THE PRESIDENT: We hear no objection; the document will be admitted in evidence.
MR. LAFOLLETTE: The next exhibit, which will be number 20 when offered, is document No. 778, at page 56 of book 1-A: Excerpt from the speech held by Frank in Berlin on 3 October 1936 concerning "Jewry in the field cf law", published in Dokumente der Deutschen Politik, Vol. IV, page 225. I read from page 56:
"As leader of the German legal profession and as leader of the German lawyers, as President of the Academy for German law and as Reich leader of the Legal Office cf the NSDAP, I declare the following on the occasion of the opening of this congress:
"First: For all future time it will be impossible that Jews will act in the name of German law.
"Second: The German legal science will be reserved for German men. The word German is to be interpreted in conformity with the racial legislation of the Third Reich.
"Third: There is no need whatsoever for the re-editing of German legal works written by Jewish authors. All German publishers will immediately cease to publish such new editions.
"Fourth: The works of Jewish authors are to be removed from all public or study libraries whenever this is at all possible. Those works are no longer to be included under the various headings of German legal science and are to be transferred to those divisions of the libraries which illustrate the activities of the Jews and of the Jewish people. The legal publications of Jewish authors have nothing whatsoever to do with German legal science. Such works are merely the opinions of alien legal observers in connection with German legal ideas and . German legal facts. In the future, members of the German legal profession will cite Jewish authors only in such cases in which such citations are absolutely necessary, in order to illustrate or demonstrate typically Jewish mentality. It will be impossible in the future for German legal teachings to be based in any way whatever on the teachings of Jewish legal theories."
That is the excerpt, and all I care to read from that document, which I offer to introduce into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit No. 20.
THE PRESIDENT: We hear no objections; the document will therefore be admitted in evidence.
MR. LAFOLLETTE: The next exhibit will be No. 21, which will be document No. 538. It appears on page 59 of book 1-A. This document is a lecture at the University of Rostock for the 13th of February, 1936, by Dr. Franz Schlegelberger, Undersecretary in the Reich Ministry of Justice. The publisher of this work was Franz Vahlen, Berlin W-9. This is the defendant Dr. Franz Schlegelberger in this cass.
I shall read from page 67 and 68 of the English document book, beginning at the bottom of page 67:
"In the sphere of criminal law the road to a creation of justice in harmony with the moral concepts of the new Reich has been opened up by a new wording of Section 2 of the Criminal Code, whereby a person is also to be punished even if his deed is not punishable according to the law, but if he deserves punishment" -
I beg your pardon. Isn't it coming through?
THE PRESIDENT: No, it hasn't been coming through. Just a moment, while we check.
MR. LA FOLLETTE: I will go back. I am reading from the bottom of page 67, of the English paging of document book No. 1-A. This is the defendant Schlegelberger's speech, which has previously been referred to, given on the 10th of March, 1936:
"In the sphere of criminal law the read to a creation of justice in harmony with the moral concepts; of the new Reich has been opened up by a new wording of Section 2 of the Criminal Code, whereby a person is also to be punished even if his deed is not punishable according to the law, but if he deserves punishment in accordance with the basic concepts of criminal law and the sound instincts of the people.
This new definition became necessary because of the rigidity of the norm in force hitherto."
That is all I care to read from that document, Your Honor. I now offer it as Prosecution Exhibit No. 21, it being document No. 538, in bock 1-A.
THE PRESIDENT: Inasmuch as only a portion of it has been read, it is the right of defense counsel to read such other portions as they may desire to read in connection with this document.
MR. LAFOLLETTE: I assume, Your Honor, that that is when the defense puts in their case in chief, and not at this time.
THE PRESIDENT: Wait a moment. It is the feeling of the Tribunal that if defense counsel feel that there are other portions of a document which should be read in connection with that portion which the Prosecution reads that they would have that right, but we will not inquire each time. If they feel that there is something they want to have read, another portion of the document, please indicate at the time the document is offered.
We hear no request for having other portions of the document read. The document will therefore be admitted.
DR. KUBUSCHOK: I do not wish to read anything from the document.
MR. LA FOLLETTE: Document No. 840 found at Page 79, Document Book 1-A will when formally offered, become Prosecution Exhibit No. 22. I read from that document now. This is an excerpt from Hitler's speech of the 13th of July 1934, Voelkischer Beobachter, 15 July 1934. This was after the Roehm purge.
"Under these circumstances, I could make only one decision. If the damage could be prevented at all, I had to act with lightening speed. Only ruthless and bloody action could, perhaps, still quell the spread of the revolt, and there could be no question that it would be better to annihilate a hundred rebels, plotters and conspirators than tens of thousands of innicent SA men on the one side, and tens of thousands of equally innocent men on the other.
"MUTINIES ARE BROKEN ACCORDING TO THE SAME ETERNAL IRON LAWS
"Whenever someone reproaches me with not having used ordinary court for their sentencing, I can only say: In this hour, I am responsible for the fate of the German nation and hence the supreme law lord of the German people. Mutinous Divisions have always been put in order again by means of decimation. Only one State did not make use of its articles of war, and this State, as the result, collapsed; it was Germany. I did not wish to deliver the new Reich to the fate of the old.
"I have given the order to shoot those who were mainly responsible for this treason, and I further gave the order to burn out, down to the raw flesh those festering sores which poison our Country internally and also poison foreign opinion.
"And, furthermore, I gave the order to shoot down the mutineers whenever they made any attempt to resist their arrest.
The nation must know that its existence, which is guaranteed by its internal order and security, will not be threatened with impunity by anyone. It must know, for all future times, that whoever raises his hand to strike a blow to the State is fated to die a certain death.
"WHOEVER RISES AGAINST GERMANY IS A TRAITOR.
"Whoever commits treason shall not be punished according to be extent and magnitude of his deed, but according to the mental attitude which it displays. Whoever undertakes to create mutiny by violating faith and holy promises, can expect to be the first victim. I do not have the intention to shoot the small culprits and to let the big ones go.
"In order to prevent that political passion and indignation might lead to lynch justice against some of the incriminated persons, strict orders were given already on Sunday, July 1, after the danger had been removed and the revolt could be regarded as having been quelled, that all further retributive action had ceased. Thus, normal conditions have been reestablished since the evening of Sunday, July 1. A number of deeds of violence, which are not connected with these mutinies, will be handed over to the regular Courts."
I now offer to introduce into evidence Prosecution Exhibit No. 22, which is Document No. 840 found in Book 1-A.
THE PRESIDENT: We hear no objection. It may therefore be admitted in evidence.
MR. LA FOLLETTE: Prosecution's Exhibit No. 23 will be Document No. 417 at Page 83 - beginning at Page 82 of Document Book 1-A.
The Court will permit me just a minute. It may save some time. This is a speech - a report on the speech of Reichsminister Dr. Goebbels before the members of the People's Court cf Justice on 22 July 1942.
"Reich Minister Dr. Goebbels stated at the outset that he had been asked by President Thierack to address the members of the highest German Court of Justice. He had gladly complied with this request. What he had to say had a special political aspect owing to the Fuehrer's approval cf his comments, the draft of which he had submitted to the Fuehrer.
"The civil servants of the administration of justice had, owing to the nature of their work, always been subject to public criticism. Also to-day decisions of the courts were criticized and called alien to the spirit of the German people. One must not reply to the reproach that justice had failed by pretesting that always only certain cases of wrong decisions had been singled out and the great number of the good and correct judgments had been disregarded. We are dealing here with a principle i.e. cf a wrong attitude cf many judges who could not redeem themselves from their old ways of thinking. The one-sided teachings at the universities are to be blamed for it to a considerable extent and also the fact that the judge lived secluded in his professional surroundings and knew too little of life itself. Decisions alien to the spirit of the German people had, however, very detrimental effects especially during war time. All must be done to remedy the situation before it is too late for justice. No professional men except the judges had heretofore had the guarantee cf being irremovable. Even Generals could be removed. A powerful state could not renounce the right to remove officers unsuitable for their office because of inaptness or other reasons. This had to apply to the judge as well. The idea of the irremovable judges, he went on to say, originated in an alien intellectual world, hostile to the German people.
"The Minister then referred to individual judgments that nowadays were unbearable. He cited in the first instance the case of the Jew Leo SKLAREK (in the Minister's speech stated by error as the case of "Barmat"). He could not understand that this notorious Jewish profiteer, who after his emigration to Prague had been a spy, had only been sentenced to 8 years' penal servitude (the judgment of the People's Court of Justice of 16/4/1942 was delivered for having incited to commit high treason, based on Par. 92 of the Penal Code). The judgment which the Court of Eichstaedt had delivered in the case of a man, killed in action in the East, having been insulted, were also untenable. woman who upon receipt of the news of his death had uttered: "Thank God" had been acquitted by reason of impossible justification. The Minister also referred to MOELDER's letter.
"While making his decisions the judge had to proceed less from the law than from the basic idea that the offender was to be eliminated from the community. During a war it was not so much a matter of whether a judgment was just or unjust but only whether the decision was expedient. The state must ward off its internal foes in the most efficient way and wipe them out entirely. The idea that the judge must be convinced of the defendant's guilt must be discarded completely. The purpose of the administration of the law was not in the first place retaliation or even improvement but maintenance of the state. One must not proceed from the law but from the resolution that the man must be wiped cut. The criminal must know beforehand that he will lose his head, should he assault the foundations of the state. These drastic measures must not be left to offices outside of justice but are the duty of justice. The big sacrifices of life which must be made by the best part of the people during the war give us a special reason to treat the offender with ruthlessness. We must bear in mind that during the winter 1941/42 every criminal had had better billets in the prisons than 3 1/2 million of German soldiers. Today we have an entirely different conception of certain offenses which in normal times would not have been considered serious at all, but are now regarded as deserving death penalty; (theft during an air-raid alarm, robbery of hand-bags during black-cut hours; heavy penalties in cases of listening to foreign wireless stations; this action being mental self-mutilation). The justice ridiculed itself by placarding summons to missing persons prior to their being pronounced dead, as everybody knew the missing person in the East or even in any enemy's country could not report at all.
"In this connection the Minister went on to speak about the Jewish problem. He went on to say that if still more than 40,000 Jews whom we considered enemies of the state could freely go about in Berlin, this was solely due to the lack of sufficient means of transportation. Otherwise the Jews would have been in the East long ago. Officers of Justice must recognize their political task also while attending to the Jews. To feel sorry for them would be a blunder. It was an untenable situation that still today a Jew could protest against the charge of a President of the Police who was an old party member and a high SS-Leader. The Jew should not be granted any legal remedy at all nor any right of protest.
"In his final comments the Minister pointed out again that the state must apply all means to ward off its foes at home and abroad. During a war it was therefore necessary that the idea of the expedient decision took the first place in justice. The people had to be possessed with the will of absolute self-maintenance.
He recalled the words which on January 30, 1933, the Fuehrer had said to him on their way from the 'Kaiserhof' to the Chancellory of the Reich upon entering the Chancellory, "Nobody will ever get me out of here alive."
"After this speech President Theirack expressed his thanks to the Minister for his fundamental comments, said that the Minister had greatly assisted him once before and asked him to repeat his inciting and directing instructions also in the future."
The Prosecution now offers into evidence Prosecutor's Exhibit 23.
THE PRESIDENT: We hear no objection, therefore, the document will be admitted into evidence.
MR LaFOLLETTE: I refer now, Your Honors, to Document Number 752, Page 85 of Document Book 1-A. This will be Prosecution Exhibit No. 24.
"Extract from "Voelkischer Beobachter," South German Edition A, Page 3, Number 117, 27 April 1942."
This is a speech by Hitler.
"I do expect one thing: That the nation gives me the right to intervene immediately and to take action myself wherever a person has failed to render unqualified obedience and service in the performance of the greater task which is a matter of to be or not to be. The front and the homeland, the transport system, administration and justice must obey only one idea, that of achieving victory. In times like the present, no one can insist on his established rights, but everyone must know that today there are only duties.
"I therefore ask the German Reichstag to confirm expressly that I have the legal right to keep everybody to his duty and to cashier or remove from office or position without regard for his person or his established rights, whoever, in my view and according to my considered opinion, has failed to do his duty."
I will now go further down on the same page, 85, to the paragraph following "Page 2 of Original," beginning with "Furthermore."
"Furthermore, I expect the German legal profession to understand that the nation is not here for them but that they are here for the nation, that is, the world, which includes Germany, must not decline in order that formal law may live, but Germany must live irrespective of the contradictions of formal justice. From now on, I shall intervene in these cases and remove from office those judges who evidently do not understand the demand of the hour."
The prosecution wished to offer in evidence Prosecution Exhibit Number 24 which is Document Number 752.
THE PRESIDENT: We hear no objection. The document will there fore be admitted in evidence.
MR. LaFOLLETTE: NG-275 is found at page 87 of Document Book Number 1-A and will be offered as Prosecution Exhibit Number 25. I shall read only as marked, from Pages 97 to 103. will begin with Page 97 of the English Document Book, the first grammatical paragraph following the the insert, "Page 14 of Original." It is at the bottom of the page. It begins with," I shall now talk about another problem of a practical nature, a wartime problem, a problem which at least during the month has become particularly important."
JUDGE BRAND: Not "During the month" but "during the war."
MR. LaFOLLETTE: "During the war" is correct. I might also say that this speech was made at a mass meeting at the M.S.D.A.P. on the fifth of January, 1943 in Breslau. This fact appears on Page 87 of the English Document Book.
"I shall now talk about another problem of a practical nature, a wartime problem, a problem which at least during the war has become particularly important. I call it the problems of the asocial. It has been solved. I should like to start from the very beginning so that you can understand it: since 1933, our government has been striving to create a physically and mentally healthy youth and healthy nation. We have achieved by the laws protecting hereditary health (Erbgesundheitsgesetze) that people not worthy of having offspring will not have children.
Every young couple wanting to get married must submit a health certificate. We have achieved by the laws for the protection of the race (Rassenschutz) that the German people do not mix with Jews anymore and do not beget inferior descendants. All these ideas help our people to recover physically and mentally. The National Socialist government also had, since 1933, fought against habitual and professional criminals with absolute severeness and harshness. The problem became a burning one during the war. We must be clear that war not only brings with it a positive selection but also a negative one. A positive selection; Those who like myself, took part in the First World War and have also participated in this war know that in a unita company, a battery, a detail--it was always the same men who volunteered whenever there was a special operation, an assault detachment or a dangerous patrol. They were the idealists of the company, of the battery, of the detail, of the battalion. Naturally, these men were the first to fall. For indeed, war releases unsuspected forces in a nation, but at the same time, the inexorable fate of war sweeps away the best first of all."
Perhaps Your Honors are as tired as I am.
THE PRESIDENT: Could you pause at this moment?
MR. LaFOLLETTE: I could pause at this moment and pick up again.
THE PRESIDENT: We will take a recess for 15 minutes at this time.
(Short recess taken.)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
MR. LA FOLLETTE: I am reading from Document No. 273, Document Book No. 1-A, page 98, the eleventh sentence from the top of the page in the English translation, beginning as follows:
"But while our best men are on the front, protect the nation, and try to achieve at the cost of their own lives the goals that the authorities of the country arc obliged to pursue in order to preserve the life of that people, we have here at home, in the prisons, people who have been sentenced to life imprisonment, to fifteen years, to ten years, to five years in prison, who are not sent to the front and thus save their lives. Fellow citizens, that must not be. It is not acceptable that on the front the idealist comes to his death while in the interior of the country all the rabble of inferior value is preserved. I will give you an example: if during winter I should issue a decree in a prison where people are kept in order to safeguard the community, that is to say asocial rabble: "Those inmates are now to sleep on plank beds, outside in the prison courtyard", for two weeks and they freeze, the whole people would consider me as a criminal, and rightly so. I cannot do that, I am not allowed to. But the same people understands that our soldiers should sleep outside at -30 to -40 degrees F. without any protection, in the winter steppes of Russia. Here is a discrepancy which must disappear. And therefore I have seen to it that those people shall no longer be employed for any sort of work that is not dangerous. The most dangerous tasks are just the thing that is for them. Now today, when thousands of these people are carrying supplies in the far North or building roads, I cannot help it if some of them die. But at least they are of some use.
Now, how is it with those who have been punished and have then left the prison? Some of them of course find the way back to honesty; but many more cannot do so, nor do they want to. And, fellow citizens, it is a danger to have in the German people the idealists dying while the asocial members of society are growing more numerous. It is a danger which it is my responsibility to ward off, a question for the solution of which I am accountable to my people.
Here too I will give you some examples taken from real life. If a man has always been a thief since his youth, if he has been reprimanded or condemned to a light punishment and as he grows older has stolen again and again, has got into jail and them the penitentiary; if that man is now set free, let us say with five or ten jail sentences behind him, and again commits another theft, even if it is only one little one, this conclusive evidence that it is impossible to reform that man, that he is a parasite on the community. Nowadays, in wartime, he is a malignant growth on the people, a saboteur. And if another one has a tendency to indecent assaults and has laid hands upon children five or six times, and imprisonment has failed to cure him - if he then again lays hands on a child, perhaps after two of three years of freedom, led us say upon an eight-year-old girl, then he will not be condemned to hard labor, but has deserved death. Guilt and expiation are no doubt the ethical basis of a sentence, but the community has to be taken into consideration first; in fighting crimes, especially during a war. In such a case the penal law is part of the hygiene of the people, just as those great laws for the protection of hereditary health and laws for the protection of German blood.
That man is a saboteur who is guilty of looking even trifles, or who steals a suit or a pair of boots in a town in which peaceful homes have just been bombed by our enemies. We cannot run the risk of letting these people repeat their deeds. Whoever enriches himself in any way at the expense of people in want and distress in a time when the necessities of life arc scarce, or who, as a black marketeer, profits by these hard times when everything should be justly distributed, has forfeited his life."
I now go to the bottom of page 100, the last paragraph:
"I should like to treat of still another question. I know it will be difficult, but I want to speak openly to the people. You all know the law forbidding malicious political acts, and you know what it means. People like to gossip and discuss their leaders. This is natural and I have nothing against it, but it should not be done in an indecent manner.
Some of these rumors are dangerous, some are not. Most of them are very stupid, so obviously stupid, in fact, that they stink. Here too we must find the correct criterion."
I now go to page 102, four lines above the insert 20 of the original in the English translation, beginning: "It is not that we are afraid of these.....
"It is not that we are afraid of these rumors, or that it is important to me that they do not circulate. On the contrary. I say again and again the people want to talk, it ought to talk, and they like too to tell each other things. However, when the times get bad, when one recognizes that a hostile attitude toward the state is at its root, then one had to do something about it. One who, like myself, has had to preside over the People's Court for 6 years, knows about these things.
My fellow citizens, we are not fighting in three dimensions, we are fighting in four dimensions. We are fighting on the water and under it, secondly in the air, thirdly on the earth; and fourthly, we are fighting yet another enemy, who is much more dangerous, because it is more difficult for us to catch him; it is the enemy propaganda. And one who must, in his line of duty, listen to this dirty enemy propaganda on the radio and then experience that the propaganda which has just been trumpeted by the London radio station returns as an echo out of the people, he knows first, that in this case somebody rest have listened to the enemy and second, that here the enemy propaganda is being used in some way against the nation or the government. Here we must be hard, It is not as if we were worried that the people would be influenced by this babble, which our enemies still consider necessary.
But it is a well-known phenomenon that something which is repeated so and so often finds a certain credence. Out of that rumors detour as in the case of the eggs, which increased up to 300. Indeed, it has already been necessary for the Fuehrer to take a stand himself on such nonsense. In one of his last Berlin speeches he had to say provoking the laughter of the entire Sportpalast: "Here stands someone who is said to have shot himself, I am said to have shot him.
Now, what is the truth?" There is no better way than to ridicule such babble. If, however, the babble is so malicious that one recognized enemy propaganda, then we Justice officials have to intervene, and intervene in an energetic way. We do not want to follow the course of 1918, nor do we want to fall into the pit prepared by the people from over there."
That is all I shall read from that document. I offer to introduce in evidence Prosecution's Exhibit No. 25.
THE PRESIDENT: There are no objections to the document; the document will be admitted in evidence.
MR. LA FOLLETTE: Document No. 415, page 108, Document Book 1-A, will be offered as Prosecution's Exhibit No. 26, when offered. This is a speech -- from page 108 I am reading -- a speech by State Secretary Dr. Rothenberger, of the Reich ministry of Justice, Berlin, made on 17 February, 1943, in Lueneburg.
"Speech by State Secretary Dr, Rothenberger of the Reich Ministry of Justice, Berlin, made on 17 February 1943 in Lueneburg.
"Deputy Gau Leader, dear Comrade.
"On 20 August 1942, the Fuehrer ordered our new Reich Minister of Justice to build up a strong national socialist judicial administration. Evidently there did not exist one so far, and we could have started our work by working out the proposed laws in Berlin and you would have read about this reform some day in the Reichsgesetzblatt. We have purposely not chosen this procedure since we believe that this is not same secret science, but that these problems are of direct concern to you."
I now gp to the bottom of page 108, beginning on the fourth line from the bottom of the English translation:
"The fact is that we still live in a time of revolution and that the world - it may justly be said since 1914 - is undergoing a change as seldom in history. And the cardinal point of this change is National Socialism."
I now go to page 109. It is actually the first grammatical paragraph on this page. It is the second paragraph from the bottom, and begins with the word. "Thus" !
"Thus begins now for the German judicial administration the second decade. The beginning was made on the 26 April 1942, the day on which the Fuehrer, acclaimed by the Reichstag, strongly criticized, the judicial administration before the whole world, and on the 20 August which was the consequence of this 26 April, on which day an incongruity in the German judicial administration was remedied with one stroke, vis, the incongruity: The Party on one side, the State on the other side. You know that the Reich Minister of Justice is not only the State's supreme authority of German Justice, but also the supreme authority of the Party as chief of the National Socialist Jurists' League."
Will you please turn on Page 112 of the English document book 1-A. And, it begins on the seventh line from the top:
"Of primary importance during wartime is of course the penal law.
Penal law has only one aim: to gain the victory and to keep up the morale in the homeland. This means that the administration of penal law must be severe and just. By severe I mean the problem which the Deputy Gauleiter has already started to discuss, that is the elimination of asocial and inferior persons. Each nation is composed of three sectors: the large middle class of more or less average, mostly somewhat indifferent people. The other, right sector, those are the brave ones, the faithful ones, who always sacrifice themselves, they are the best ones of the nation. It is very regrettable that by the long duration of the war this sector is becoming very much smaller. And we should not see now that the small left sector -which forms a part of every nation, the asocial and inferior characters are ruthlessly annihilated we would preserve these people for years, and by the end of the war they might perhaps outnumber the others. That must be prevented. And in the same degree as one has to be severe and brutal against these asocial characters in the administration of penal law, one has to be generous non-bureaucratic, and lenient in cases where one has to deal with people who are all right and who have trespassed for once." I offer to introduce into evidence, Prosecution's Exhibit No. 26.
DR. MANDSCHNEIDER (for the defendant Rothenberger): I should like to make a statement concerning this document; that is, a request for supplementary material to be read from the document. It refers to the following page: First, on page 117, that is, the German figure and of the document. It is on the bottom of page 117 of the German document and it says -- If the President will permit, I will read this myself;
"It is in the nature of judicial a ministration that the parties concerned are not always absolutely satisfies. And above all there might be many among you who, when antagonistic to your ideology, because previous to the seizure of power justice was on the opposing side. And perhaps some of these men adhere still today to the conclusion we seized power without justice or even against justice."
MR. LAFOLLETTE: I would just like to know where this appears in the English document book?
DR. WANDSCHNEIDER: On the first page of the document book, I am told sir.
THE PRESIDENT: If you are able to give us the number in the English translation, we will be able to follow it better.
MR. LAFOLLETTE: It seems to be on page 108.
THE PRESIDENT: I think it would be better to begin over so that we can follow you as you go through it, but I do not know just where on the page you began.
MR. LAFOLLETTE: I cannot tell, Your Honor, until I hear it over the phones and I how to pick it up then.
DR. WANDSCHNEIDER: I will continue then.
"And perhaps same of these men adhere still today to the conclusion we seized power without justice or even against justice. Why should we not also build up a Great German Reich without a strong Justice. That, however, is a very serious error." And, the second passage which I should like to read is on page 120 of the German document.
THE PRESIDENT: Let us see if we can locate that in the English copy, if possible.
DR. WANDSCHNEIDER: It is the passage that begins with the sentence: "This feeling for justice of our people is one of the reasons which made it quite clear to the Fuehrer --"
THE PRESIDENT: If we knew the number of the page in the English translation, it would of great service to us.
MR. LAFOLLETTE: Your Honor, that is on the bottom of page 3 or 110. It begins with: "This feeling for justice." It is at the very bottom of the page.
DR. WANDSCHNEIDER: "This feeling for justice of our people is one of the reasons which made it quite clear to the Fuehrer that we must build up a strong judicial administration now in the midst of the war; because to him it is self-evident that the German people is shouldering the heaviest burdens under the conditions:
Equality of treatment, equality of burden and justice for all."
And, the last phrase -- no, that is the last phrase which I wanted to read.
And, then may I point out the following; From the document it cannot be seen from what newspaper this excerpt was taken such as was shown in the case of other excerpts. And, in order to check on that speech, the defendant Rothenberger requested, through me, to receive this information from the representative of the Prosecution. Secondly, we have found out that this speech is not complete. The end is somewhat abrupt and the defendant Rothenberger remembers quite well that speech also deals with other subjects. From the point of view of the Defense, it seems to me to be necessary in order to be able to check on the entire contents of this document, and with the information, where it came from and the newspaper which it had been published in, so as to know or to present the entire contents of that speech.
MR. LAFOLLETTE: May it please your Honor as to the first request, certainly the Counsel is Well within his rights. I had not observed that we had not indicated from what paper this excerpt was taken. As to the second, under the policy approved by the Tribunal, by permitting him to read, I think there is some merit, although I do point out that once we had shown an excerpt, if we limit it in the document, then I do not believe that we should be required to furnish the whole speech. That would be a part of the defense in chief. I do think that we are certainly obligated to furnish the reference from which the speech was taken so that the defendant and his Counsel may identify what we might have chosen to leave out. However, I do not believe we are guilty of either bad faith or bad practice in presenting that part of the speech we thought pertinent to this case. I shall be very glad to furnish Counsel this information as soon as I can acquire the source from where this document was obtained.
THE PRESIDENT: The prosecution has indicated that they have endeavored to get the source of this speech and the place where it has been published. We think that is a very reasonable request to be made and no doubt it will be furnished. Concerning any additional matter which might not be published in that same newspaper or wherever it is published, that would be a too greater requirement to be made but if counsel had any additional to that matter they surely ought to be permitted to put it in.
MR. LAFOLLETTE: May I address the Court for a minute? Always as we start these proceedings we find difficulties in getting our documents together and getting the document room accustomed to working with us. We could go on for short time but I believe we will make more progress if the Court, although it is an hour early, will permit us to recess now and perhaps we could meet tomorrow at a quarter of ten. I call attention of the bench and it is only a suggestion worked out by the practicalities of living and working in Nurnberg, that transportation isn't always the best for many of us and our secretaries and when we meet at nine thirty we can hardly get here much before nine or our secretaries before nine and eat so that if we could have fifteen minutes normally in the morning and I have such a request at this time. If we could recess now I believe that we will make more progress for the Tribunal and make more progress in this case. That is, of course, we will abide by the decision of the Tribunal. I merely state what my position is at this time.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal is perfectly willing to recess at this time and meet at 9:45 tomorrow morning. Is it the request to meet every morning at that hour?
MR. LAFOLLETTE: I think in my present feeling that it might be wise but I only make it now as a special request for tomorrow and I think we can see how the things work out. If I make a general request perhaps I will make it in writing and rather extensively give reasons.
THE PRESIDENT: We will grant the request for tomorrow morning and consider the other matter at another time.
MR. LAFOLLETTE: Yes, sir. Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: We will recess at this time until tomorrow morning at 9:45.
THE MARSHAL: Military Tribunal No. 3 is recessed until 9:45 tomorrow.
(a recess was taken)