The documents NO 1021 Exh. 448 as well as NO-1015 Exh. 451 are also unsuited to bring about the proof desired by the prosecution Hohberg had, as he trustworthily stated nothing at all to do with the Russian brickyards nor with the Klinker Cement with regard to the acquisition or lease of new plants in the Government General. This correspondence was based on the fact that Pohl during a conference, as was his habit, put a letter into the hand of Dr. Hohberg who was obliged by contract to attend conferences with the request for dispatch to the agency in charge.
The next chapter is headed "The Reinhard Action".
Defendant Hohberg is furthermore accused of having cooperated in planning and accomplishment of the so-called Reinhard-Action and in the establishment of the Osti.
It is unnecessary to discuss the events comprised in the socalled Reinhard-Action. The facts of the case as explained by the prosecution cannot be generally repudiated in regard to the Reinhard Action. But the prosecution has been unable to prove, that the defendant Hohberg had any knowledge of this Action apart from the fact that he participated in it. The defendant Vogt arrived back from his examination in Lublin only in the middle of June 1943 and Pohl and Frank gained better information about the Reinhard Action only due to his report. Quite some time elapsed before the result of this examination at Lublin was evaluated and the examinationreport presented. But on the 30 June 1943 Hohberg had ceased to act in his capacity of Certified Public accountant for the German Economic Enterprises already so that it is practically impossible for him to have gained any knowledge about the Reinhard-Action.
The defendant also stated trustworthily that apart from the name, he had never heard anything about the Reinhard-Action. This conception "Reinhard", was during his activity at the German Economic Enterprises (DWB) only used in connection with the so-called Reinhard-Action. According to relative information gained from Frank, Hohberg was of the opinion that the Reinhardfunds concerned property capital carrying the name of Under Secretary Reinhard then active at the Reich Finance Ministry. This opinion of his was more firmly confirmed due to the fact that he knew from Frank that Reich capital was involved in the Reinhard-funds and that due to his activity at the Reich Finance Ministry he know the tasks and importance of Under-Secretary Reinhard very well.
The letter of the Klinker Zement G.m.b.H., Posen, addressed to the German Economic Enterprises (DWB) Exh. 451 presented by the prosecution in which this conception of the Reinhard-Action is mentioned cannot refute Hohbergs explanation. As there were hundreds of actions at that time connection of Reinhard's name with the conception of an action did not seem noteworthy at the time. The letter was addressed to the German Economic Enterprises (DWB). But from the connection in which this conception of the Rein hard-Action is used it cannot be deduced that the receiver of this could picture for himself what was really behind this action. Dr. Hohberg states, that he did not consciously register this conception mentioned once in the letter in his mind and that he was not concerned with the matter mentioned in the letter. With the companies managed by Dr. Bobermin, he had no connection anyhow as certified by Bobermin in a most conclusive manner. The Reinhard-Action was treated as a top secret of the Reich within the Economic and Administrative Main Office (WVHA) as shown by documents offered by the prosecution and concurring testimony of witnesses so that only the circle of persons directly and officially connected with it, could and did receive notice of it.
But according to his tasks as Certified Public accountant of the German Economic Enterprises Hohberg could never become a member of this circle. The transactions concerning the Reinhard funds were treated openly without any remark as to their confidential nature in so far as matters purely of the nature of commercial law permitted. In view of the fact that no blame can be attached to the defendant in regard to his knowledge about the Reinhard-Action nor as to the origin of the money deposited in the Reinhard funds, all document presented by the prosecution in this connection lose their value as evidence in regard to the defendant Hohberg.
From Document NO 554, Exh. 448 A it becomes evident that Hohberg negotiated with the co-defendant Frank. These negotiations aimed at the redeeming of several credits given to SS companies by the Red Cross from the Reinhard funds. The letter to Frank dated 7 June 1943 confirms Hohberg's opinion that in the case of the Reinhard funds it was a question of regular Reich capital, for in this letter Frank is required to remit 8 million RM as part payment "of the intended Reich credit". After the long drawn out unsuccessful credit negotiations of the German Economic Enterprises with the Reich Postal Ministry, Hohberg naturally enquired of Frank where this suddenly available money came from. Frank merely stated, that it was a question of Eastern-money and property of the German Reich of which Frank together with the Reich Minister of Finance were able to dispose. From the text of the later concluded loan agreement between the German Reich and the German Economic Enterprises it becomes evident that it was simply a question of a loan by the Reich (compare Document NO 3722 Exh.
689).
Hohberg did dedicate himself most intensively to the appropriation of credits from the Reinhard funds as soon from the document. This zeal was based on his intention to further the financial predominance of the Reich in the German Economic Enterprises in order to separate these enterprises from the SS by all means with regard to capital and power politics and place same under the jurisdiction of a Reich ministry on which the SS would not be able to exert any influence. As trustworthily stated by Hohberg it was further his aim to see to it that money coll by the Red-Cross did not come under the management of the SS. Neither do the documents offered in regard to the repayment of Red-Cross credits made at the insistence of Hohberg offer one single shred of evidence for the fact that Hohberg knew the true source of the money in the Reinhard-fund. Frank maintains that he had no exact information himself. How could Hohberg then who had no official connections with Frank have gained such information!
Neither can the conclusion be drawn from the prosecution's document NO 1039 Exh. 384 that Dr. Hohberg was informed about the real character of the Reinhard fund and thereby about the Reinhard-Action. The defendant had presented the documents with the remark "Unfinished work of Staff" to the business manager of the German Economic Enterprises according to the habit of a Certified Public Accountant, at his resignation on entering the army, as a recommendation. Under number 17 the following has to be pointed out:
"The contract between the Reich and the German Economic Enterprises with regard to the loan from the Reinhardfund has to be established yet in a written form." The defendant merely knew that Reich capital was involved in the Reinhard-fund. In order to make liquid assets of this loan one was forced to conclude a loan agreement between the Reich and the German Economic Enterprises. The possible inference that this remark is proof of the defendant's knowledge in regard to the actual source of the Reinhard-fund is therefore in no way justified.
Now there is an entirely new chapter.
Hohberg's participation in the Reinhard-Action had neither been proved by the documents referring to the founding and development of the Osti. For Hohberg had no in the founding and development of the Osti. At a conferee with Pohl to which he had suddenly been called unprepared, Hohberg had, as he states himself, only heard the following in regard to the reasons for the founding of the Osti:
Pohl had received orders from Himmler to make an inventory of machines and stocks lying in empty factory buildings in Warsaw and to utilize same as trustee for the benefit of the German Reich. Approximately at the same time an agreement had been reached between Globocnik, Pohl and Himmler to the effect that a number of enterprises in the Government General as far as administered by Globocnik without legal authority, were to be placed in charge of Pohl and that for this reason a new company was to be founded. It was Himmler's plan besides, to transfer several shut-down Warsaw plants to Penjatewa or somewhere else and operate them within the frame-work of the Osti itself.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Heim, we are going to take a recess.
You have had just an hour and we are going to take five minutes for the interpreter's voice to recover. We will resume at 4:30, and then you will conclude at five o'clock. We will take five minutes recess now.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal will recess for 5 minutes.
(A recess was taken).
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
DR. HEIM (ATTORNEY FOR DEFENDANT HOHBERG): Then follow statements about the Osti. That portion of the argument concerning Hobberg's attempt to discontinue his activity as an auditor, I shall ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of, by reading them. I shall continue on page 56 of the German text in the middle.
As the evidence, in accordance with my demonstration so far, has shown, the defendant had no part with what constitutes here the subject of the indictment. Already at the beginning, Dr. Hohberg, in his urge to recognize the true fact of the SS, had managed to inform himself about circumstances and doings in concentration camps. He had, therefore, while still engaged in his position known about criminal acts in concentration camps.
Has Hohberg now become punishable by not preventing these crimes, although he had knowledge of them. Criminal responsibility is to be assumed only if Hohberg had the possibility and power to prevent these crimes. The defendant had this opportunity exactly as little as the common man in German. He had no rank or position whatsoever in the machinery of the state or in the Party organization, which would have given him the possibility successfully to oppose these crimes.
To what extent were the actions of the defendant consistent with his knowledge and beliefs?
In the beginning he had little cause. The Inspectorate of the concentration Camps, till 1942, was no part of the WVHA. Whatever disagreeable accounts of treatment of inmates came to Hehbergs ears, they were not based on accurrences in enterprises employing inmates, but had happened in the concentration camps. Hohberg was busy enough trying to direct, by suitable proposals, the unlawful conditions in the concerns into orderly channels which confermed with commercial law. As a consequence he refused to gave the balance confirmation certificate to all those companies, mostly users of inmate labor, the balances of which were incorrect, especially regarding the amount of inmate labor compensation to be paid to the Reich.
During the time that Dr. May was employed in the DWB Concern, Hohberg had no cause to relinquish his position as creditor. For Dr. May had induced Pohl to put through a great social program, the socalled "Heimatgestaltungsprogram" (home improving program), which conformed exactly with the trend of social ideas of the defendant. Inmate labor was positively excluded in this program.
Because of his firm stand against Party and SS, the defendant, already at this early date, took care that the DWB Concern could not be used to finance any plans of the SS. To begin with, he caused the administration of DWB to make all property which had no legal form, into commercially registered companies, e.g. DAW Dachau. Then, it was no longer possible for the SS to use up the capital without violating strict rules of commercial law, e.g. the so-called "Closed year".
But Hohberg went further yet. He induced Pohl to increase the capital of the Holding Company DWB out of undoubted Reich funds, such an extent that DWB, which was till then a Party concern, now had a capital stock majority held by the Reich. This was of decisive significance as the Party and the Reich-Treasure of the NSDAP, Schwarz, gave the SS a free hand in the administration of the so-called enterprises, and this state of affairs was bound to charge whenever these companies, then falsely designated as SS enterprises, became the property of the Reich. From then on Pohl, in his administration of the Concern, was bound to observe the ordinances then in force regarding the administration of Reich concerns. It was impossible for him in his position as partner of DWB, which he held from then on in trusteeship for the benefit of the Reich, to dispose of the profit in favor of SS purposes, after the capital had be increased to 16 Mill. RM(l7 May 1943), the Reichsfinanzminister (Reich Secretary of the Treasury), had exclusive control of capital and profit of the entire concern. I would have liked to see Himmler's fact had he realized the result of Hohberg's activity, since he himself, used to speak so proudly of his SS-undertakings.
The anti-Party attitude of the defendant took on a new radical trend as a result of a trip to Poland in June 1942 with Dr. May, the firms group head of the wood working plants. It was based on personal impressions gained in the neighbourhood of concentration camps and resulted in manifold reactions.
Next came the efforts of the defendant to get away from the SS environment by being drafted into the army. As his so-called draft deferment was caused by Pohl, a general, the recruiting office was ready to draft the defendant into the Air Force only after Pohl had cancelled the deferment.
When he did not succeed at once in being drafted in to the army, the defendant tried with his energy to get in contact with active circles of resistance. In spite of the greatest efforts he did not succeed as well as he wished. But he was at least introduced to an indistrialist by the name of Passmann, where members of several active anti-fascist circles of resistance, above all officers of the High Command of the Army Forces, met with more or less regularity to exchange experiences, places and news. The person of Herr Passmann was especially interesting his professional and social connections brought him constantly in contact with high-ranking generals and ministerial offices. In this circle the defendant unreservedly exposed the criminal way of treatment of Jews and political prisoners and, according to Passmann's own treatment, contributed to the information of a series of people who were victims of the attempted open revolt of 20 July 1944.
Not only in this circle , but also in front of other reliable third persons, did the defendant carry on his anti-Nazi propaganda. He informed influential persons of the economic life of the men constituting the economic background of Himmler by obtaining a list of the circle of friends of the Reichsfuehrer, the so-called Keppler Circle, and by passing it on as a warning so to speak. He decided stand against the SS system and the National Socialist regime expressed itself through manifold revolutionary propaganda in front of third persons.
The defendant, however, was not satified with the mere remocal of the DwB concern as a financial source of the SS. With means he strove for the actual removal of this huge economic asset from the sphere of politics of the SS and its transfer to the Reich.
This transaction was not immediately realized because Hohberg's successor as auditor of the DwB concern, the CP A Dr. Richard Karoly, whom the defendant had informed fully about the facts concerning the ownership of the DWB in spite of his position as head of the auditing association of Germany, did not draw the conclusion which were selfevident. He preferred, as SS-Fuehrer, not to acquaint the Economic Ministry of the Reich with the facts concerning the ownership of the DWB concern. However, the defendant had already, at an earlier state deposited documents containing facts and figures with the Dresdner Bank in Berlin, to be able to prove the legal necessity for the transfer of the DWB concern to the Reich at the opportune time when such an action would not automatically entail the destruction of the defendant for behavior detrimental to the SS. These documents, which had been deposit at a Berlin bank, were taken away by the Occupation Force.
The statements of the defendant relating to this are proved to be true by the fact that one of the most important documents saved by the defendant was seized in his apartment at the time of his arrest. It is Document Hohberg, NO 78, Exhibit 73, Document Book Hohberg, II page 23.
Regarding the date for the transfer to the Reich, there was no hurry, for the defendant had the material in his hand to start the ball rolling at any time. This is the meaning to be given the statements of the defendant in his own affidavit, where he speaks of being the only man with the power to do something against Pohl.
After Hohberg finally and fortunately was able to determine his activity as auditor of DWB by being drafted to the Air Force, he did not stop his propaganda against the National Socialist system. Too deeply rooted was his conviction that the National Socialist system.
was ripe for destruction. He opened the eyes of his comrades to the inmate emptiness and the true face of the National Socialist state. In a rader unit in France he succeeded in organizing a radical, political unit in France he succeeded in organizing a radical, political and anti-Party circle of friends, whose influence grew daily.
The Prosecution interpreted it as inconsequential that the defendant, being already a soldier, yet signed an adviser's contract with DWB. One purpose of the contract was the establishment of security for the family of Hohberg in case he should be killed in the war. But Hohberg also planned to remain active later on as adviser of the DwB concern but not as an adviser of an SS concern or the WVHA, (SS Main Economic and Administrative Office,) was entirely excluded. Removing the influence of the SS in the DWB concern was, by means of the documentary material deposit in the Dresdner Bank, only a question.
The temporarily discontinued contact of the defendant with Pohl at the turn of 1944-1945 was for the purpose of regaining for Hohberg's friend, Dr. May, some influence in his plant, Butschovitz, from which he had been forcibly removed it cannot be considered as a sign of inconscient behavior by the defendant towards the SS.
CONCLUSION.
This shows the consistent thinking and acting of a man who always, internally as well as externally, remained aloof of National Socialism and the SS. In one point, however, the defendant distinguished himself from the thinking and acting of many a German who also remained aloof from National Socialism. At a time when it was not yet certain that Germany would be defeated the defendant, recognizing the grave dangers imminent by Himmler's plans, took the only feasible way of active interference and did not go in hiding, sulking and waiting. He brought part of a cross section of National Socialist endeavors under his own critical and professional control and did his share to successfully and materially damage and limit the predominance of the SS.
He has done so without hiding or camouflaging his contradictory political and philosophical viewpoint and without regard to personal safety.
And now, Honorables Judges of this Tribunal, write your name under a decision that will be raised as an expression of justice and law. Put your name under a judgment that does justice to the defendant in regard to his deeds, under a verdict that shows appreciation for the uncompromising fight of the defendant against the SS and the National Socialist system. Acquit the defendant Hohberg of any part of the indictment.
THE PRESIDENT: You still have ten minutes. You don't want it? Good!
Counsel for the defendant Pook, please.
DR. RATZ: ( for the defendant Dr. Hermann Pook):
May it please the Tribunal, above this trial is written the words "Concentration Camp." This word is a horrible sounding letmotiv of this trial which is constantly heard in every session and which would like to rise above every word of the defendants, their witnesses, and their defense counsel. There rarely has been a trial in which it was more difficult for the defendant to reach the ear of the judge with his assurance: "I did not know that. I did not take part in such crimes. I am innocent." A special reason for this is that the Prosecution has, to express it in this way, drawn a double circle around every defendant. The defendant Hermann Pook is individually held responsible for the removal of dental gold from the deceased prisoners and for alleged cruel acts, supposed to have been perpetrated in the field of dentistry by the camp dentists, who technically, were subordinate to him. But apparently he is also charged with a kind of joint responsible for the fact that he was active at all in the Economic and Administrative Main Office. In this way he is obviously supposed to be made criminally punishable for the system of concentration camps as such, and for such criminal actions *** ditions in the concentration camps for which a criminal guilt of this defendant cannot be determined according to the tradional rules of criminal law.
In the name of the Defendant Dr. Hermann Pook I take the following position towards the prosecution:
I.
To modern, liberal, democratic thinking the fact that the prisoners were sent to the concentration camps without previous legal judgment - but on the decision of the police, not only seems morally reprehensible, but also criminal. However, when criticizing this procedure it should not be overlooked that a differentiation must be made between unlawful and, thus, criminal arbitary action by the police and free police decision on a legal basis. Of course, the guarantee of law is greatest when an independent court decides on the deprivation of liberty. If this, however, is carried out by another state authority according to its legally sanctioned judgment, such a procedure does, to a certain degree, deviate more or less from the ideal of the legal state, the procedure can for that reason not yet be designated as criminal.
The legal basis for "protective custody", and thus for the concentration camps, was created by the decree of the Reich president for the Protection of People and State, of 28 February 1933, which invalidated numerous basic rights of the Weimar Constitution, such as the right of personal freedom, the right to freely express an opinion, the right of the freedom of the press, the right of assembly, the secrecy of the mail and telegrams, etc. Thus the police, especially the political police, were enabled to combat so-called endeavors inimical to the state through deprivation of freedom in the form of so-called protective custody and internment in concentration camps.
Through the decree by the Reich Minister of the Interior of 12 to 26 April 1934, directives were issued which were to guarantee the uniform handling of protective custody in the entire territory of the Reich by avoiding abuses and arbitrary acts.
It is neither my assignment nor my intention to defend in any way the system of concentration camps as a policy. But it can probably bot be disputed that this system, in the way it has been presented, had just an or simple as unobjectionable legal basis. The defendants could not only rely with good reason on the legal unobjectionability. They lived with the ideology of the so-called totalitarian states; they had been indoctrinated with untouchability of the power of the state as the highest moral possession, to endanger the existence or the interests of the state was a political crime. Obedience and subordination to the state was the highest duty, and any rebellion appeared to be a guilt intensified to the highest degree by the natioanlistic emotional values. It is my conviction that it cannot be considered a crime of the defendants that they recognized those ideas as correct because it was the idea of the state, and the concept of the state was that the so-called "political enemy" had to be taken into police custody in the interest of the state. In Germany - in the first years of the Hitler regime, one wondered about the legality of the concentration camps. Frequently very conscientious people gave up their last misgivings, when they thought of the fact that no lesser nation than the English had used the institution of the concentration camps already during the Boer War 1900-1902, a long time before National Socialism, and one frequently recalled the words of the Elder Pitt, the British statesman, who already more than one hundred years ago declared : "If justice were strictly preserved the power of no country would outlast the sun of one day."
Thus, serious legal doubts about, the legality of the institution of the concentration camps did, as noted, barely rise to the surface. It was assumed that the authoritarian state which arose again within the authoritarian state could not do without police detention in a modern form for its protection and safety. It was known that, already in ancient Rome, the troublesome disturbers of peace were held in detention in the Tullianum by the Magistrate, not for punishment but for the preservation of general safety and order and that this was the procedure in the police state of absolutism everywhere in Europe.
This retrogression to the methods of antiquity and the Middle Ages did seem doubtful, but did not have to be regarded Ages did seem doubtful, but did not have to be regarded as criminal as long as during the detention the old maxim of the medieval poet Sebastian Brandt was observed: "Only to detain, not to torture."
The question is whether, with regard to the legality of protective custody and the institution of concentration camps, a different concept of judgment has to enter into the question in the case of foreign prisoners, prisoners sent to the concentration camps from countries occupied by Germany. With regard to this following statements of international law are made:
By the occupation bellica Germany received the actual mastery over the occupied countries and had the right of authority as in its own territory. While, according to the former concept of international law, the occupant could rule without control unmindful of right and law, the new development of international law removed the principle of power and aided the principle of humanity and culture to be victorious. Thus the former unlimited power was transformer into the limited right of the occupying force and especially the Hague convention of Land Warfare established the legal duties of the occupying forces. But the convention of Land Warfare does not set individual rights for the occupying force, but it only sets up boundaries of the per se unlimited rightts of the occupying force for the exercise of all authorities arising from the sovereignty to command in the occupied territory.
Thus, the following basic principle of international law results: Measures taken by the occupational force in the occupied territory are legal insofar as legal maxims of international, law of warfare which can be proved do not oppose them. Thus the assumption speaks for the authority of the occupying force to exercise unlimited all these authorities arising from the sovereignty to give orders. According to the uniform concept of the experts on international law, the occupying force acts in the interest of his own conduct of war, as well as for the protection of the civilian population in the territories occupied by virtue of inmate law only granted by international law and determined by its content. The inhabitants of the occupied territory no longer are obliged to obey the enemy sovereign, but the occupiyng force - the will of the occupying force is the ruling and decisive one in the occupied territory, the occupiyng force is the executor of is own will; for the exercise of its right of sovereignty only its own interests are decisive. Therefore, it is permitted to act against the interests of the enemy state.
According to this, it is my opinion that no doubt can exist that, with regard to its political police authorities in the occupied countries, the German Reich had no loss authority there than in its own country so that also the sentencing to protective of foreigners who were under its power cannot legally be judged ether than the sentencing to protective custody of German citizens.
I would like now to bring up the question whether, and under what presuppositions, protective custody can be adjudged criminal.
Today we are clearly conscious of the fact that any deprivation of freedom, thus also protective custody in concentration camps, can be carried out in various ways. One can differentiate between three steps:
(1) Humane and just from by preserving the human dignity of the prisoner;
(2) Illegality and degradation to the level of slaves especially abandonment to the arbitrary desire of the supervisory official and lack of care for the necessary and even primitive needs of life;
(3) degradation of the prisoner below this low point and making him the object of individual and systematic crimes.
The prosecution maintains that the fate of the prisoners in the Concentration Camps generally and always was on steps 2 and 3, and for this reason alone, the defendants have to be punished for active participation in the system of crime.
In reference to this I would, first of all, like to say the following: The loss of freedom must not necessarily mean a total loss for the prisoner in the sense that, with his arrival in the institution or camp, he must lose every human right of existence and any human dignity. The loss of freedom always means conditions of his civilian life; the loss was partly made up by the government taking care of part of the conditions for life of the prisoner, for instance, it care for shelter, for clothes and food, even if everything was much more primitive than in the civilian life of the prisoner. If, in addition to that, the prisoner was given or granted a number of possibilities and rights, his existence could not simply be considered slavery, his detention cannot be considered a crime against humanity.
The limits of slavery are not passed if the regulations on the legal position of the prisoners recognized by all civilized nations are observed. Here I would like only to mention the German principles for the execution of prison sentences from 7 June 1923.
The assertion of the prosecution that the concentration camp is an "institution of force, mass crimes and human depravity" would be correct if it were certain that, principally and generally, the treatment of the prisoners had been brutal, the shlter miserable, the clothing so little that it was a danger to health, the food miserable and below the minimum necessary for life; - - if, in addition, it were certain that, principally and generally, the prisoners were tortured and killed, that they were worked to death, and that there was practically no escaping death from exhaustion or hunger or the gas chamber.
If, in addition, the Prosecution maintains that all defendants were essentially connected with the concentration camps, the existence and management of which alone necessarily included murder, atrocities, tortures, slavery and other inhuman acts, I must maintain the following in contradiction:
1. The system of the concentration camps did, according to its basic arrangements and form, not oass beyond the framework of the forementioned regulations.
2. The crimes committed in the concentration camps wither on individuals or mass crimes ordered wither by highest authority or committed indendently by lower officials - had perhaps become systematized - but certainly only partially. These crimes, however, had not been identical with the system of concentration camps.
3. As far as the defendant Herrmann Pock is concerned I dare to assert that he himself had absolutely no essential connection with the concentration camp system - that is, with that which is essential and typical for a concentration camp. His dental stations were nothing more than dental stations, and just as one cannot reproach a factory dentist, that he had any essential connection with the factory and is responsible for the methods of production or business management; just as one cannot reproach a school dentist that he is essentially connected with the shool and that he is responsible for what is, and what is not, taught in the school - that is why one cannot reproach the dentist Dr. Pook with the fact that he had essential connection with the concentration camps.
THE PRESIDENT: I want to ask a question, please, to see weather we understood you correctly. Is it your contention that an occupying power has a right, if it wishes, to imprison an entire civil population of the occupied country, in concentration camps if it believes it is necessary for security, and that that would be in accord with international law?
DR. RATZ: Your Honor, by quoting international law literature on this subject, I only stated that the occupant in an occupied territory has the same right towards the population of the occupied territory as he has towards his own citizens in his own country; and I have also stated that for this reason to impose protective custody on citizens of the occupied territory is not contrary to law, and that it is to be considered the same as protective custody of a German citizen. It is far from me to claim that the occupying power has the right to commit all citizens of an occupied country to concentration camps without any reason.
THE PRESIDENT: Suppose that the reason given is for security?