Westphal died in the Nurnberg prison following service of the present indictment upon him. Crohne, Laemmle and Haffner cannot be located, despite all efforts.
We now present a consideration of the German Legal Profession under the Third Reicl.
We have sketched the steps by which the judicial organization of Germany was turned into a more agent of the criminal policies of the Third Reich, and have outlined some of the crimes which the defendants committed by means of the perverted judicial machiner. Before taking up the fourth and final count of the Indictment, which rests upon a somewhat different footing than the first three counts, it is appropriate to examine very briefly the German legal profession and its degradation under the Third Reich. This brief survey, we think, will help to explain why these atrocities came to pass.
A. Before 1933 During the pre-Hitler decades, the professional life of German jurists flourished.
Independent societies were formed which published law reviews of high calibre, and participated in international conferences of jurists and in international legal institutions, such as the international arbitration courts.
Originally, the judges of the various German States had separate professional organizations, but in 1908 these were combined into the Association of German Judges (Deutscher Richterbund). This organization sponsored lectures on now legal problems, on comparative law, on modernizing penal law, and similar subjects. The association edited the "German Judge's Times" (Deutsche Richterzeitung), which published court decisions and articles by learned jurists. Another organization of German judges was the Association of Republican Judges (Republikanischer Richterbund), founded in 1926. Its members were primarily interested in the reformation of the German court system and in bringing German legal instit utions into line with the democratic principles of the new Weimar Constitution.
They published the periodical "German Justice" (Deutsche Justiz).
Most practicing German attorneys-at-law belonged to the Association of German Attorneys-at-Law, the largest professional organization of jurists. This association, founded in 1871 comprised about 15,000 members in 1933. It published the Juridical Weekly, which had thousands of subscribers inside Germany and abroad.
Before the Nazis came to power, all organizations of jurists consisted of members of all political parties and creeds. Their officers were the eminent scholars or jurists and many of them had a high international reputation. Their yearly meetings acted according to democratic principles without interference from the executive branch of the government.
Legal education and training in Germany maintained high standards. After studying law for three or four years at a law school of one of the State universities, the candidate served a law apprenticeship, lasting another three or four years, at various courts and law firms. Only then was he admitted to the Great State Examination, known as the Assessor examination which might be compared with our bar examination. The successful completion of this examination was the local prerequisite for any appointment as judge, public prosecutor, or higher civil servant, or for admittance to the bar. The men and woman who had passed this examination were highly respected by the German populace.
B. The Impact of Nazism In the years immediately preceding the establishment of the Third Reich, the National Socialist Party started a nationwide campaign directed against the legal profession.
The Nazi leadership realized that they could not gain absolute dictatorship by the seizure of the government alone but that they must also completely subjegate German legal life.
As an affiliate of the Nazi Party, a National Socialist German Lawyers League known henceforth BNSDJ; was formed in 1928 by the late Hans Frank, In 1931, the members of this organization, then about 700 in number, or less than one percent of all German jurists, were instructed to report on the political attitude and behavior of judges and lawyers. The general attitude of the Nazi Party toward independent judges was reflected in the statement. One day, we will forget the independence of the judges which has no significance in itself." There were many other occasions when Hitler and his henchmen expressed their distaste for law and the legal profession.
Immediately after the Nazis came to power, they started to pervert German legal life and so develop it as a tool of the totalitarian machine. This was accomplished in part by measures which have already been described, such as the dismissal of judges, prosecutors, and Ministry officials considered politically unreliable, and by depriving judges of the guaranties of independence and immunity from removal from office.
But these measures were not confined to the governmental judicial organization. They extended into all branches of the legal profession. The first step was the subjugation, and later the complete elimination, of the old professional associations, such as the Deutscher Richterbund, and the Republikanischer Richterbund, and tho Deutscher Anwaltsverein. Their destruction was accomplished by the same sort of maneuvers that effected the dissolution of the pre-Nazi medical and other professional societies at about the same time.
In the early spring of 1933, the former officers were ousted under duress, and now officers, all of them members of the Nazi Party, were appointed according to the newly proclaimed leadership principle.
This procedure also became known under the term "coordination". At the same time, the membership of all well-known anti-Nazi or Jewish jurists was cancelled in all these professional organizations Many of them were threatened and forced to emigrate.
Shortly afterwards in May 1933 the old organizations were completely dissolved. All organizational professional activity was centered in the National Socialist German Lawyers' League, which became one of the most important tools in the Nazi penal program.
Hans Frank reported to Hitler in May, 1933, that all existing professional organizations and associations of lawyers had joined the BNSDJ. The cooperative entry of these organizations into the BNSDJ did not, however, imply individual membership of its members in the BNSDJ. This required an individual application. Actually by the end of 1934, there, was hardly a lawyer left who had not joined the BNSDJ. These very few who had the courage to stay out laid themselves open as opponents of the regime with the grave risks which this implied. One of the conditions of membership in the BNSDJ was membership in the Nazi Party, but non-Party members could be admitted as so-called "supporting members".
The constitution of the BNSDJ lates from 4 May, 1933. It declares as its program the realization of the National Socialist Program in the legal field. According to Hitler's order of 30 May, 1933, the BNSDJ was the sole representative of the Germen Law Front and the exclusive professional organization of all lawyers. The seat of the BNSDJ was Munich, its leader Hans Frank, and its executive secretary Dr. Wilhelm Heuber. Regionally, it was divided into 26 regions. Leader of the Gau "Hanseatic Cities" was the defend ant Rothenberger.
At the end of 1934, the Nazi organizations of jurists had approximately 80,000 individual members and its executive secretary could boast that it was the biggest lawyers' organization in the world. In 1936, the name was changed to "Nationalsozialistischer Rechtswahrerbund" (NSRB). Through the disciplinary boards of this organization, the legal chieftans of the Nazis held the lawyers under close politic surveillance.
C. Under the Third Reich.
Within a short time after the advent of the Nazis, the editorship of all legal journals was taken over by newly-appointed Nazi editors, such as Hans Frank and his accomplices of the BNSDJ. A number of the scientific legal journals, whose editors were known as anti-Nazis, suck as "Die Justiz" were suppressed. The new editors perverted the legal journals by turning them into more propaganda instruments of the Nazi government. In these journals, the jurists were informed that they were to be nothing but the legal soldiers of the fuehrer. Tho legal journals were flooded with such material. The Deutsche Justiz, the mouthpiece of the Ministry of Justice frequently printed directives of which the following by the late Under Secretary Freisler is typical. But we will march as an Army Corps of the Fuehrer and as such, no one shall outdo us in the willingness to self-sacrificed. We are alone responsible to the Fuehrer and that is our wish."
While, on the hand, the legal thinking of the older generation of jurists was perverted, on the other hand the future Nazi jurists received a thorough indectrination at the law schools of the universities where they were instructed by Nazi lawyers or by opportunities who had sold their legal reputation for promotion within the Nazi hierarchy. Respected professors, who were suspected of so-called "Roman-Jewish individualistic" legal ideas were discharged, and references to such ideas were eliminated from the textbooks. The standard of legal education was considerable lowered. The students had to spend a considerable part of the time which was once devoted to the study of law, on compulsory labor and military service, and exercises in the student cadres of the SA stormtroopers and the SS elite guards. During the period of their law clerkship, Nazi indectrination and exercises in military formation were substituted for the once thorough legal training. Eventually, no young lawyer was admitted to the bar whom the examination heard did not consider a reliable legal soldier of the Nazi fuehrer. In analyzing the new Nazi examination decree for lawyers, Freisler stated:
The experience of the candidate within the (Nazi) movement and its evaluation (by the same movement) is fundamental in any evaluation of the candidate's qualification. If such experience does not exist, he will be disqualified.
In the early stages of this prostitution of German legal education, the Prussian Ministry of Justice took a leading part. The Prussian Minister of Justice was a Nazi zealot named Hanns Kerrl, a budger clerk without legal education, who attained this high position under the Nazis and who became the Reich Minister for Churches after the Prussian Ministry of Justice was absorbed by the Reich Government. In April, 1933, Kerrl issued a decree concerning the selection of candidates for positions as judges, public prosecutors, and attorneys in the State of Prussia, which provided in part that:
The applicant for appointment as a Junior Judge admission as Attorney, or appointment as Public Notary will in future have to prove in a special hearing that his consciousness of being a member of the national community, his social understanding, and his understanding of the entire race development of the German people in the present and the future, constitute the basis of his personality.
.........for this purpose applicants will have to undergo a special most-examination, which has the aim to convey an impression of his being rooted in to the national community.
The result of this post-examination will be evaluated in my decision about the appointment or qualifications of the candidate equally with the other statutory requirements.
Two months later, Kerri issued another decree which required that all candidates for the final state legal examination had to attend a special community camp for six weeks before they would be admitted to the final examination. This Prussian decree provided, in part, as fallows:
The National Socialist State must know that above all the man whom the State as a severing, intends to entrust with the execution of the most important tasks of judge or prosecutor, must have the character and be a typical German. One cannot get an idea of this from an examination as it has been conducted up to now......
I therefore decree that: In the course of the final legal State examination, each candidate, during the period following the written and preceding the oral examination, that is for about six weeks, is to live together with other candidates under the direction of the civil servants of the Prussian Administration of Justice, appointed by me.........
This preposterous institution for the perversion of young lawyers was established, and given the name "Gemeinschaftslager Hanns Kerrl", after its creator. It was located at Juteroog, near Berlin. An illustrated pamphlet describing the activities in this lawyer's madhouse will be introduced in evidence. According to the basic statute of the camp, the inmates were to become familiar with the leadership principle and would experience the ideas of the Fuehrer. The commandment of the camp was a lawyer named Spieler, who had become favorably known to the Nazis through his activities as defense counsel in their behalf. He was an old party member and a colonel in the storm troopers. He was assisted in supervision of the young lawyers by a metley group of storm troopers and Army officers. Two extracts from this pamphlet will bear quotation:
A further training and examination of the candidate is accomplished through ideological indoctrination. The camp directors are aware, of course, that National Socialism can neither be learned, nor taught. National Socialism must completely determine an individual's attitude; when this is not the case, the individual can never become a real National Socialist. There are many people, however, who in their social relations or in their way of living have not become acquainted with or in their way of living have not become acquainted with National Socialism or were even opposed to it, yet in these people exists an unconscious National Socialist sentiment which only needs stimulation to develop. The appropriate method for this is the ideological indectrination. The latter is therefore particularly used in the camp, not only for this purpose but also for training purposes, to strengthen and develop the national socialist ideology.
The day of Horst Wessel's death was also a remarkable day. This was commemorated in a particular manner. At 4 O'clock a trumpeter blew revelry. At 4:07 all the camp inmates were already assembled in the courtyard. A brief order: "Column right, forward march." Then the various platoons of the school took different routes across the drilling field and marched on into the country.
After the dissolution of the Prussian Ministry of Justice in 1934, the Gemeinschaftslager Hanns Kerrl was brought under the supervision of the Reich Ministry of Justice.
The illustrated pamphlet to which I have just referred contains photographs of Reich Minister Guertner. Under-secretary Freisler, and others visiting the camp. The photographs also show a gallows from which was suspended a symbol of German statutory law, the sign, for the paragraphing of legal codes. Guertner and Kerrl are both photographed standing under the gallows. It would be hard to conceive a more appropriate symbol for the degradation of the legal profession under the Third Reich.
GENERAL TAYLOR. There is not more than twenty minutes to complete the statement.
THE PRESIDENT: In as much as there was an interruption this morning, if you need more time it will be granted to you.
GENERAL TAYLOR: That will be ample Before I continue, may I call the Tribunal's attention that the written version of this statement, which is now available, contains various sub-headings and footnotes which have not been read and it might be convenient if those were incorporated in the record, even though they have not been read.
The fourth and final count in the Indictment contains the charge that seven of the defendants are guilty of membership in organizations declared to be criminal in the judgment of the International Military Tribunal. Four of the defendants -- Alstötter, Cuherst, Engert, and Joel -- are accused of membership in the SS. The defendant Joel is also accused of membership in the Sicherheitsdient (commonly known as the SD). The defendant Cuhorst is also accused, together with three others -- Oeschey, Neblung, and Rothaug -- of membership in the Leadership Corps of the Nazi party. All three of these organizations were declared criminal in the judgment of the International Military Tribunal.
The legal basis of the charges in Count 4 is quite distinct from that of the first 3 counts in the Indictment. The charge derives from Article 9 of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal, which authorized that Tribunal, under specified circumstances, to declare that certain "groups" or "organizations" were "criminal organizations." The Prosecution before the International Military Tribunal sought such declarations in the case of each of the three organizations involved in Count 4 of this Indictment, and the International Military Tribunal rendered such declarations.
In the meantime, it had been provided in Article II of Control Council Law No. 10 that "membership in categories of criminal group or organization declared criminal by the International Military Tribunal" should be "recognized as a crime." Paragraph 3 of Article II of Control Council Law No. 10 specifies the punishments which may be imposed for membership in these organizations.
In its dimension, the International Military Tribunal set forth certain limitations upon the scope of its declaration that membership in these organizations were original. Under these limitations in order to render membership criminal, two things, in addition to membership must be shows Firstly.
That the individual in question became or remained a member of the organization after 1 September 1939 and Secondly, That the individual in question either (a) became or remained a member with knowledge that it was being used for the commission of acts declared criminal by Article VI of the London Agreement, or (b) was personally implicated as a member of the organization in the commission of such crimes.
The Prosecution believes that, once it has established that a defendant was a member of one or more of the criminal organizations, it is incumbent upon the defendant to come forward with evidence that he neither knew of the criminal activities of the organization, nor participated in their commission, or that he ceased to be a member prior to 1 September 1939. We believe, however that any questions concerning the burden of proof will be entirely academic in this case, inasmuch as the positions which these defendants held, and the evidence embodied in the documents which we will offer in evidence, will show beyond question that they both knew of and participated in the criminal activities.
I will deal first with the four defendants charged with membership in the SS. The evidence will show that the defendant Altsötter became a member of the SS in 1937, that he remained a member after 1939, and attained the rank of Oberfuehrer (Senior Colonel) in June, 1944. The defendant Cuhorst became a sponsoring member (Foerderndes Mitglied) of the SS in January, 1934 and remained such after 1939.
The defendant Engert joined the SS in 1936 and thereafter attained the rank of Oberfuehrer. The defendant Joel joined the SS in 1938, and attained the rank of Obersturmbahnfuehrer or Lieutenant Colonel.
The activities for which the SS was declared a criminal organization are set forth in the judgment of the International Military Tribunal. These activities included the extermination of numerous "undesirable" classes, including Jews, and the transfer of numerous Jews and foreign nationals to concentration camps, where they were murdered and tortured.
It will be abundantly apparent from the proof that if any member of the SS knew of and participated in its widespread criminal activities, surely these defendants did. They were directly concerned with penal problems and, as we have seen, of necessity their cooperation with the SS was extremely close. In fact, Himmler himself took special pains to insure that the German judiciary would be fully advised on the ideology of the SS and of its nefarious aims and purposes. In July 1944, at the special invitation of Thierack as Reich Minister of Justice, Himmler made a speech to the Presidents of the Courts of Appeal and the Chief Reich Prosecutors. A report from the files of the Ministry of Justice describing this occasion reads as follows:
"On the invitation of the Reich Minister cf Justice, Dr. Thierack, the Reichsfuehrer SS, spoke to the Presidents and the Chief Prosecutors of the courts of appeal at the Reich castle of Cochem on 20 May 1944. The question of the development and the aims of the SS was dealt with, in particular the importance of the racial question, questions of national biology, fighting selection, racial community, the importance of the Waffen-SS and the Greater German thought.
"The judges and public prosecutors were to receive the information through the Presidents of the Courts of Appeal and might have been informed in the meantime.
"You are respectfully requested to submit a detailed report on the reception and the effect of this speech on the judges and the chief public prosecutors."
Himmler's well-known view on the value of non-German human life were thereby made available to all German judges and chief prosecutors. They surely came to the attention of the defendant Cuhorst, in this and numerous other ways. They surely were well-known among the higher officials of the Ministry of Justice, including Altstötter, Engert and Joel.
Indeed, long before Himmler's speech to this judicial assembly, the Ministry of Justice had been collaborating actively with Himmler in turning over Jews, Poles, Russians, Gypsies and others from the ordinary prisons to the concentration camps. The whole evil process must have been particularly well-known to Engert, who was in charge of Division XV of the Ministry of Justice, which was charged with carrying out these transfers. A Justice Ministry document written in October 1942, gives complete information concerning the agreement between the Ministry and Himmler, and specifically delegates the execution of the agreement, on behalf of the Ministry of Justice, to Engert and his associates in Division XV, Engert thereafter visited various prisons throughout the Reich, checked over the lists and arranged for the delivery of these unfortunates to the SS.
Nor could those arrangements, or other activities of the SS, have been any secret from Altstötter, who was a Division Chief of the Ministry of Justice throughout this period. Furthermore, Alstötter was a particular personal favorite of Himmler's. Correspondence which we will introduce will show that the most cordial relations existed between Alstötter and Himmler and between Alstötter and other high SS officers, including Dr. Karl Gebhardt, the Chief Surgeon of the SS. At a conference in 1942, with Thierack, Rothenberger and other judicial officials, Himmler singled out Altstötter as being "reliable." The Defendant Joel was not only an officer of the SS, but also a member of the Sicherheitsdienst, the branch of the SS particularly concerned with intelligence and with the extermination of Jews in Poland and the Soviet Union. Joel was particularly familiar with these murderous activities. A memorandum signed by Joel in 1942 described a plan which Goering had connected for picking out "daring fellows" from among the prison inmates who would carry out special tasks behind the lines on the Eastern front. Joel's memo recites that Himmler had already selected a large number of such men for his purpose, but that Goering wanted the field picked over again.
Joel's memo goes on to state:
......."The only suitable men are these with a passion for hunting, who have poached for love of the trophy, not men who have laid snares and traps. The Reich Marshall also mentioned fanatical members of smuggling gangs, who take part in gun-battles on the frontiers and whose passion it is to outwit the customs at the risk of their own lives, but not men who attempt to bring articles over the frontier in an express train or by similar means.
The Reich Marshall Goering leaves it to us to consider whether still other categories of convicts can be assigned to these bands of pursuit commandos.
In the regions assigned for their operations, these bands, whose first task should be to destroy the communications of the partisan groups, could murder, burn and ravish; in Germany they would once again come under strict supervision.....
The defendant Cuhorst again, along with Nebelung, Oeschey and Rothaug, is involved in the charge of membership in the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party. The declaration of criminality rendered by the International Military Tribunal includes all the "leaders" in the hierarchy of the Nazi party from the Reichsleiters down through the Gauleiters and Kreisleiters, to the Ortsgruppenleiters. It also includes the heads of the various staff organizations, down to the staffs of the Kreisleiters.
The evidence will show that Cuhorst became a member of the Nazi party in 1930, and in 1933 was given the status of Gaustellenleiter. The defendant Oeschey joined the party the following year and, in 1940, was given the status of Gauhaupstellenleiter. Rothaug joined the party in 1938 and attained the status of Gaugruppenleiter. All three of these defendants were, therefore, heads of staff organizations at Gau level. The defendant Nebelung joined the party in 1928 and soon thereafter became an Ortsgruppeneleitter. All four of the defendants, therefore, fall within the categories of the Leadership Corps specified in the decision of the International Military Tribunal.
The criminal activities of the Nazi Party Leadership Corps are also set forth in the Judgment of the International Military Tribunal.
I These included the persecution and extermination of Jews, administration of the slave labor program, mistreatment of prisoners of war, and the lynching of airmen who had bailed out over Germany. The evidence which we will offer will show knowledge of and participation in all or most of these activities by all four of the defendants.
In conclusion on Count Four, the prosecution wishes to point out certain factors which it believes should be borne in mind in considering the decree of culpability to be attributed to membership in organizations declared criminal by the International Military Tribunal. The charge of membership in these organizations, coupled with knowledge of the crimes that were committed or participation in those crimes, is a very serious one. Its consequences will, we believe, have to be more closely examined at the conclusion of this proceeding, but certain factors can be pointed out here and now.
It is true, for instance, that in a sense none of the seven defendants involved in Count Four were "full time" or "paid" members of these organization All seven of them had full time jobs as judicial officials but, under the circumstances which the evidence in this case will disclose, we do not believe that this fact is significant in estimating culpability.
It is true that the high officers' ranks in the SS held by Alstotter, Engert, and Joel were chiefly honorary. It was part of Himmler's calculated policy to draw support to himself from all quarters by distributing honorary SS ranks and decorations. But those who accepted special ranks thereby lent the weight of their names and prestige to Himmler and to Himmler's policies. If they did not agree with these policies, they prostituted themselves for whatever prerequisites or security those shameful ranks and awards might bring.
Where it can be shown, as it will be here, that the defendants not only were fully familiar with the horrifying scope of Himmler's program, but also participated directly in its execution, it should be considered no defense whatsoever than an individual's SS activities were extracurricular rather than his daily bread and butter.
1. Judgment of the International Military Tribunal, Vol. I, Trial of the Major War Criminals, pp. 258-61.
Similar considerations apply to the defendants who were members of the Party Leadership Corps. Cuhorst, Nebelung and Oeschey were all members of the Party years before Hitler came to power; all three of them, and Rothaug, too, played a leading role in party affairs.
They too, by the very nature of the positions they occupied in the judicial system, to say nothing of the fact that they were high in the party councils, must have been aware of the activities recited by the International Military Tribunal as the basis for its declaration of criminality.
Indeed, the guilt of these seven defendants under Count Four is, in many respects, deeper that of many fulltime officers of these organizations. The defendants were highly educated, professional men, and they had attained full mental maturity long before Hitler's rise to power. Their minds were not warped at an early age by Nazi teachings; they embraced the ideology of the Third Reich as educated adults. They all had special training and successful careers in the service of the law. They, of all Germans, should have understood and valued justice.
In general conclusion:
Crimes, theoretically and, more often than not, actually, are these acts, which are so contraty to the moral conscience of the community or so dangerous to the maintenance of a reasonable degree of order, justice and peace in the community, that the community, by appropriate processes, demands their elimination and suppression in the interest of the individuals who constitute the community. Therefore, those within a nation or a state who institute proceedings to enforce this community decision as prosecutors, speak for the community conscience or community decision. For this reason, criminal prosecutions within states ornations are brought in the name of the State of Commonwealth, or by the use of words suitable to describe the offended community.
In this proceeding at Nurnberg, the world is the community. The four nations which have written the substantive law under which we proceed, their responsible government heads and their elder statesmen, have proclaimed it as a codification of crimes denounced as such by the moral conscience of that community when the crimes we try were committed.
Therefore, although this indictment is brought in the name of Government of the United States, this case in substance is the People of the World against these men who have committed criminal acts against the community we know as the world. For surely few spots on this earth are so remote that they have not felt in some degree the disruptive, if not indeed the destructive, impact of the criminal acts of those men or these others when they served and with whose acts they were criminally connected.
Therefore, unless all the countries of tho World fight a continuous struggle to match the moral conscience of the world which has been asserted here, the result will be a cynical Germany and an apathetic, a moral world which drifts aimlessly because it sees no national conduct which matches the standards of moral conduct which are proclaimed here. The true significance of these proceedings, therefore, far transcends the mere question of the guilt or innocence of the defendants. They are charged with murder, but this is no more murder trial. These proceedings invoke tho moral standards of the civilized world, and thereby impose an obligation on the nations of the world to measure up to the standards applied here.
Although this Tribunal is internationally constituted, it is an American court. The obligations which derived from these proceedings are, therefore, particularly binding on the United States. True it is that two wrongs do not make a right, and equally true that the crimes charged against these defendants and the other leaders of the Third Reich were so calculating, so malignant, and so devastating" that they find no modern parallel. But, underlying these crimes, there are myths, superstitutions, and more sophisticated distortions of philosophy which do not know national boundaries. If we, of all nations.
fail to rise above these malignant doctrines by actions which manifest a steady growth in national fiber and character, then all that we do here will come to nothing, and will leave us and mankind an easy prey to their next violent eruption.
We have still other obligations here which must not be overlooked. As was pointed out earlier, we have undertaken, together with other nations, the task of preparing "for the eventual reconstruction of German political life on a democratic basis and for eventual peaceful cooperation in international life in Germany."
These proceedings are dedicated to that end. Punishment of these leaders of Germany whose crimes made this task necessary is only a part of what we seek to accomplish here. We seek to resurrect the truth in Germany, and to re-invigorate these ideals that have been so long desecrated. The people of Germany sense the need for this, but they will measure our efforts by the measure of our own devotion to tho ideals which we proclaim.
The United States cannot evade the challenge of those responsibilities. No can fulfill only the smallest part of them at Nurnberg. But Nurnberg must be a symbol, not of revenge or of smug self-satisfaction, but of peace and good will among nations and peoples. It is the crime of shattering the foundations of peace and denying the very fact of humanity that is charged in this and other proceedings at Nurnberg. It is by trying these charges under law, and in quest of truth, that Nurnberg will find its full measure of justification.
THE PRESIDENT: At this time we have decided again to remind the Prosecution and the Defense Counsel of our decision that you confer before the next session, and to be prepared, on both sides, to state your positions concerning the challenge to the sufficiency of the indictment.
HR. LA FOLLETTE: If Your Honor please, may be -
THE PRESIDENT: (interposing) May be you are prepared to state that new?
MR. LA FOLLETTE: No, I would like to make clear what possibly was not clear this morning, maybe I spoke too rapidly, but the Defense Counsel who challenged the sufficiency of the indictment this morning or any others who care to met me, I will remain in the court room here after the court has adjourned for the purpose of meeting with them in an attempt to reach a solution so that we can advise the court of this tomorrow morning, at least.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Mr. President, perhaps I may make a statement today -
THE PRESIDENT: First state your name.
DR. SCHILF: Dr. Alfred Schilf representing defendant Mettgcnbcrg. This morning was afraid that the Prosecution was going to present the indictment and the evidence all together in one. I have had a talk with the gentlemen of the Prosecution, and I have learned that my fears are groundless, and I, therefore, no longer wish to put forward that motion. My colleagues and I had objected against the affidavit, on which the court decided, and in the affidavit there has been no evidence presented. I said possibly the indictment would not be separated from the presentation of evidence. Now, that the court has already decided in one case, that the evidence would be produced separately, I have no longer any misgivings. I would also like to state that the Prosecution, in a letter, which only reached me yesterday gave cause for fear in regard to the Prosecution. Therefore, my words of this morning concerning obligations in writing, that has now been settled. I mean to say, I have no longer any objections against the course of the procedure, such as we have seen it today. If any one of my colleagues has anything to say, I would suggest that such colleagues do so, and afterwards submit such objection in writing.
THE PRESIDENT: Do any other Defense Counsel desire to make a statement at this time?