By their very nature as occupation law, they can only apply to those who are actually in a position to commit the offense in question; namely, to the inhabitants of the territory under occupation.
All other substantive penal law has been regulated in fig. II of the ordinance. The ordinance of 6 June 1940 (Schlegelberger Exhibit 26) introduced German penal law into the incorporated Eastern territories. Furthermore, the defendant Schlegelberger had no share in this ordinance which carries the signature of Guertner and Frick. The ordinance of 4 December 1941 was intended to summarize all pertinent penal regulations; this hitherto existing provision has been incorporated in the new ordinance under fig. II. The hitherto existing legal status thus remains in force. If, for example, someone committed theft in these territories, he was punished in accordance with Art. 242 of the German Penal Code without regard to the offender's race or nationality, whether German, Pole or Jew. Thus, even after the ordinance came into effect, a Pole who had committed theft was punished not for violation of the Penal Code for Poles and Jews but for violation of Article 242 of the German Penal Code.
Finally, also the law of 4 September 1941 has been introduced in the incorporated Eastern territories according to which dangerous, habitual criminals and sex criminals are to be sentenced to death if necessary for the protection of the people's community and in accordance with the demands of a just atonement. The provisions in Section III, subsection 2, of penal Code for Poles and Jews, incorporated from the draft of this law, specially kept this case in mind. The development of penal legislation in the interval between the drawing-up of the ordinance (April 1941) and its publication (December 1941) robbed it of all practical meaning.
Thus, an examination of the provisions of substantive law of the Penal Code for Poles and Jews does not contain the elements of a crime against humanity either in its Irredenta provisions in Part I, Court No. III, Case No. 3:which did not exceed the penal measures generally applied to such offenses, or in its general penal provisions of Part II.
Therefore, the application of this provision to the Poles and Jews who arrived after 1 September 1939 in the old Reich is fully justified. The Irredenta regulations as well had to be applied to them because, in crossing the border into Germany they brought with them the desire for resistance, that had to be countered; and therefore, our goal to attain protection and to frighten off resistance called for measures against them. Initial consideration must also be given to the fact that they ware judged in accordance with the same law that was applied by the courts in their former place of residence.
With respect to the provisions of the ordinance with regard to penal procedure, it must first of all be premised that they were not applied, whenever a Pole or a Jew who had entered the old Reich after 1 September 1939, was prosecuted (Number XIV, paragraph 2).
Moreover, I can refer chiefly to Schlagalbarger's testimony, according to which the Poles and Jews were not deprived of an opportunity for adequate defense, or of the same opportunity for being granted clemency, that is extended to every convicted person. He also showed what was meant by a general exclusion of a civil suit, rejection of a judge, and exclusive jurisdiction of the prosecuting authority to apply legal remedies. Legal procedure must always consider actually available possibilities for the carrying out of the proceedings. Special conditions in wartime and in trials in occupied territories require amendments in the otherwise valid regulations.
It must at all times be possible to conduct proceedings in such a manner that a just verdict can be reached--and this is a reservation which has not been ignored here. In this connection I can also refer to the presentation by the Chief American Prosecutor in the International Military Tribunal Case, Justice Jackson, and to the statements in the Judgment of the IMT, in the section called "The Law of the Charter".
Court No. III, Case No. 3.
A comparison with the restrictions in legal procedure generally put into effect in Germany during the course of the war, will show to what extent the personnel shortage caused by the war also required changes in this respect.
The provision that polish and Jewish witnesses were not to be put under oath had been categorically demanded by the Party Chancellory. It should be pointed out that for quite some time in the old Reich the swearing in of witnesses in penal matters had been becoming more and more obsolete, and that finally the swearing in of witnesses was left to the due discretion of the court. According to the German law for penal procedure, regardless of whether or not the witness had been sworn in, the court could decide on the probative value of the testimony. Moreover, as the result of the introduction of a penal regulation concerning statements made by witnesses not under oath, the probative value of the testimony of a witness not under oath could in practice be regarded as a sworn statement.
All the restrictions placed upon this ordinance resulted from the requirements of the occupied territory and, in the last analysis, this can be best shown by the fact that the Poles and Jews who had entered the old Reich after 1939 were sentenced in accordance with the regulations for legal procedure generally valid there.
An argument for the inhumanity of the ordinance can no more he advanced from the nature of the punishment than it can from the extent thereof. As sentences of imprisonment, the ordinance calls for detention in an ordinary penal camp and in a penal camp under especially severe conditions. The meaning of these two terms has been repeatedly discussed during the course of the trial. Witness Hacker, who was formerly Referent (Department Head) in the Department for Execution of Sentences in the Reich Ministry of Justice, and therefore is a special expert on this subject, has given a detailed statement on this matter. (Transcript of 7 July 1947, pages 4866-4867 of the English text). According to his statement, prior to the issuance of the ordinance for Poles Court No. III, Case No. 3.and Jews, the Party Chancellory had demanded a new kind of sentence by imprisonment and that such a sentence be served in camps instead of in the institutions used until then.
This desire was only given apparent consideration in the ordinance. The Reich Ministry of Justice confined itself merely to giving the institutions new names. Poles and Jews were confined separately from other prisoners in the jails and penitentiaries used until then, and these institutions were named "Stammlager" (main camps). In these Stammlager and their subsidiary camps, the prisoners received the same food and treatment as the German prisoners. The same applied especially to matters of discipline as well. Corporal punishment as demanded by Bormann, and referred to in the testimony of Defendant Schlegelberger and in Prosecution Exhibit 200, was not allowed.
Detention in a penal camp under especially severe conditions was to be distinguished from detention in an ordinary penal camp, by the assignment of especially heavy work. According to the testimony of Witness Hecker (Transcript; pages 4866-4867 of the English text, this difference was not put into effect.
During the course of the trial it was argued whether or not the Stammlager had been concentration camps. There can be no question about this. The Stammlager, as already mentioned, were the old jails and penitentiaries, now merely called by another name. The concentration camp question came up for particular discussion in connection with Prosecution Exhibit 267. It is actually this document which clarified the situation. In May 1942; Kubiak, a Pole, was in the Stammlager at Schieratz. In January 1943, upon the order of Thierack, the Gestapo transferred him to the Auschwitz concentration camp. This measure, which can obviously be traced back to Thierack's letter to Bormann on 13 October 1942, Prosecution Exhibit No. 143, would not have been necessary if Schieratz had been a concentration camp and not a penal camp subordinate to the Ministry of Justice. Concerning the nature of the penal camps, I refer to an affidavit which was recently given to me by Marx, who had for many years been leader of the Department for the Execution of Sentences, in the Reich Ministry of Justice (Schlegelberger Exhibit No. 162).
As already mentioned, the Penal Code for Poles and Jews was issued by the Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich. As Defendant Schlegelberger told in detail while on the witness stand, this was due to Himmler's constant insistence that the administration of penal law for Poles and Jews be taken over by the police, and due to the special instigation of the Party Chancellory (formerly "Fuehrer's Deputy"). In its judgment the IMT found that Hess; the "Fuehrer's Deputy", had demanded a special penal code for Poles and Jews. The Judgment of the IMT deemed it just that this fact was not sufficient to sentence Defendant Hess for a crime against humanity (English transcript, page 16,987). I request that this opinion of the IMT concerning former Defendant Hess, be compared with what Defendant Schlegelberger can claim.
He did not act of his own free will, as Hess, who, unhampered by any opposition, merely followed the political aims of the Party, on his own initiative. It was actually Hess with whom Himmler had allied himself, on this point, who had confronted Schlegelberger with the alternative of giving in to the transfer of authority to the police, as requested, or, by creating a new law, to attempt to dissuade these authorities and Hitler himself from their plans. In practice the choice amounted to whether the Poles and Jews should be surrendered to an uncontrollable fate -- this was the solution chosen by Thierack after Schlegelberger had left -- or whether the provisions of the law should be changed in such a manner that they would remain assured of a legal proceedings carried out in an orderly manner.
Schlegelberger could choose only the latter way. His submitting the draft of the new decree to the decision of Council of Ministers' for the Defense of the Reich was a tactics which later on proved to have been absolutely correct.
He himself testified in the witness stand now he had to proceed and also what was the purpose of his letter of 14 April 1941, prosecution exhibit No. 199. For the evaluation of the contents of a letter the characters of the receiver and of his advisors are always of decisive importance. If one is anxious to succeed with one's proposition one must talk the receiver's language, one must choose arguments for which one can expect to find some kind of understanding. Practically, the Council of Ministers could not issue any law without Bormann's consent. The letter, therefore, had to be conceived in a way that would appeal to his personality and to the members of the Council of Ministers. Considering the sharp demands that had been made, all individual points which seemingly aimed at even stricter measures had to be placed in the foreground and thus the general tendency of the draft had to be camouflaged.
With regard to the evaluation from a psychological point of view of such letters to Party offices, I take the liberty of referring to the statements in this verdict of the Tribunal I concerning the Defendant Blome.
Himmler's letter of November 5, 1942, prosecution exhibit No.256 clearly reveals the meaning of the new decree and what Himmler had demanded instead, who apparently had only retracted before Goering's cleverly interposed authority.
He complains that the decree completely neglects the problem that foreign peoples are to be treated entirely different from Germans and that, on principle, the same points of view determining the sentencing of a German, are still to be applied. Himmler wants to do away completely with the personal motives of the perpetrator and in the end he draws the conclusion that the administration of criminal law concerning foreign peoples should be transferred from the hands of the judiciary into those of the police.
One has to read this one letter in order to see that the new decree constituted the maximum of what could be achieved in the way of maintaining court protection for Poles and Jews. Retrospectively it can be stated that it was probably only Goering's intervention as president of the Council of Ministers which prevented the realization of Himmler's request. In order to judge Schlegelberger's action it seems to be not without importance to realize for one short moment what that solution would have meant for the countless Poles and Jews falling under that decree. The criminal statistics for the year 1942 presented in exhibit 507 according to which 61,336 Poles and Jews were sentenced in that year will be of assistance in this case. The number of death sentences pronounced was 930. In 45,197 cases sentences involving confinement in prison were pronounced, in 16,939 cases fines were imposed. It can thus be stated that over 60,000 Poles and Jews have been saved from an uncontrollable fate at the hands of the police, a fate, which, after what we have learned lately, we can imagine only too well.
I am referring to the reports of the officials of the Vorstand of the District Court of Kattowitz, prosecution exhibit 285, of the Reich Statthalter of Danzig, prosecution exhibit 470, as well as of the General Public Prosecutor at Nuernberg in exhibit 478 and to the prosecution exhibit No. 537.
The verdict of the IMT characterizes the situation best, according to which Bormann is found guilty of crimes against humanity because he "deprived Poles and Jews of the protection of the courts and placed them under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Gestapo" (transcript Pag ).
The indictment in figures 16 and 28 charges Schlegelberger with having issued "discriminatory measures against Jews, Poles, "gypsies" and others designated 'asocials' and finally charges him with having "transferred to the Gestapo for "special treatment" all cases in which Jews were involved."
The course of the proceedings should have sufficiently clarified the fact that measures of that kind were not taken until the time after the defendant had withdrawn from his office. Not until the year of 1943 was the authority to punish criminal actions committed by Jews transferred to the police. (Decree of 1 July 1943, Reich Law Gazette I, page 372.)
In this connection I have to refer to the summary court martials established in the incorporated Eastern territories.
As stated by the defendant in the witness' stand, Himmler's and Bormann's minimum request was the establishment of summary courts martial. Considering the distribution of power it was not possible to deny altogether, without endangering the decree itself, There was, however, the possibility of inserting a safety valve. Schlegelberger succeeded in tying--up the practical realization of this request with the consent of the Reich Minister of justice by inserting a special regulation into that decree, Through this regulation the opponents were to be pacified at least for the moment and thus the question was to be postponed for possible later negotiations.
Once the decree was issued there would be better possibilities for opposition.
The following time, however, showed that this calculation had been wrong. Himmler did not follow the path prescribed by the decree, but sent Gauleiter Greiser, a special advocate of the Party in this field, to Hitler and he succeeded in getting Hitler's direct decision, to have summary courts martial established and the right to grant pardon transferred to the Reichstatthalter. I am referring to prosecution exhibit 345. Through this decision from highest authorities Himmler had circumvented the question of the consent of the two Ministries and Schlegelberger's hands were tied.
The question discussed by the prosecution in exhibit No. 360 concerning the deprivation of civil rights is a purely technical matter of terminology, which seems to me to have been sufficiently cleared up by Schlegelberger's own testimony.
In exhibit No. 71 the prosecution presented a decree issued by Schlegelberger on 24 July 1941, by which he considers the death sentence adequate for sexual crimes committed by definitely criminal characters. The Defendant, while in the witness stand, explained the reasons for the issue of this decree concerning the Poles. In addition to his statements I want to point out, that in the case of sex criminals and dangerous habitual criminals, the death penalty is also provided for German perpetrators, as stated in the law of 4 September 1941. Those dates reveal that the decree of 24 July 1941 represents ideas which were at that time the basis of a general law already prepared.
The prosecution is wrong in stating through presentation of exhibit No. 70 that Schlegelberger changed the personnel of the penal chamber in Lueneburg, because the court had arrived at a decision favoring a Pole. Not because the decision was in favor of the Pole -- after all, decisions of that kind were made every day, without the personnel of the court being changed - but because Schlegelberger deemed it necessary in the interest of the administration of law, that the judge involved be given a different field of activity.
By its decision, the motivation of which had been sharply rejected by the Reich Supreme Court, the penal chamber had demonstrated that it was in no way master of the actual situation.
His later attitude shows most impressively that nothing was less in the interest of the Defendant Schlegelberger than the subject of the Poles and the Jews to a treatment unreconcilable with the laws of humanity, and that, on the contrary, he was anxious to grant them just proceedings.
The witness (Gramm(English transcript page 723 testified that Schlegelberger constantly reminded the judges in the Eastern territories to proceed with the utmost of care and in the same manner as if Germans were concerned, when making factual investigations and when passing sentences against Poles and Jews.
That the Fuehrer Information 66 was not known to Schlegelberger is clarified by the affidavit Ebersberg: Schlegelberger was at that time on vacation and then also was represented by Freisler at the Fuehrer Information. The Official title of the chiefs of the agency had to be signed by a deputy, as follows: "By the order of."
In the same way Schlegelberger knew how to make those points of view clear to all the judges. After, in December 1941, Freisler had published in the official magazine the "Deutsche Justiz" (German Justice) in order to introduce the decree, an article in which he used the usual national socialistic slogans, Schlegelberger prevailed upon Freisler, who actually was a very unbalanced character, to publish in the same magazine another article which is contained in the Schlegelberger exhibit No. 27. Two things were accomplished by this article: Freisler had himself committed to a more moderate new line. The Judges, on the other hand, certainly were most impressed by this moderate attitude of Freisler's of all people, who, after all was known in all legal circles for his extreme tendencies, and they had to be interested in a just decision.
THE PRESIDENT: We will take our afternoon recess at this time.
DR. KUBUSHOVA. (continued): "The importance of such an appeal to the conscientiousness and sense of justice follows from the fact that the range of penalties was made very wide even in cases of national minorities. Apart from the one case mentioned where the death sentence without appeal was threatened, which was an already established law, it was left to the judge in all cases to assume a less serious crime, and, therefore, to sentence the perpetrator to a term in prison. Under no circumstances can it be admitted that in those cases the judge could dispense with the death sentence only if very special and exceptional conditions were existing, as one of the co-defendants has stated in the witness stand.
There is no doubt that in view of his character it was a hard decision for SchlegeLberger not only to propose some moderations but also some aggravations for the draft of the decree. He did, however, his possible best to safeguard a well-considered adaptation of the decree and he could be confident that the courts would comply with their duty to pass just sentences. Whatever and to what extent his expectations were fulfilled could only be determined through an investigation of the total amount of verdicts passed. I beg you to keep in mind that a selection from tens of thousands of procedures had been made for the compilation of the material presented by the prosecution. It is not up to me to decide whether the sentences presented were just or unjust. Even if the tribunal should not recognize this or that verdict, I beg you to consider that any kind of verdict is subject to the natural limitations of man's knowledge.
The newspaper excerpt of prosecution exhibit No. 629 mentioning sentences against Poles, of which only the two first ones were pronounced during the time of Schlegelberger's being in charge, do not permit a sufficient judgment of the proceedings mentioned. Apart from the fact that the motivation for the verdict is lacking completely, the tendencies of the reporter must be taken into consideration, too.
Schlegelberger's practices in granting pardons also shows that he did not take any special position in cases of Poles and Jews. The defendant explained in the witness stand why in the case of high treason mentioned in exhibit No. 137 presented by the prosecution it was impossible to grant a pardon. His zeal in having a Polish countess pardoned was pointed out clearly through the testimony of the witness Gramm (English transcript page 4716). In a most unusual manner he investigated the possibility of a wrong sentence so that the case was finally decided all in favor of the Polish woman.
This conduct reveals best his inner attitude with regard to the Polish question, which most certainly is beyond everything the prosecution wants to interpret into his official activities.
The prosecution uses five exhibits in order to connect the defendant Schlegelberger with measures taken against the Czechs. Exhibit No. 367 deals with the execution of legally valid death sentences against Czechs. The defendant, while testifying in the witness stand gave detailed explanations in this respect, which reveal that he did not comply with Heydrich's wish and that he chose the way of discussion. After having failed to obtain a favorable decision via Meissner, he did not give up and turned to Lammers, who, on his part, consented to bring the matter before Hitler. Whether he did talk to Hitler about it and what was the result, has never been established. With regard to exhibit No. 368 concerning the public posting of the execution of death sentences against Czechs in Berlin, I can limit myself to the defendant's testimony.
The proceedings against Elias by the People's Court are not the responsibility of the defendant Schlegelberger.
As can be seen from the note of Kritzinger in prosecution exhibit No. 480, the deputy Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, on the strength of an authorization given to him by Hitler without the consent of the Reich Ministry of Justice, had reserved for himself the order that the proceedings should take place before a people's court and not before a police court martial. This request had to be complied with. The case of alias was entirely a matter of the Protectorate, on which the Reich Ministry of Justice had no influence. Incidentally, the document shows that the defendant strongly opposed the transfer of authorities of the Chief Reich Public Prosecutor to the Gestapo, because he saw in this the first stop towards the surrender of the power of the public prosecutor to the police. The powers which Hitler had given to Heydrich and Thierack's cunning attitude placed the defendant before accomplished facts.
Exhibit 339 proves Schlegelberger's moderation in adapting measures of retaliation sanctioned by international law against the expropriation of German real estate through Czecho-Slovakia.
The decree of 15 July 1942 presented to the Defendant during the examination concerning the competency of the SS and police courts in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia concerns solely the Waffen SS as part of the Wehrmacht. It was a measure taken by the military courts within the scope of the laws of occupation. As far as its contents are concerned it is identical with the order issued already on 24 January 1942 concerning the restrictions of the competency of the Wehrmacht courts in the Protectorate and was necessary for the recognition of the Waffen SS as part of the Wehrmacht.
For this reason the ordnance was also signed by Keitel.
The SS jurisdiction of the general SS existing since 1939, which, - as I want to state here - excluded from its realm of validity the competency of the general courts and thus also fro concentration camp matters, is independent of those military courts of the Waffen SS.
I am now going to deal with the Jewish question. In judging the charges of the prosecution we will first have to realize what the jewish question meant to national socialism, that it was the basic question, overshadowing everything else. The Ministry of the Interior was in charge of carrying out the laws. The fate of the Jews was centrally decided there, insofar as it was not determined by general or individual regulations in the sphere of Gestapo and Police. That situation which obviously deteriorated from year to year naturally had its effects on the entire public and private life. The judiciary, like any other branch of the administration, could not ignore the facts either. To which extent a branch of the administration would observe those facts, how ready it was to keep in step with each respective measure concerning the Jewish question, whether it anticipated them, kept up with them or followed suit, is in my opinion the best criterion for judging that particular branch of the administration and its head. One cannot be just in judging this by considering only, that this or that measure constituted a restriction or suppression of the Jewish parts of the population. Decisive can only be what in a dictatorial state had been ordered and executed as an overall directive in a manner so stubborn as to have no comparable counterpart in any other problems, and in how far the individual measures can be explained as an unavoidable outcome of the situation as a whole The nucleus of the laws against the Jews are the socalled Nuernberg Laws which were decreed by the Reichstag at the Party rally in 1935.
The Ministry in charge of these laws and their execution was the Ministry of the Interior. The Reich Minister of Justice had in no way participated in their preparation. Both Guertner and Schlegelberger were taken unawares and put before completed facts by the Reichstag's resolution. The Law Protecting German Blood and German Honor had been countersigned by Guertner since it contained a penal stipulation. As the Ministry of the Interior, pursuant to the directives on general policy given by Hitler, had decided to introduce the Nuernberg Laws in the occupied Eastern territories, the defendant, because of Guertner's signature under the Law Protecting German Blood and German Honor, could not refuse to countersign in the introductory ordinance. Schlegelberger, during his interrogation, already referred to the fact that according to a second decree which was issued the same day, the introductory ordinance was not to be applied to citizens of the former Polish State. Therefore, it only applies to the Germans, who immigrated into the annexed Eastern territories and thus constitutes nothing but a necessary elucidation of its regional validity which resulted from the new constitutional situation. The Prosecution has not mentioned anything to show in how far the Nuernberg Laws were actually applied in the annexed Eastern territories and that thereby the constituent elements of a crime against humanity were given.
The 11th decree concerning the Reich Citizen Law (Reichsbuergergesetz) dated 25 November 1941 (Reich Law Gazette 1941, page 772) has been countersigned by the defendant Schlegelberger.
The Reich Minister of the Interior had issued it in pursuance to Article 3, which entitles him alone to do so. Only the Reich Minister of the Interior is responsible for the thus newly established regulation that Jews lose their German citizenship if they have their regular residence abroad or transfer it there, and that the assets of these expatriated Jews will fall to the Reich. Once the assets had fallen to the Reich, the Jewish owners of property registered in the official land register(Grundbuecher) had also been deprived of their landed property. Therefore, the land registers had to be adjusted. The decree contained some stipulations concerning the execution of the land register adjustments in order to avoid the further dispersal of the pertaining regulations over still more laws and ordinances. That was the reason for the defendant's signing the ordinance, but his department did not cooperate in creating the new legal situation, but was only concerned with the administrative consequences resulting from it.
The regulation mentioned in Article 17 of the Indictment, according to which Jewish property resulting from inheritance should fall to the Reich without the Jewish heirs receiving any compensations, was only discussed by decree dated 1 July 1943 (Reich Law Gazette I., page 372), after the defendant Schlegelberger had left the Reich Ministry of Justice. Schlegelberger had nothing to do with it.
On his proposal concerning a restriction of legal remedies for Jews (Exhibit 204), which, by the way, has never been put into effect, Schlegelberger gave the necessary explanation when in the witness stand: a concession unavoidable in view of much farther reaching demands made by the Party.
That a restriction of appeals is not a priori a discrimination and that there are various opinions on the problem of appeals in the various legal systems, I need not discuss here in detail.
The connection between the Reich Ministry of Justice and the Office for Racial Policy (Rassepolitisches Amt) of the NSDAP as mentioned in Exhibit 60, was an unavoidable administrative contact which in no way reveals an antiSemitic tendency of the Reich Ministry of Justice.
May I deal briefly with the events in connection with the organization measures in Nurnberg, which the witness Doebig mentioned and which are treated in Exhibit 370: According to Doebig's statement of 9 April 1947, he had reported to the defendant that the contracts concerning the cession "-By the way, may I just interpolate this: I am not speaking , this was not a question of bringing about changes in ownership , but this was just an entry, a safeguard against other disposals made by the proprietors--" at 10% of the fixed value (Einheitswert) of the premises had been wrung from the Jews. He asked for steps to be taken by law or by administrative regulations. According to witness Doebig's statement, Schlegelberger answered him that, of course, no law could be issued in such a hurry and that no administrative measures could be taken, as this would mean an infringement on the judge's competency. He did not see why special measures were necessary at all. Any judge would know that he was not allowed to enter in the register any change in ownership which was based on an extorted and therefore invalid contract. This would be a problem for decision by the judge and, therefore, it would have to be left to him. Schlegelberger could not give to the witness Doebig any other answer. How Doebig related this statement to his judges, and how the latter interpreted it in order to avoid a difficult situation, has no bearing on the present situation. The legal situation concerning the duties of the judges dealing with the land registers Grundbuchrichter) as also concerning the competency of the Reich Ministry of Justice was clear. If the judges dealing with the land registers knew that blackmail was involved, and Doebig made it quite clear that there was no doubt that this was the case, then they had to refuse to make the entry. If one co-defendant, when in the witness stand on 20 august 1947, declared that the Administration of Justice had partially ceased to exist, the judges were no longer able to act according to the law, the cramped state of affairs could only have been loosened from above, then this is completely misleading.
14 0ct.-A-LU-21-2-Gaylord(Int. Hahn) Of course, the Administration of Justice did not come to 3 standstill.
In all spheres including the one concerning the land register it continued without any restrictions. The so-called cramped state of affairs consisted only in the judges' lack of strength to make up their minds, to act according to the law which was definite enough. Of course, it is something quite different, if Goering himself had intervened against the person who caused the so-called action, against the Gauleiter deputy Holz. The Administration of Justice made the defendant Joel available as an expert, because of his energy, a man well suited for this purpose. The result of this intervention has been discussed here in detail.
Today, the prosecutor said that contrary to this case, Schlegelberger in the case of the Lueneburg verdict had changed the judges at the Penal Chamber. The prosecution has ignored that indeed it is a known fact that the notaries had disciplinary proceedings instituted against them and that in particular the one who had instructed the real estate register judges--that is to say, the President of the District Court, Hoesch, had steps taken against them. He was transferred to another post--a post of manor significance. As concerns the real estate judges themselves, it was not possible to institute proceedings against them because the entry did not in fact mean that a real transfer had been made. It was merely a matter of safeguarding.
"The Reich Ministry of Justice did in no way cooperate in the evacuation of the Jews as narrated here by witness Wahler. If the witness referred to a conference of Staatssekretaere held under the chairmanship of Heydrich on 20 January 1942, then it has to be stated that no Staatssekretaer of the Reich Ministry of Justice was present at such a conference, as it was not competent for these problems. On principle, conferences of Staatssekretaere were only attended by members of those Ministries which were interested in the problems which were to be discussed. I refer to Lammers' affidavit, Schlegelberger Exhibit 165.