JUDGE BLAIR: What was the exhibit number of the first document?
DR. KUBOSCHOK: Unfortunately, I did not put it down. Unfortunately, I cannot give you the exhibit number of the Ferber affidavit, but it is contained in the Document Book III-B-I, English Text, Page 39.
THE PRESIDENT: III-E?
DR. KUBOSCHOK: B-I.
THE PRESIDENT: B-I?
DR. KUBOSCHOK B-I. I beg your pardon, B-III-I.
THE PRESIDENT: For what does the B stand?
DR. KUBOSCHOK: No, that wrong, Document Book III-I. What pant did Bormann play in that struggle against the administration of justice?
A Bormannts work extended, above all, to personnel policy. Under the existing provisions, no Ministry could against the opposition of the Party Chancellery, appoint an official or promote him. The Reich Ministry of Justice always made its selection entirely on the basis of professional qualifications. Bormann, on the other hand, attached importance exclusively to the political opinion and the merits for the Party. If he objected to a suggestion made by the Ministry of Justice, and it was not possible to overcome the opposition, there was nothing else to be done at first, but to wait for a better situation perhaps, and leave the position unfilled. I experienced it myself that the position of a President of a District Court of Appeals (Oberlandesgericht) remained vacant for that reason for more than a year. But it is obvious that the possibilities of such action had a certain limit. It was inadvisable to leave vacant an unlimited number of positions. And sometimes one was forced to appoint to the Administration of Justice personnel of only moderate qualifications, whereas persons who were better qualified were left out.
Bormann knew very well how to promote Hitler's antipathy for the Administration of Justice on the one hand, and on the other hand, how to exploit the naturally weak and unpolitical position of the Ministry under Hitler. Hitler continuously received newspaper clippings about court proceedings and sentences. Usually, the facts were distorted or the reports in any case, were always inadequate. Hitler was always approached on these subjects only at a moment when for some other reason he was disgruntled and his attention had to be distracted. Those reasons were interruptions which resulted from the war situation. For Bormann, the Administration of Justice was the lightening rod. The Gauleiters cooperated with him. They collected the material by getting new paper clippings from provincial newspapers with great glee. The Gauleiter of Munich, Wagner, excelled. Every opportunity was used in order to discredit the Administration of Justice before Hitler with entirely inadequate documentation. The key to that situation lies in a statement which Goering made to me at the time the Administration of Justice became centralized. I will revert to that later. Therefore, our main endeavor had to be to inform Hitler at the earliest possible moment, and of course completely and honestly, I shall have an opportunity to explain how those attempts were constantly sabotaged by Bormann.
I should like to say now that our attempt to prevent Hitler from changing sentences after they had been passed by suggesting that the Presidents of the District Court of Appeal, (Oberlandesgericntspresidenten) should confirm the sentences whereby merely a technical, non-political review would have been carried out.
That attempt was intentionally brought to naught by Bromann for he realized that thereby it would have been made impossible for Hitler to reopen on the initiative of Party trials which had been concluded.
DR. KUBOSCKOK: the possibility which the witness mentioned concerning the possibility of Bormann's interference with every appointment of an official results from the decree of 10 July 1937 published in the Reichsgesetzblatt, Reich Law Gazette of 1937, page 769. I shall submit that decree in a supplement to my document book.
Q. Witness, concerning the evidence submitted by the Prosecution, could you discuss a case which reveals such efforts being made by the Party?
A I am able to do that. I refer to the statements made by the Prosecution witness Ferber. He dealt with a case about which Guertner had frequently talked to me. That was the case against Heller in which the law against motor car traps had been applied. For the information of the Tribunal I may say that law was promulgated on 22 June 1938. It is based on the particular initiative of Hitler.
The facts of the case were as follows: Soon after that law had been promulgated, Heller and his mistress as the guests of a driving school, had attacked a driver and had robbed his meter. While the case was being tried before the Special Court in Hurnberg in the presence of Gauleiter Streicher, and Denzler, the Gau Legal Office Loader, Hitler appeared in Hurnberg unexpectedly. A death sentence against Heller was expected for certain. Evidently Streicher and Denzler intended to submit to Hitler in his presence a proposal for a death sentence on the basis of this new law in which Hitler was particularly interested. A telephone call was put through to the Ministry of Justice to hear an opinion on the question of clemency. Opposition was encountered there on the part of the Referent. That Referent was Ministerialrat, (Ministerial Counsellor) Westphal, who was indicated here. He refused to give his opinion because the legal problem which had arisen in the Heller case was being dealt with at a trial before the Supreme Reich Court which was still pending and was there to be submitted for the opinion of the Reich supreme court judges.
At that point the Party representatives became busy. Denzler reported this information to Hitler implying that Guertner obviously was sabotaging the application of this law, which Hitler himself had promoted, and he boasted that that was enough to bring about Guertner's fall. At any rate, that interference on the part of the Party led to the fact that Hitler, following Denzler's report, ordered the death sentence to be excited without waiting for the Ministry of Justice to give its opinion.
In Berlin Hitler took to account the Referent Westphal in great anger for sabotaging the law, and only because Guertner acted on behalf of his own staff and only with the greatest effort was it possible to save Denzler.
Q The Heller case which has just been mentioned is contained in the transcript, page 1327, English text.
What part did Goebbels play in that struggle against the administration of justice?
A Goebbels set the machinery of propaganda to work against the administration of justice. He deluded the public by telling them that the people no longer had any confidence in the judiciary. That was a delusion, for the opposite was true.
His propaganda machine did not only make direct or camouflaged attacks against the judiciary in public and tried to lower their prestige, but he also tried by his art of dialectics in his speeches on the administration of justice quite deliberately to lead the judges astray and to put to sleep their consciences as judges. He coined the concept of the exigency of the State and said that jurisdiction, too, ought to make that its starting point. For a sentence, first of all expedience was decisive, and only later, perhaps, justice might be considered, too.
Q Goebbels' speech before the members of the People's Court is contained in Exhibit 23, Document Book I-A, pages 82 to 84 in the English text.
text.
What were the opportunities at the disposal of those power groups and which they made use of in their struggle against the administration of justice?
A Himmler, Bormann and Goebbels were the closest confidants of Hitler. They had access to him at any time. For him they represented the uncompromising incarnation of National Socialism. He listened to them when they alleged National Socialism was being endangered by the administration of justice. The entire apparatus of Party politics, police and spying was at their disposal. On the other hand, the Ministry of Justice was entirely isolated. Contact among the Ministries which would have strengthened its position no longer existed.
Q Here, I would like to refer to the verdict by the IMT, English transcript, page 16963, and I would, like to quote that passage briefly: "Concerning the first reason for our decision, it must be stated that beginning with that time, which can be considered the beginning of a conspiracy for the waging of an aggressive war, the Reich Government no longer formed, the body with governing functions, but merely was a majority of administrative officials who were subject to the absolute will of Hitler."
Q. Witness, will you continue, please?
A. In view of that situation, what could a Ministry of Justice do which was directed merely by an under secretary who was in charge of affairs; who, furthermore, was not a member of the party and whose words, naturally, did not get the same hearing as those of a Minister; a man who, as the indictment said, never attained cabinet rank? According to an express instruction by Hitler, the chief only was told those things which were necessary for him to fulfill his own taks. It is evident that that instruction made possible all kinds of limitations.
THE PRESIDENT: We will take our morning recess at this time, fifteen minutes.
(A recess was taken.)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
BY DR. KUBOSCHOK:
Q Witness, before the recess we discussed the possibilities at the disposal of these power groups. Please, will you continue.
A I ventured to find out that Hitler had given an explicit order that a chief of any office should only be instructed about that which he had to know in order to carry out his tasks. And that went very far. That situation is better explained by the fact that the Minister Guertner, for instance, only found out about the Euthanasia decree when in reports on the situation rendered by the presidents of the District Courts of Appeal, a certain suspicion arose that this decree was carried out, and Guertner categorically demanded an elucidation. Whereas other Ministers were authorized to listen to foreign broadcasts, that was prohibited to the Minister of Justice by threat of punishment. When I objected against this, I was told in reply that I should turn to the Ministry of Propaganda which would inform me about everything that happened.
I may point out that the opinion of the International Military Tribunal states that on account of the control over broadcasting and over the press and the propaganda machine, an independent judgment based on freedom of thought became an absolute impossibility. I, from my own experience, can only confirm that statement. A significant example is given by the following occurrence -- an example showing the extent of that spy system. The Gauleiter of East Prussia had protested against the Administration of Justice in his district. In order to examine these complaints in 1940 or '41 -- I do not know the date precisely any more today -- I travelled to Koenigsberg and found out that as for the reports by the President of the District Court of Appeals, the Gauleiter was sooner informed about these reports than I was. Based on warnings received from reliable sources, I had to expect that in the various offices of the municipality which I had to visit, special microphones had been installed for the occasion of my visit, and I could only talk with my personal referent by going out to the beach and to pick out an isolated beach chair there in order to be able to talk to him without anybody listening to us and spying on us.
Q The passage in the Opinion of the International Military Tribunal, to which the witness referred, is contained in the English transcript on Page 16,813. Witness, the prosecution charges you with the fact that the Ministry of Justice was in an official contact with these offices which you have just mentioned. What can you say about this?
A I believe that that contact is inherent in the structure of the State: the distribution of tasks to the various agencies. A cooperation with the police was certainly to a certain extent unavoidable. According to German Law of Criminal Procedure, the prosecution is not in a position at all, without the cooperation of the police, to carry out the required investigations pending trial. If a denouncement has been received by the prosecution, the prosecution has to conduct the necessary investigation first of all. That the prosecution should do all that itself, considering the large number of things to be done, is quite impossible. The prosecution, therefore, has to turn to the local police and, for good reasons, in the German Judicative Act and the German Code for Penal Procedure, the police are designated as an auxiliary organ for the prosecution and directed to cooperate upon request of the prosecution.
Apart from the police, frequently the SD is mentioned in the trial. On the part of Hitler, that SD, apart from its function within the Party, had received important tasks, such as the delivery of information to various Reich agencies, and therefore even the court authorities had to refer to that source of information.
Q In this connection, may I refer to Exhibit 42. Please continue.
A The position of the Party Chancellery, was regulated legally in a way that changes of personnel, that is to say promotions and appointments, could only take place with the cooperation on the part of the Party Chancellery.
That I have already pointed out. Added to this was the fact that in 1942, the Chief of the Party Chancellery was given the position of a Reich Minister participating in legislation. It was therefore necessary to let him participate in the preparation of every law.
Q The decree of 16 January '42, to which reference was just made I shall submit as Document Schlegelberger, Exhibit 23.
AAnd then finally the Ministry of Propaganda. The direction of that Ministry by Goebbels may cause to a non-German's mind, the misconception that this was a Party function. That, as I said, would be a misconception because the Ministry of Propaganda was not a Partyoffice but a Ministry, just as the Ministry of Justice or the Ministry of Finace, or the Foreign Office, and that there was an official channel between all the Ministries, that is a matter of course in every State.
But that connection was also a necessity from the point of view of counter-intelligence. Only thus was it possible, at least from time to time, to guard one's self against surprises. Only thus was it possible, perhaps in the very last moment, to make successful objections.
Q The witness referred to a provision of the Code of Penal Procedure according to which the prosecution could authorize the police to make investigations. That is paragraph 161 of the Code of Penal procedure. Furthermore, in this connection paragraph 146 of the Judicature Act has to be considered. About the importance of reports and information from the SD, I shall submit as Schlegelberger Exhibit No. 92 a report from the handbook for Allied troops. Witness, in your own camp, that is to say in the field of the Administration of Justice itself, did you have to fight against opposition?
A That question, unfortunately, I have to confirm emphatically. First of all, and very briefly, I have again to mention Frank in this connection, the representative of the National Socialist Legal Conception, who through all available channels succeeded in bringing this thought before the public. As means he had at his disposal, first the legal publications under his influence, the National Socialist Lawyers' League, whose president he was, and the Academy for German Law which he had created. That Academy, which possibly according to its composition, could be considered a sort of scientific institute to aid the Administration of Justice, evolved by Frank as a competition in order to direct the Ministry of Justice, to overrule and to discredit it with the party. As soon as he found out, from his own information sources, that the Ministry of Justice intended to carry out reforms, he mobilized his Academy immediately which on its part was to prepare plans and to publish them, and not much emphasis was placed upon their quality. But the main purpose was to demonstrate that Frank was the leader of the living young justice in opposition to the old senile machinery of justice of the state.
Apart from that goal, to carry out his thesis of fame, "right is that which serves the German people" he also for personal ambitions, and last, not least for that ambition, had intentions to take over the post of Ministry of Justice.
Q Could you name other personalities who in that manner fought against the Administration of Justice?
A From the inside, unfortunately, yes. I have not completed my statement. I am thinking of Thierack. Thierack had very close connections to Bormann. He concentrated his efforts at first on the president of the People's Court, a position he held at that time. Behind the back of the Ministry of Justice, in 1936, he brought about a speech by Hitler before the People's Court. As these proceedings have shown, in 1937 he had attempted to arrange another speech of that kind.
Q The witness refers here to Exhibit 105.
A The judges of the People's Court in this manner should be brought to understand that the People's Court was an institution of a special nature, in closest connection to Hitler himself; and that it was only by a mistaken step that the People's Court had been incorporated into the administrative structure of the Ministry of Justice; and that administrative connection, again in all secrecy in 1938, he tried to obtain through the chief of the Reich Chancellery, the presidency of the People's Court, following the Italian example, should be subordinated immediately to Hitler. To my knowledge, Thierack, after he became Minister, did not continue with these attempts. As I was informed from various sources, in his attempts to become Minister, he is alleged to have promised to the party that the office of the prosecution should be turned over to the police. I shall later refer to the occurrences during the trial of the Czech Minister-President Elias; but in the end I still have to emphasize what extraordinary difficulties were made to me by the personality of Freisler.
Q Who was Freisler?
A Well, the witness Behl once characterized Freisler as the representative of the party interests in the Ministry of Justice. That was correct. His career was the following: Freisler during the first World War was a prisoner of war in Russia. After the end of the war he remained in Russia for a considerable period of time. About his activities during that period of tine in Russia, a veil never completely has been lifted. After he returned he became an attorney at Kassel. First of all defense counsel for National Socialists. When the Prussian Ministry of Justice was put in the hands of Minister Kerrl, this latter called the old party member Freisler to the post of Under Secretary, Staatssekretaer. He remained there until in 1934. On the occasion of the merger of both Ministries, he was transferred to the Reich Ministry of Justice. Freisler no doubt possessed a high degree of intelligence, but quite apparently he was of abnormal spiritual inclinations that ranged from extreme brutality all the way to a rather feminine weakness. After he had insulted his assistants in the worst possible manner without any reason, it could occur that soon after he came to them to ask for their forgiveness in a very servile manner. The Tribunal has actually made the acquaintance of Fleisler optically and acustically. He was quite well informed about problems of criminal law, but he lacked any continuity and seriousness in his work. He was restless and imbued with a lust for power, always looking for new tasks and new problems. He was an old party member, and he had the golden party emblem, but he represented that type of National Socialist who again and again fearfully vied for the favor of Hitler, who definitely recognized him as one hundred per cent National Socialist, but personally did not think as much of him as Freisler would have liked to have seen.
Therefrom and from his task to survey, the Ministry from the National Socialist point of view, and from his undisputable intelligence and his expert knowledge in the field of criminal law, the dangerous qualities in his personality could be seen. He knew where he had to start in order to achieve his goals. To work with him was extremely difficult, and I may well say here that Freisler was the one, after all, who undermined the work and the strength of Guertner and contributed to his early death. And so as far as I was concerned, my continuous attempts to restrict Freisler made it extremely difficult for me in my position. He did not stick to decisions which we had made in long debates. He made secret promises to his Party which alter they became apparent restricted the Minister in his possibilities of action.
Again and again I had to find out that, partly intentionally, partly out of neglect, he had failed to report to me on important occurrence and applications. He had prohibited some ministerial directors to report to me directly. He wanted to do all of that. To that had to be added that although he did not drink much, he could not restrain himself once he started to drink, and in a condition of that kind he frequently made statements which gave an entirely wrong picture of the intentions of the Minister. When then the disappointment came, when the agencies concerned found out that the practice of the Ministry was not according to these statements, then, of course, there were serious accusations on the part of the Party and a renewed struggle.
His unstable nature brought it about that when I made objections to him, he frequently in tears promised to better himself, but his moral strength was not sufficient to make him keep these promises for any length of time.
Of course, my position with regard to Freisler was weaker than that of Guertner. I was, indeed, in charge of the work of the Ministry, but only due to the fact that I was the senior Under Secretary in rank; otherwise we were on the same level.
The possibility of influencing him or influencing others against him was very limited for me, all the more because my mission was not set for a certain time but could be repealed every day. Therefore, I could find the optimal accomplishment of my tasks only in maintaining the status quo in the Ministry of Justice such as it was at the time of Guertner's death, especially if one takes into consideration as a matter of course that on the one hand the attacks from the Party became stronger being faced with a weaker man in charge of the Ministry, and that on the other hand this weaker man was always confronted with the necessity of an increased resistance on his part.
In these proceedings here the witness, Father Wein, confirmed that during the time when I was in charge of conducting the affairs, the Administration of Justice had not deteriorated and that only the appointment of Thierack brought about an absolute change-over. I ask you to try to understand that in that I found a justification for the work of my life under these conditions as I have described them.
Q What did the taking over of the post of Minister by Thierack mean to you?
A I believe I should continue at the point where the speech made by the Prosecution left off. The prosecution said, "Schlegelberger had seen the storm brewing." That is quite correct. I anticipated a storn, and I tried to prevent it. The attitude of Thierack up to that time and his close relations with Bormann did not leave any doubt as to his program, and just as I interpreted that, it came about. As soon as Thierack assumed office, a complete change-over occurred. It was not a gradual deterioration, but it was that famous construction of a strong National Socialist Administration of Justice as it had been ordered by Hitler. I merely point to the changes in the Administration of Justice and in legislation which are contained in the material submitted by the Prosecution. If one sees that which had been demanded for a long time and which had been tried to achieve by all means, if one sees how that, all of a sudden, now came into effect, I believe then only one can find the right measure for that which I in a continuous struggle had prevented or had delayed.
I do not want to omit, to describe briefly, the complete change in personnel policy. With the exception of the man in charge of the Budget Department, all ministerial directors were released by Thierack and many Referants transferred. The entire top level of the Ministry had changed overnight. Furthermore, of twenty-two presidents of district courts of appeal, eleven presidents, and just the best ones on the basis of their qualifications, and four general prosecutors were retired.
If in the dire situation of war such a unique measure is taken, one demonstrates most clearly that my dismissal and the appointment of Thierack, in the feeling of Hitler and Thierack, represent the point at which an entire new development starts. The purge measures by Thierack were extended also to the many non-Aryan judges or judges with Jewish relatives who at that time were still in service and to many officials who did not just belong to the Party.
I believe that my decision to fight until the very limit and to stay that long in the Ministry has found its justification. Clearly anticipating that with that new man chaos would start for the administration of justice, there was only one thing left to me: although the burden physically and psychologically was at times almost impossible to bear, to try and bear it and to fight as drastically as possible. Of course, it was clear to me, and I had to experience the fact that I would be beaten at times and had to decide to make detours wherever I could take that upon my conscience.
Q What, in your opinion, was that extreme limit which could still be justified which you have just mentioned?
A If the Tribunal was good enough to follow me in the description of my life, then it will easily recognize what my work at that time meant to a man whose life work was in the legal work. At times, today, it is hard even for me to transfer myself back again into those days and to bring those days back. And, a system which was worked out to the very last detail of appropriateness and power, there was a severed island in the continuous storm almost an anachronism in those days, and that was the administration of justice. I had to experience it, how the storm hit again and again, and how certain sacrifices had to be made to this storm of power in order to prevent that it should not triumph completely. For me, in that situation, there was only one consideration, to make this one particular measure compatible with the uncompromising principles of law such as I had considered them so far as a matter of course. Was not everything now only a question of power? How could I avoid that lust for power and prevent the accomplishment of these designs? What will go through regardless of my assistance, and which can I prevent by my work? And that deliberation led me to find that extreme limit which I have mentioned before. It was the final abolition of the independence of the Courts. For the benefit of the courts, this independence I had to try to maintain at any cost. In spite and against the devilish propaganda on the part of Goebbels, I was of the firm conviction that the German courts and German judges were still in good shape; although, now, from the large number of the many decisions, particularly of the more recent period, the Prosecution may select a few in order to prove that legal principles had been abandoned in the jurisdiction, To deal with these individual cases is not my task in these proceedings. A full examination of the entire field of justice would show that this conviction of mine was very well founded that the maintenance of the integrity of the German courts was a goal which was well worth my work and my trouble because I was and still am of the opinion that the work of the courts is the more secure guarantee for the law.
Therefore, I have tried again and again to draw various fields within the scope of the work of the courts; for instance, in the economic field, the problem of getting agriculture out of the darkness, the question of hereditary health, but the basic prerequisite was that the courts had to remain independent. When in 1937 in the German civil servant law, Hitler was given the right to retire any civil servant if this civil servant could not be expected at any time to fight for the National Socialist principles state, I in my capacity as chief of the Department for Public Law at the Ministry caused that a security clause would be contained in there for the judges; this clause provided that measures, as far as the judges are concerned, can not be based on the objective content of a judge's decision. Once the independence of the court was brought to fall the protection by courts was brought to fall, then the activity of the court could even become a danger. Therefore, I drew for myself this extreme limit for my remaining in office. With the regulations of the Reichstag of 25 April 1942, my struggle had come into the final period. It was not quite clear, as it appeared frequently with Hitler's speeches, whether or not his speech, merely for tactical reasons, had attacked the administration of justice, and whether or not the true objects were the generals. Mr. Lammers, the Chief of the Reich Chancellery, to whom I spoke immediately after the speech about all these matters, confirmed that background to me as being the true objective of Hitler's polemics, but I had to see clear. I wrote to Hitler for a Fuehrer information. The judges were by that speech extremely disturbed; I had explained to the judges that, with all the weight of my office, I would stand in protection before every judge who, according to his conscience and to the law - that clarified the situation as far as I was concerned. If Hitler's speech really meant the beginning of the end of the independence of the courts, then he had to consider my statement as an open declaration of war. That was what I wanted and I wanted to bring about a breach, in that case, on purpose.
Q How did it come to your dismissal?
A Hitler, at first, did not answer that letter which I just mentioned. There was a lot of behind the scene talk about a new appointment for the post of Minister. A few weeks later Lammers, chief of the Reich Chancellery, he called me and told me that Hitler had made up his mind to appoint a new Minister of Justice and he asked me what my attitude would be, in case the choice would come on Thierack. I replied that to work with Thierack was quite out of the question. Literally, I added, I would not sit at the same table with Thierack. Lammers replied that was what he had thought and for that eventuality he was instructed by Hitler to offer me another office comparable to the position I was holding. He had thought it over and he was prepared now to offer me the position of the President of the Reich Administrative Court (Reichsverwaltungsgericht). I rejected that offer and asked Lammers to inform Hitler that I would accept a new office under no circumstances, but wanted to be retired. Soon thereafter Lammers wrote me that I should come to his quarters at Shitomir and receive the document concerning my retirement from the office, and, then, thereafter, the report to Hitler at his headquarters at Winniza in order to take my leave. That order I carried out. On that occasion, Lammers, on orders from Hitler, gave me a check for 100,000 marks which should make it easier for me to come through the transition into retirement.
I was not happy about that donation, on the contrary I was greatly disturbed. I got in touch with the chief of the Presidial Kanzlei, the Meissner, and asked how I could avoid accepting that amount. Meissner replied that the refusal was impossible because it would mean an unfriendly act toward Hitler, and all the bad consequences would have to be accepted. Thereupon, I did not return the check and when the Russians came, that amount was still untouched in the bank. At Winniza, Hitler received me. The conversation lasted for twenty minutes. Hitler told me about the following: He required his officials to carry out his instructions without any criticism of any kind. He added, "Since you have already criticized my measures, I believe it is better if we separate." He was referring to the Fuehrer Information which I have already mentioned. I took advantage of that opportunity to tell Hitler with all frankness at my disposal that an intact and independent administration of justice was a vital question for Germany; that his method to form his judgment on the basis of information received from Gauletiers, and his intention to send home judges who had done their duty, was an impossibility. The very concept of a judge required independence. People would never respect the judgment of a dependent judge as an expression of law. I added that if I had remained in office, I would have continued to protect anybody who was persecuted unjustly.
Hitler took these statements on the whole quite easily. Time and time again he even nodded approval, but when I touched upon the question of the independence of judges in connection with his Reichstag Speech he suddenly harangued against the generals and get in a hot fury which slowly ebbed like a dying flame.
Q The Prosecution alleges that there was a conspiratorial cooperation between you and your co-defendants. Will you briefly describe your relations with the co-defendants?
AAs for these relations I have, in part, to answer absolutely in the negative. A number of my co-defendants I have only met here.
Not with a single one of the defendants here, I had any personal contort beyond official connections. These official contacts in most cases consisted of just occasional conferences required by the work.
As the defendants' dock shows, the Prosecution has selected a mere few from the large number of officials of the Administration of Justice. All of them together with other colleagues worked only in that field to which they were assigned. If one would follow the principle of conspiracy as expounded by the Prosecution, the entire Administration of Justice since 1933 would have to be considered one organization in the meaning of the count of the indictment. And I believe that an opinion of that nature would best be rebutted by the fact that when I left the Ministry of Justice, that great change took place. That is sufficient rebuttal for the assertion of personal homogeneity of the officials and the judges.
Q We want to depart now from personal matters and discuss the objections made against you. The objective charges made against you begin with the centralization problem of the Administration of Justice, Verreichlichung. Will you give us your general point of view concerning that question?
A When the empire was founded in 1871, beyond the limits of the individual federal state as an overall authority, certain agencies of the Reich were founded. The same occurred in the field of justice. It was called then the Reichjustizamt, the Reich Justice Office and, in fact, was a Reich Ministry of Justice. Later, it got that name. The Reich Justice Office had almost exclusively legislative functions. It had to deal with regulations for the Administration of Justice.
Once such a regulation had been passed, all individual states had to issue executive laws for the carrying out of this regulation. That meant that after each major Reich law had been passed, more than 20 laws had to be passed in the various states to carry out the principles of the Reich law.
What that machinery meant can be seen if one looks at the collection of these executive laws of various states.