the centralization of justice. Hitler in 1935.
THE PRESIDENT: You were a judge in that case, were you?
WITNESS: No, no.
THE PRESIDENT: What were you?
WITNESS: I was not a judge at that time. I was justice senator, and was subordinate to the Reichsstatthalter; he was only my superior. I was not a judge.
THE PRESIDENT: What was your duty with reference to that case, before the Reichsstatthalter told you to quash it?
WITNESS: I could not quash it. I had not the right to quash a case. Only the Reichstatthalter had the right.
THE PRESIDENT: What did you have to do with the case prior to the Reichstatthalter's order?
WITNESS: That can be seen from the document.
THE PRESIDENT: Tell me what it was, please!
WITNESS: The General Public Prosecutor made the inquiry of me, whether the case should be carried out, and since the Reichstatthalter had called me to come to see him, and told me that he intended to have the case quashed, I, as his subordinate, had to forward and carry out the order of the Reichsstatthalter.
THE PRESIDENT: Just a moment. I will give you plenty of opportunity to correct any errors that may be made. Your orders were, I think, to carry out orders of the Reichsstatthalter?
WITNESS: -- Who gave his orders in the name of the Fuehrer.