They would have exclusive jurisdiction over these cases.
Immediately after the taking over of power by the Nazis, a decree was issued about the creation of special courts in every district where there was a District Court of Appeal. This decree was issued on 21 March 1933. The people appointed to these courts were judges from the district where there were District Courts of Appeal. At first, in each such a district, there was only one special court each. But later on, when more and more cases came before the special courts, and their competence was increased, special court for each such district were provided. These special courts had such an extensive jurisdiction, that in addition to the jurisdiction which had been laid down in the law, they became competent for other crimes if the prosecute was of the opinion that the immediate judgment by the special court in view of the graveness, seriousness, or objectionableness of the act or because of the excitement caused in the public, or because of some serious endangering of public order this was desirable.
Q. Pardon me, Doctor, is there a Reichsgesetzblatt reference to the provision you have just been reading?
A. Volume 1, page 405.
Q. That was in the year 1940?
A. 1940, yes.
Q. Thank you.
A. In practice, the special courts had grown to such an extent, they swel** to such an extent, that ordinary jurisdiction became an exception rather the the rule. And if the decree of what the Reich Constitution says, in Article 103 is not absolutely contraty to the formation of special courts, neverthel the principle has to be applied which Professor Anschuetz suggested. He is the most important authority on this field of constitutional law. I refer to the principle he suggested in his commentary on the Reich Constitution the the possibility of special courts is limited by the fact that special courts should never become the rule rather than the exception, and in this way, in Curtain sense, swallow up the ordinary courts.
Q. Dr. May I ask you prior to the rise of the control of Germany by the Hitler government, was there at any time either under the Papen Government or just prior to that time, a period of time in which there was a form of special court in Germany? And if there was, tell whether it differed in any way from the special courts which arose under the Nazis.
A. Under the government of Breuning, under the emergency decree, the Third Reich emergency decree of the president of the Reich of October 8, 1, the Reich government is empowered to establish special courts in this decree which, however, was not used at all during the government of Breuning. The is also some stipulation about ending the activities of the special court; then through the National Socialist activities the situation become constant less secure, and, therefore Papen's government actually used this decree or powering them to establish special courts, and it did so by a decree of the Reich government with the creation of special courts, of 9 August, 1932; it is this decree that, a few weeks after Papen's attack against the Prussi** government; here certain crimes were mentioned, among them the crimes of paragraphs 211 to 215, murder, etc., the dynamite law, which were to be judged by special courts. This decree about special courts, in some detail particularly has some semblance to the latter decree of the Third Reich, is noticeable, however, stipulation of paragraph 17 of this decree, which points out the temporary and provisional nature of those special courts. opening in favor of the sentenced person was permissible if facts or evidence made it necessary to review the matter in an ordinary trial, in a regular trial. This stipulation shows the big and fundamental difference between this temporary establishment of special courts and the later one in the Thi** Reich, which must have been meant to be permanent according to the entire structure of the Third Reich.
Q. Doctor, in addition to the special courts, were there other courts outside of the regular courts which existed prior to 1933 established by the Nazi regime; do you know anything about the Peoples' Court?
A. Yes. In 1934 the peoples' Court was established, apparently as a result of the disappointment of the National Socialists about the sentence the trial concerning the arson of the Reichstag, in which four defendants acquitted. The Peoples' Court replaced the Reichsstaat insofar as it was competent for quest ions of treason and high treason. It replaced it entire in the place of the judges of the Peoples' Court, they were in audition to professional judges who were chosen very carefully in accordance with the ideology of the government.
In addition to these two judges there weren't high party functionaries or military people; here there were thus even the few judges whom it was considered possible to choose for the Peoples' Court; even these were in the minority compared to the representatives of the party interests.
Q. Doctor, I will also ask you now to tell us about the judiciary of the German courts prior to 1933- whether or not the extent, if any, of the liberty which they enjoyed, the freedom of decision, and compare the situation then as you observed it in Germany after the rise of the Third Reich.
A. For the judges before the advent of the Third Reich, the principle which I have already cited, and which was contained in the constitution of every legal Reichstag, was that the judge should be independent and only subject to what was applicable to them. The methods, in accordance with the methods of the National Socialists, the maintenance of this principle even during the Third Reich was simulated; a mask of independence was put on the judge; however, the mask was rigid and was muddled by National Socialism Already the education of a young student of law was done in such a manner no was schooled in the principles and the so-called ideology of National Socialism. I have noted several points in this connection from decrees of the Prussian ministry of Justice of 1934; that was before everything was centralized in the Reich Ministry of Justice; a general decree of the Pru** Ministry of Justice of Hay 16, 1934, about the education of legal assistant and referent rs in German justice, page 636. It describes the following principles laid down; the following basic principles, I quote: "Thu task every aspiring legal student who is receptive to the great ideas of the new times, to cooperate in the building up of National Socialist justice, to the principle the following arc to serve: Education and labor cooperatives; it says expressly that the loaders of these cooperatives have to be convinced National Socialists." according to the Prussian Minister of Justice of the time, Kerrl -- the camp was named after him --- served this purpose in parti lar, and I have frequently been told by young law students who had been in this camp, the kind of propaganda, lectures and so-called schooling they received there, and which they had to listen to there.
Further more, I have written down a general decree of the Prussian Ministry of Justice of May 11, 1934, German Justice, page 632, in which clarity cannot be misunderstood; it said that all legal assistants and assessors, especially future judges and prosecutors, that the minister expects of them that they put themselves at the service of the Nazi movement with pleasure, which is the backbone of the National Socialist State. In my resent capacity, as Presiding Judge of the District Court, in which capacity I have to do with donazification matters of younger judges and assessors, almost all young lawyers tell me that the threat which were almost open, and the pressure of activities in the organization of the party, or the SA, caused them to report there and to become members, in order not to lose their future profession.
Q. Doctor, did the judge himself, after 1933, with reference to his previous independence under civil service and his previous rights against indiscriminate disciplinary matters, did that change any after 1933 from what it had been prior to 1933?
A. Also the judges were under constant pressure and a considerable number of judges who resisted this pressure and their activities, objected to the principles and ideals of the state of law of the Reichsstaat, and tried to apply them further. They, under constantly growing worry, and under constantly growing pressure, legal characters, in the course of years, after a while, submitted to this pressure.
Q. Doctor, I will ask you whether or not there was a tine after the rise of the Nazi to power, in 1933, and at the beginning of the war with Poland, September 1, 1939, that if it was necessary for the judges of the courts to wear any distinctive mark on their judicial robes?
A. Yes, something that I saw from the outside which I regard as one of the most despicable acts, that is, the so-called Fuehrer's decree of 19 June 1936 to one German judges and prosecutors, the so-called sovereignty insign** which had as its most important symbol the swastika, a symbol of racial hatred, oi persecution; that is something absolutely opposite to the meaning of the functions of a judge.
Q. Excuse me, Doctor, may I interrupt you a second. This was after the Hamburg laws of 1935?
A. Yes.
Q And, I think you said it was opposite to the standard of the judges, you are referring, are you not, to the training and understanding which the German jurist had prior to the advent of the Nazi? It is in conflict with the training you had prior to 1933, is it not, Doctor?
A. Yes, that is it.
Q. So I ask you whether or not, in your opinion, this subordination of the bench to the Government and the influence of racial policy of the Nazi Government, and the series of oppressions through a judicial process were foreign to the traditional training of the German judicial system from the time of 1870 on down to 1933?
A. It w s absolutely foreign to the legal education which I and all the of my generation, and the generation proceeding it, and even of a later one, before 1933 had received, yes. And the fuehrer's decree about having to wear this sovereignty insigna, the State Secretary, Freislor, at that time published a note of thanks in a German Justice, and I think that one sentence from it is particularly remarkable:
"In us there is nothing of neutral justice." This is a rather roundabout expression. Neutral justice is a rather unclear expression, and can only have the meaning of objective justice
Q. I ask you then, Doctor, now with reference to the establishment after 1933 of the unification of the administration of justice in Germany, in the Reich, as distinguished from the power prior to that time of the Reichsstaat to try and pass certain national laws; that the administration of justice which took place after 1933' from the rise of the Nazi in the administration of justice, if anything was different to that which existed prior to that of 1933. Was there a unification throughout the Reich. Before 1933 tine law had its own administration?
A. Yes.
Q. Will you explain what happened after that and to what extent, and whether it was known in Germany before that?
A. As I have already stated, in the year 1935, the entire administrative of justice was taken over by the Reich and was now administered by the Reich, directed by the Reich Ministry of Justice in a centralized fashion. In addition to it and under it, there were not further judicial authorities of the provinces. These existed no longer.
A. Who, if any one, appointed the judges?
A. The judges were appointed by Hitler, and before that the Ministry of Justice or provinces had appointed them. It has been noticeable that the National Socialist party soon was cooperative in the appointment of the judges, getting permission to cooperate by the decree, about the participate of the Deputy of the Fuehrer in the appointment of the civil servants of 24 September 1935. He decreed that a copy of the subject for the advancement for promotion, that statements about the personalities of the civil servants had to be shown to the Deputy of the Fuehrer, and that he had to be given an adequate period to state his opinion on the matter.
Q. Doctor, may we address ourselves, then, to the question of German criminal law and procedure, as it existed prior to the Spring -- late February, early March 1933, prior to that date and subsequent to that date -Excuse me just a moment.
MR. LA FOLETTE: May I say, your Honor, I am a little tired, and I have to stand mere, and I know it is not time for a recess, but I would appreciate a recess at this time.
THE PRESIDE: It is a very appropriate time in my judgment.
MR. LA FOLLETTE: May I also say that I am advised that a rule was passed in Tribunal I that during the intermission, at least during cross-examination of a witness, he may not be with his counsel during any intermission of this sort. New I don't know whether this Court wants it to apply to direct examination. At this particular time I have no desire to confer with the witness during the intermission, and I think perhaps we had better not make a precedent, but I am willing at this time--It is another one of the procedural natters that I think we will want to talk about.
DR. SCHILF (Counsel for the defendants Klemm and Mettgenberg): I believe what was just suggested by the prosecutor would not be correct if now, during the recess, we would not have an opportunity to talk to our clients about one thing or another. That would not be correct.
MR. LA FOLLETTE: No, I am sorry, the witness.
DR. SCHILF: Oh, I misunderstood that. I an sorry, I understood that during the recess we were net allowed to speak to our clients. I ask to be excused; I misunderstood.
MR. LA FOLLETTE: I don't know what, eventually, the Court will rule. It is a rule that counsel very often conference with their witnesses in the States during an intermission, but until we make a rule, I am perfectly willing to restrict myself to sitting down some place.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
(A recess was taken)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
BY MR. LaFOLLETTE:
Q I assume there will be no objection if I repeat the last question before we recessed. Doctor, having regard now to the subject of the substantive criminal law and the criminal procedure which existed in Germany prior to late February and early March 1933 and that which existed after that date, will you discuss that question from your knowledge and give us the differences and changes, if any, which took place, please?
A Soon after January 1933 the principles of the criminal code of procedure were changed and turned upside down. The so-called law van der Luebbe which after the Reichstag fire was promulgated, after the Reichstag fire the principle hitherto completely alien to German law nulla poena sine lege, was replaced by introducing the death penalty for crimes which hitherto had not been punished by the death penalty, but which, committed before that law came into force, were threatened with the death penalty. This was a preparation for the trial on the Reichstag fire and, so to speak, a hint for the court which would have to try this case. After the so-called Roehm putsch the law of 3 June 1934 was promulgated, the sole clause of which concerned the squashing of attacks concerning treason or high treason during the three days from 30 June to 2 July 1934. This clause declared these measures legal on account of the legislator who, without legal procedure, without judgment, had arrogated himself to the position of hangman. The public did not know to what extent that self-amnesty was carried out in practice. At any rate, after the commission of criminal deeds the so-called "squashing" of high treason and of treasonable attacks simultaneously meant the elimination of adversaries and persons who had knowledge of such things, that in fact the two went together -- of that the public did hear. There is also this case which I can only mention as far as I have heard of it through rumors, in which in which a journalist was killed by mistake because he was being confused with somebody who was supposed to have played a part in the Roehm putsch. He had the same name as that man.
The development of criminal law is characterized by an ever-increasing inflation of the death penalty, for which the van der Luebbe law since 1871 for the first time laid down that the execution should be carried out by hanging. As regards dangerous habitual criminals, on 24 November 1933, Reich Gesetzblatt Page 995, novel national socialist measures were introduced, among them castration. The rights of the defendant in criminal procedure were curtailed more and more in course of time. In particular, the protection of the legal position was eliminated. The principle, nivis in idem, also one of the fundamental principles of law, was eliminated by the introduction of the so-called extraordinary complaint and the extraordinary objection and the nullity pica. Since the outbreak of war in 1939 the extraordinary objection in legal judgments was introduced by the law of 16 September 1939, Reich Law Gazett Part I, Page 1841. The chief prosecutor was the supreme Reich court and the chief prosecutor was the People's court who, in most cases, had taken the place of the Chief Reich Prosecutor, within one year after a judgment had become legal, were able to resume the case if serious doubts against the correctness of the judgment had arisen. The decision in that case was by special senates of the Supreme Reich Court and by the People's Court. So that here a special court was formed inside a special court, which demonstrated particularly clearly the development of the People's Court. The special penal senate of the Supreme Reich Court dealt after the order of 21 January 1940 and before the Supreme Court the supreme Reich Prosecutor could bring other cases, as far as they did not fall within the competency of the People's Court. In 1940 an order of 13 August, Reich Law Gazette Part I, Page 508, the nullity complaint of the Chief Reich Prosecutor of the Supreme Reich court was introduced. I must correct myself. It was actually introduced in 1940, and that by the order of the 21st of February 1940.
Here the nullity was introduced. For instance when there was a mistake in tho application of the law concerning tho actual facts, this, too, soon no longer appeared efficient. Next there was the order of 13 August 1942 which declared admissible the nullity plea. Also when considerable misgivings had arisen against the correctness of the facts found in tho decision under dispute or against tho verdict itself, this nullity plea was applicable.
In such instances of penal law, the principle "nulla poena sine logo," was removed in 1935 and an anonymous principle which had hitherto been completely alien to German law was introduced. I quote Article 2 of the criminal code.
"After the change in the law, persons will be punished who have committed an action which is declared punishable by law or a, deed which after the basic principle of criminal law and according to the healthy instincts of the peopic merits punishment."
Q. Excuse me. Doctor, may I interrupt you there for just a minute? This law provided punishment by an analogy of guilt according to the healthy sentiment of the people. From the time of the passage of that law up to the end of the war, do you know of any declaration of any objective standards by which the head thy sentiment of the people could be measured? Objective standards, that is all.
Up to the outbreak of the war, from the passage of that act until the end of the war, do you know of any objective standards contained in any law by which a judge could objectively measure the healthy sentiment of the people?
A. An objective standard? I do not know any objective standard explaining tho sound instinct of people.
Q. Thank you. Proceed.
A. The sound instinct of the people has been quoted in many judgments passed by special courts. Jews have been sentenced for racial pollution and sound instincts of people war referred to there. These could be seen in statements from the "Stuermer."
Q. That was the publication of stricher. He was convicted by the International Military Tribunal.
That is the only objective standard about which you have heard? Is that right, doctor?
A. I only said as a matter of an example, the special courts which pass such death sentences, said the sound instincts of the people demanded that a Jew who had any dealings with the so-called Aryans should be punished by death. This did not correspond to the sound instincts of the people. One cannot say that because a large portion of the German people did not approve of this legislation.
Q. Thank you. Doctor. You nay proceed. I interrupted you because I wanted to ask you about that point. The splitting up of the judicial system proceeded quite apart from the fact that the military tribunals which the Weimar Constitution had removed were introduced and that other special courts were established for particular members of the SS for example and for members of the police organizations. Moreover, vertain transgressions committed by members of the Reich Labor Service were removed from the ordinary courts and were dealty with by a disciplinary court within the Reich Labor service. According to an order of 4 December 1941, Jews were deprived of the right to say they will not be tried by a judge who is prejudiced.
In an order of 1 July 1943, Jews are described as simply not suitable for trial before an ordinary penal court, and transgressions committed by them are left entirely to be dealt with by the police. Thus, the Jews wore being removed even from jurisdiction of the special court.
The order of 4 December 1941 -
Q. Doctor, you have discussed. I think, rather generally, the changes which took place. May I ask you also, are you acquainted with the law of June 23, 1935, Reichgesctzblatt 1844? I ask you whether or not that law which provided that a defendant's position could be worsened on an appeal than it had been before, whether or not that was an innovation in German criminal procedure and practice prior to 1933?
A. The so-called reformation imperius, the possibility that the defendant could be punished by a judgment reversing the first judgment, was an innovation of National Socialist Penal Law.
Q. Mr. Behl, you lived in Germany constantly from the time of the rise of National Socialism until the present time. Is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. Will you toll us, briefly, where you lived from 1933 until 1945 and about the length of time you lived in those places, place?
A. From 1933 on, until 1943, I lived in Berlin. And from March 1943, until March 1945, I lived in Agnetendorf-Riesengebirge. Every month for about a week I went to Berlin.
Q Did you, at any time, while you lived in Berlin and outside of Berlin, in any manner learn anything about the activities of the SS, the SD, the Secret Police or the Gestapo as they affected the administration of criminal justice under the Third Reich during that period of time? Did you learn anything?
A. I had not heard about it, only from what people told me and by experiences that my friends had. They told me that the Gestapo removed defendants which had been acquitted by the courts-- or rather arrested them as they were leaving the court-- and removed them into the Gestapo custody. ****h friend, who after the event of November 1933 when they were taken to concentration camps in large numbers, told me about the ill-treatment which they were subjected to there, and I know that many of them were always escaping from Gestapo activity and SS activity during those weeks. Frequent they went from one place to another in their cars. In my own apartment the several people stayed who had been changing their residence so as not to far into the hands of the Gestapo.
Q I ask you whether these things about which you testified took place if any of them took place before 1939-- the activities in connection with the courts as well as the affair cf 1933 about which you testified? Were the activities of the police organizations that you have mentioned, did you hear of them in connection with sentences cf th taking in custody of people after acquittal or before trial prior to September 1939?
A. Yes, that was before 1939.
I ask you, doctor, as a result of your observations of the things that went on in Germany, as a lawyer, during the years from 1933 to September 1, 1938, is your opinion that the activities of the SS, the SD, the police and the Gestapo as they affected the criminal jurisdiction and the assertion of control over individuals before they were ordered in custody by courts, whether in your opinion, those things were of common knowledge ******ers of the legal profession whose would be prosecuting their profession in the Ministry of Justice as a prosecutor or as a judge, or in th Party Chancellory at Munich, whether they were so generally known, in your opinion, that it would be a common knowledge to those people?
A I consider it impossible that anybody, particularly in Berlin, who worked in Berlin in high offices and with the court, did net know of the activities of the SS and the Gestapo. Attorneys-at-law who were my friends told me about such incidents very frequently. In various residential quar** for instance, in the street where people had lived for a long time, it be known that some person or the other person was suddenly collected today. Nobody knows where he is going to. In Berlin, it would have been hardly possible for anybody not to know about it, and certainly not for anybody what was a lawyer and who dealt with the administration of justice.
Doctor, let me ask you also with reference to the physical treatment which the inmates of concentration camps received, as to the character of treatment and the percentage of deaths or the general percentage of death of inmates of concentration camps as against the death rate among the general **** civil population, prior to September 1, 1939, any information upon those facts-- if any-- came to your attention prior to September 1, 1939?
A I can not mention individual cases, but I have heard a great deal about ill-treatment in concentration camps. I remember an old Jewish president of a district court from Nurnberg who told me-- he was at that to staying with relatives in Berlin-- I do not remember his name, I think it was something like Heilbronn or Heilbrunn, but I can't say for certain-during the events of November 1938, he was taken to a concentration camp, and later he told me himself--- he was a man of about 65-- and he told me to what extent he was subjected to ill-treatment by an SA or SS man who was in the camp.
Q I won't ask you, if you don't care to go into the details, but was the treatment a pleasant one or an unpleasant one that he told you about.
AAccording to all reports which I had from people who had that experience themselves, there can be no doubt that it was a very bad treatment and in fact, it was ill-treatment.
Q I ask you whether or not, doctor, in your opinion gathered from the information that you obtained and from the facts and stories which you hear discussed with reference to the treatment of people in concentration camps during the time that you have lived in the place that you have described 1933 to 1939, you believe that a person could be practicing the profession law in the Ministry of Justice as a practicing attorney, as a judge of a special people's court, or in the Party Chancellery at Munich, without have knowledge of these facts which were common knowledge in Berlin and in the ***** to you have lived?
A I can't imagine it.
Q Mr. Behl, I ask you to keep in mind and to assume the existence of the changes made in German substantive and procedural law, criminal law, for company 1933 to September 1939, as contrasted with those which existed bel that date, and about which you had testified, and I ask you further to assthat the action and activity of the SS, the SD, the Secret Police and Ges** prior to September 1939 about which you have testified, were on September 1 1939, common knowledge among German lawyers who were then active in the practice of law in the Ministry of Justice, the Party Chancellory at Munich the prosecution of criminal cases on behalf of the Reich or as judges of special courts and cf the people's Court, and had been active in the practice of law in one or more of those fields from February 1933; and I ask you to further assume that physical mis-treatment of inmates of concentration camp A. high death rate among the inmates of said camps and among the Germ?
civil population generally, about which you had testified, were on September 1939; common knowledge among the above defined members of the German legal profession, and to assume further, that the following speeches had been given and published prior to September 1, 1939;
An excerpt from a radio speech by Dr. Hans Frank, on 20 March 1934, published in Documete der Deutschen Politik, Volume II, page 294, said:
"The second fundamental legislation of the Hitler Reich is the racial law. The concept of race was for the first time in human history made a legal concept by the National Socialists. The racially and nationally unified German nation will be protected in the future against any further devaluations of its racial stock." And a Speech by Hans Frank before the National Socialist Party Congress on September 194, 1934 concerning the reform of German law, published in Dokumenteder Deutschen Politik, Volume III, page 315, in which this was said: "By means of the law of 18 June 1935, the liberalist foundation of the old Penal Code --'no penalty without a law' -- was definitely abandoned and replaced by the postulate: 'no crime without punishment,' which corresponds with our conception of the law. This basic innovation was rendered possible by the National Socialistic attitude toward the criminal, which demands that, rather than to protect the criminal against the community's reaction to his crime, it is necessary to give legal protection to the community against the effects of his criminality. In the future, criminal behavior, even if it does not fall under formal penal precepts, will receive the deserved punishment if such behavior is considered punishable according to the healthy feelings of the people. And then I ask you to assume further that the above defined members of the German legal profession had received their legal education and training prior to February, 1933; then I ask you whether or not, in your opinion, any of the above defined. German lawyers so educated knew or could be held to have known on September 1, 1939, that the continued administration cf the system of criminal justice and places of confinement and imprisonment by the National Socialist government, under the stress of war, would result in continued increasing severity of administration until it would result in taking of human lives, under the guise of a system of criminal law and procedure in which persons would be detained, imprisoned and incarcerated and their lives taken by execution, without the benefit of objective judgments, verdicts and sentences based upon fixed standards of punishment, rendered by courts conducted by an independent, uncoerced judiciary, together with the right to make an adequate defense and without benefit of an orderly administration of the places of confinement and imprisonment, which had been the standards observed by the German Reich prior to February 1933, and also those observed by all civilized nations.
I ask you whether in your opinion German lawyers above defined engaged in practices which we have stated in this question. I ask you whether in your opinion they knew or whether they should have known that these things would happen.
A The movement developed from 1933 to 1939, and as a result of the war the fanaticism of the leading persons of national citizens, or all those who had to talk about the criminal procedures during the war would become more and degenerate in that same direction and during the conversations which I had, I don't know in what year, with the Minister, I said to him, and I asked him how he could take part in these things; he used to say and many others said the same thing, if you knew of all the things that we are preventing, and how much worse it be if we were not here. I told him in reply, according to the experiences of not only the former political parties until 1933 but that of all people who had anything to do with National Socialists that you will go out eventually until you yourself will be prevented from preventing, and that was what happened. Gradually I believe that many of them gradually tried to the best of their ability, to prevent things, but the fanatic play of National Socialism which caught everybody who had anything to do with it, so they too were affected by it and they were caught in the stream of those deeds committed by National Socialism. That is the trend which the leading National Socialists had in mind.
Q Is that all; is that your answer?
A That is all.
MR. LaFOLLETTE: Defense Counsel may cross examine.
DR. SCHILF: (Attorney for Defendants Mettgenberg, Klemm): If the Court please, the cross examination which the Defense intends to make will probably take several hours. Before I start, I should like to ask the Court whether it wishes me to start the examination, which means it would last for half an hour, or whether the bench would prefer to adjourn until tomorrow morning.
THE PRESIDENT: We will leave it to the pleasure of Dr. Schilf, as to whether he wants to start today or wait until tomorrow morning.
DR. SCHILF: I would prefer of course that there be no interruption, and that we start the cross-examination tomorrow morning.
THE PRESIDENT: We will, therefore, adjourn court at this time until tomorrow morning at 9:30.
MR. LaFOLLETTE: May I make one remark before we leave, and that is about the rule on cross-examination, because we made no ruling. Tribunal I has issued a ruling about counsel talking with the witnesses during recess. I would assume there would be no objection to my breaking bread with my witness or seeing him, which is a very normal thing.
THE PRESIDENT: We are not familiar with the ruling made in Tribunal I; maybe you can state it to us.
MR. LaFOLLETTE: As I recall, the ruling made in Tribunal I was that during a recess, during cross-examination, of a defendant, I think it was a defendant, that he could not communicate with his counsel during that recess. As I recall it did not apply after Court had adjourned in the evening or at any other time, but it was during the recess, I am rather positive. I think that was the full extent of that ruling.
THE PRESIDENT: May we inquire whether Defense Counsel have any wishes to express on this point, as applying to the recess from now until tomorrow morning? I take it from the consent and approval of the Defense Counsel that so far as this night's adjournment is concerned, you will be at liberty. We will adjourn until tomorrow morning at 9:30.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 19 March 1947 at 0930 hours.)