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.
"I now proceed to Schlegelberger's draft law in the question concerning the persons of mixed race, for which the Prosecution submitted Exhibit 401. I need not discuss this draft law from the point of view of penal law, as the plan was never put ante effect nor was there ever anything done to start its execution. However, it seems to be important to me, to go into this matter so as to show Schlegelberger's attitude towards the Jewish problem in itself. Here for the first time we see Schlegelberger being actively concerned with a problem with which to deal his departmental duties gave him no cause at all. He had been informed about the conference of 6 March 1942 dealing with the treatment of half-Jews. According to it the half-Jews were to be treated the same as the Jews, and they were to be evacuated to the East. In opposition to this immensely serious plan Schlegelberger decided to intervene. He approached Hammers. From him, who was considered an expert official of many years standing and who did not have the reputation of an intriguer, he thought he would get assistance. In his letter to Lammers he called the requests of the Party "impossible", which was a way of expressing himself otherwise not usual in official correspondence. His proposal can simply not be explained in any other way than that he endeavored to help a large number of people who were in a desperate situation. If one regards the events objectively and if one judges the tactics necessary and the choice of channels he made, one cannot but reach this one result. I refer to the fact and that seems to explain the situation most clearly - that according to Lammers' statement (English Transcript page 5617 ff) the proposal was caused by a suggestion made from a group of half-Jews. This again is an affair which can only be understood from the general situation of that time; here we know from direct evidence the attitude of the person concerned; we do not have to deduce it from other facts. I think we cannot but really characterize this intervention by Schlegelberger otherwise than that from his feeling for right and wrong and as a decent person he wanted to help where a situation seemed to be desperate.
If this assistance was meant to help the half-Jews, then we can best recognize what his attitude was concerning the Jewish problem. This also concerns the affidavits submitted as Schiegelberger Exhibits 36 and 39. Once in a while small episodes can reveal completely the inner attitude of a person. After the issue of the Nuernberg Laws, which were the turning point for the persecution of the Jews, Schlegelberger went to see his friends and declared to them, in spite of his then official position, that despite the new law their friendship would outlast everything; this declaration is not only an act of humanity but a profession of his attitude to the Jewish question as such. I also refer to Exhibit 78, which has been sent to me without previous solicitation, by the Rosenbaum couple, whom the defendant did not even know; and I may finally make reference to the statement of the Brazilian professor Pontes de Miranda concerning the help given to Jewish emigrants. In his official work his lack of prejudice manifested itself in the Katzenberger case for whom, as also the witness Meissner testified (page 4617, English transcript), Schiegelberger suggested a pardon, and moreover, in the fact that he prevented a Gruenspan show trial, which was intended to expose world Jewry.
Paragraph 13 of the indictment charges Schiegelberger with having assisted in the carrying out of Hitler's NN Decree (Night and Fog Decree). What was the actual situation? Hitler's decree was in fact issued. In virtue of this decree the NN prisoners were brought by the Gestapo across the frontier into the Reich, to "disappear in night and fog" according to Hitler's instructions.
These were the facts with which Schiegelberger was confronted when he heard of the above-mentioned conversation of Lehmann with Freisler. What decision could he have made? One possibility had already become a fact, the disappearance of the prisoners in police custody. The other possibility was to let them have a legal trial.
This was again a situation which repeated itself in various cases.
A measure ordered by Hitler could be fought only by accepting the reason of the measure and by making it clear that the purpose aimed at could be attained by other means. The purpose aimed at was to deter the resistance movement. The mysterious darkness concerning the destination of the prisoners was to serve as means to this end. The end had to be retained; he had a choice only regarding the means. This was again a question which we now know to have been a fatal question for the persons affected. Will the prisoners remain in the custody of the police or will they be transferred to the Administration of Justice? For Schlegelberger it was not a matter for discussion that the latter alternative had to prevail. During his entire official career we see that it was his persistent effort to protect people who had come into conflict with the penal law, from the arbitrary methods of the police. We saw at when we discussed the ordinance concerning criminal jurisdiction over Poles and Jews. We shall see it when we shall deal with the so-called people in protective custody and with the transfers, and we now see it in the case of the NN prisoners. Only one choice was open to him: to create the possibility to transfer the prisoners to the custody of the Administration of Justice. Therefore, he agreed to the NN cases being taken over by the Administration of Justice. I ask you to consider that this was certainly a sacrifice on the part of this administration, for a procedure with so many peculiar features, which necessarily resulted from the demand of secrecy, could not be a very palatable one for the Administration of Justice. This fact too confirms Schlegelberger's motives, as set forth by us.
The procedural regulations show everything to have been thought out down to the minutes details so as to exclude every possibility of the prisoners being handed over.
It has been explained by the defendant on the witness stand that it is out of the question that the court was bound by the motion of the prosecution; the defendant moreover stated that Freisler's letter of 14 October 1942, Exhibit 313, distorts tho facts for special purposes.
The fact that Thierack, after he took office, abolished these guarantees and later on turned the NN prisoners over to the police on the demand of the Wehrmacht, shows the fundamental difference of Schlegelberger's ideas from these of his successor, which created an unbridgeable gulf between those twi men.
The secrecy regulations were indispensable. If it was seriously intended to a void tho execution of Hitler's decree and therefore the retention of the prisoners in police custody and thus to take the edge off tho decree, to use witness Lehmann's expressions, the secrecy of legal proceedings had to be put up with.
The following must probably be alone decisive for our evaluation of the defendant's conduct: Was it possible with other, easier methods than those in fact adopted, to avoid leaving the prisoners in the hands of the police? Could Schlegelberger deny this after careful examination of the situation? Were the procedural regulations, which were elaborated to the last details, only intended to guarantee secrecy? If we answer these questions in the affirmative, we must admit in his favor that he acted as his conscience had to tell him to act in this situation. I also take the liberty to refer to the legal point of view of presumptive consent on the part of the persons concerned, which was discussed in the beginning.
I now turn to the transfers of prisoners to the police, which happened outside the NN Decree; for this we must first define a clear time limit. For the case of the defendant Schlegelberger we have to exclude the transfers of anti-socials, Jews and Poles effected in virtue of the agreement between Thierack and Himmler, of 18 September 1942. The transfer incidents which occurred during Guertner's time and during the time that Schlegelberger was head of the office, are, it is true, not mentioned in the Indictment against Schlegelberger and therefore cannot be subject to the verdict of the Tribunal. In this connection, I refer to the statements on this question of procedure, in the judgment of Military Tribunal I. If I mention them nevertheless, it is because it will become clearly manifest what limited powers the Ministry of Justice had for exercising any influence, and especially how limited the powers of the Minister in charge were, and, furthermore, how tenaciously Schlegelberger exhausted all available possibilities to prevent such despotic acts.
In order to understand this matter fully, one must bear the following in mind: It is well-known that Hitler, as an auto-didact read an almost inconceivable amount of historical works from all parts of the world, and that from these he created an imaginary picture of his own powers; a picture which was in keeping with his hunger for power, and which was often just as false as he was deficient in education and an adequate knowledge of history. I consider it quite possible that he also came across tho English legal institution, according to which tho English Parliament is empowered to increase the severity of verdicts which have already been reached, to pronounce a judgment instead of the court, and even to pronounce the death sentence for an act which was not punishable at all, at the time it was committed. In this connection, I refer to quotations in my supplementary document book, Volume 1. This English legal institution, the bill of attainder, through the co-operation of the Upper and Lower Houses and of the king and through public discussion of the case, barred every kind of despotism.
but he consciously or unconsciously overlooked this point. He was merely interested in the sovereign act itself, and in it he saw the abstract possibility for an absolute ruler to intervene and make the judicial penal system more severe. It certainly made all the more impression upon him, since Prussian history presented him with further proof. The whole world knows that the autocratic Prussian King, Friedrich Wilhelm I, on his own authority, changed the sentence of imprisonment pronounced by a military court against Lieutenant von Katte, the friend of his son, the later Friedrich the Great, to a death sentence.
Only if one known this background, can one understand the stubbornness with which Hitler claimed the right to increase up to the limit of the law, the severity of judgments which had been pronounced by the courts and which did not make use of the full range of penalties under the law. It is only then that one can appreciate the efforts made by the Reich Ministry of Justice and Schlegelberger, while he was in change of the Ministry, to counteract such incidents of violence which he recognized to be illegal.
The Reich Ministry of Justice intervened in these transfer cases, and in all cases it attempted to prevent the giving over of convicted persons to the police, as has been described in detail by Defendant Schlegelberger himself and also by witnesses Joel, Meissner (English Transcript, Page 4617), Lammers, German Transcript, Page 5464 and the following and by Gramm, English Transcript, Page 4717 and the following. I believe that I can dispense with any repetition of this. The Tribunal will have gained a clean picture from the testimony, I shall therefore confine myself merely to emphasizing a few points which will prove Schlegelberger's persistent efforts.
First, it must be said that these were direct orders from Hitler who gave them to the police through administrative channels. In spite of this, and even though Guertner's previous attempts to persua 14 0ct.
-A-BK-22-2-Goldberg (Int. Hahn) de the dictator to change his mind, had failed, Schlegelberger tried everything to effect a change.
According to the testimony of Meissner, Schlegelberger visited him personally after he had found out about the first cases. He asked him to present a petition to Hitler again. Meissner complied with this request. At any rate, these representations were successful in that Hitler, referring to the personnel shortage caused by the war, in the penal institutions of the Ministry of Justice, and to the necessity for the prisoners to perform more intensive work, made it possible to send the condemned men to a concentration camp instead of executing them. He added, however, that in case they attempted to run away or to offer resistance, "short work" would have to be made of them. In this connection it should, be noted, that the announcement to the Reich Ministry of Justice of the order given to the police was to the effect that the person concerned was to be given over to the Gestapo. Testimony of Meissner - Transcript, Page 4619, English text.
Schlegelberger did not deem this sufficient but attempted to lay down a rule that no transfer order given to the police had to be carried out, as long as no report was submitted to Hitler by the Reich Ministry of Justice. As is shown by Prosecution Exhibit 206, Bormann thwarted this attempt. In a letter dated 16 May 1941, Exhibit 63, Schlegelberger asked Hitler to inform him in due time of the verdicts against which he had raised objections. In this way, there would be time to justify the verdicts. At first, this attempt promised to be successful. As Exhibit 64 shows, Scharf who had been convicted was actually saved by the Defendants report. Later, when the Reich Ministry of Justice was no longer informed in time, Schlegelberger embarked upon a different course.
His plan was that Hitler should delegate the right to which he laid claim, to the Reich Ministry of Justice or to the Oberlandesgerichtspraesidenten (Presiding Judges of the District Courts of appeals). The Presiding Judges would then confirm the judgments in Hitler's name, so that Hitler would not have to change them any more (Prosecution Exhibit 75). Bormann thwarted this plan as well.
The political background of this behavior on the part of the Party Chancellery was discussed in detail during the crossexamination of Defendant Klemm (Transcript, Pages 5125-5129, 5133 and 5154/5 of the English text).
Since all attempts on an individual basis to effect the recall of the order which had been given to the police, had failed, there was now actually no other way but to instruct the Authority for the execution of penal sentences to surrender the condemned men to the police, upon demand. What choice did he have? Should he have ordered the jail official to offer armed resistance to the police? Would not such an order - if the jail officials had at all attempted to carry it out - have been a completely useless sacrifice which could never have been justified? Witness Lammers has described the division of power in detail, and left no doubt that the police would have seized the convicted man, with force, if necessary. German Transcript, Page 5466, 5487/8. Hitler himself, considering such a violent opposition to the execution of his order, to be an attack against the sovereignty which he claimed would have avenged it bitterly not only against the person but against the institution, the judicial itself.
Certainly this would have meant the abolition of the judiciary in favor of a police system.
Here only a brief remark concerning the problem of protective custody.
Its application and execution lay exclusively in the hands of the police (Schlegelberger Exhibit 84). The judiciary administration failed in its efforts to insert a complaint system into the regular courts - somewhat after the example of the Prussian Protective Custody Law of 1916 (Schlegelberger Exhibit 82). Representation of persons in protective custody by an attorney could not be achieved either.
Equally without any success was the attempt to persuade the police to accept this by suggesting only attorneys from a selected list (Prosecution Exhibit 604).
The prosecution furthermore accused Schlegelberger of rendering more severe both legislation and the interpretation of law. My reply is as follows: The law of 4 September 1941 (Reichsgesetzblatt I, page 549), which was co-signed by Schlegelberger, and according to which the dangerous habitual criminals and sexual offenders became subject to the death penalty if the protection of the people or the demand for just revenue necessitated it -- this law is directed against everybody disregarding race or nationality. It concerned merely factual circumstances which became significant because of the habitual occurrence or the nature of the crime.
The expansion of the competency of penal law took place in 1940, that is at a time when Schlegelberger was not concerned with the penal law. Other colleagues will express themselves in detail in regard to the legal points of this new law.
If Schlegelberger, as shown by Prosecution Exhibit 72, quoted to the staff of his departments a passage from Hitler's Reichstag speech of 11 December 1941, it was a mere matter of administrative routine since the speech dealt with judicial matters. The detailed conditions are described by Schlegelberger's testimony.
The prosecution of so-called passive defeatism under the heading of high treason started only in 1943, thus after Schlegelberger's release from office.
It is not quite clear why the Prosecution has submitted Schlegelberger's decree concerning looting, dated 16 June 1942 (Prosecution Exhibit 560). Under no circumstances can it be rated as crime against humanity. If it was meant to characterize the defendant, then it must be said that it shows that in initiating the expediting of proceedings he merely took into account the increasing number of air 14 0ct.
-A-BK-22-5-Goldberg (Int. Hahn) raids frequently recurring in the same city day after day.
In these eases which mostly were perfectly straight forward there could be all the less objection to expedited proceedings in view of the simultaneous restriction of the tern "looting" in order to avoid excessive penalties.
The reasons for Schlegelberger's suggestion of provisions for more severe penalties for acts of preparation for treason (Prosecution Exhibit 76) have been explained by him in the witness-box. The law itself was decreed after his departure.
The erasure of the annulment entries in the penal register in cases of treason did not permit a new sentence but merely served for the control by the authorities of former traitors, a control particularly necessary at the time.
With regard, to the question of sterilization I must restrict myself, in accordance with the Tribunal's decision of 2 July 1947, to the question whether the law or its implementary regulations have been misused against any persons or groups of persons from racial, political or religious motives. As show by the hearing of witnesses this is out of the question. Witness for the Prosecution Schmitt who gave an affidavit in this case and who has been sterilized, as a chronic alcoholic (Prosecution Exhibit 505) was, according to his own statement, divorced for dipsomania. Thus, of all Prosecution witnesses there remains only witness Klees. This witness's statement that he had been unjustly sterilized owing to inadequate examination has been completely refuted by the detailed statement by witness Dr. Rosenau. Dr. Rosenau made made his statement on the strength of personal knowledge and the files of the Board of Health. Supported, by wide experiences he testified that the proceedings before the Bugenical Courts and Superior Eugenical Courts "were conducted in a fair manner, and in keeping with legal provisions". If he as a Jewish manager of the institution in which all feeble-minded and sychopathic Jews were accommodated, has arrived at this conclusion, this fact proves particularly clearly, beyond the complete refutation of the Prosecution's assertion concerned, the overlapping of jurisdiction and the basic difference with regard to judicial and police practice.