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.)
Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America, against Josef Altstoetter, et al, defendants, sitting at Nuernberg, Germany, on 19 March 1947, 0930-1630, Justice Marshall presiding.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session. The Honorable Judge of Military Tribunal III. God save the United States of American and this honorable Tribunal. There will be order in the court.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Marshal, you will please ascertain whether all defendants are present.
THE MARSHAL: May it please Your Honors, all the defendants are present in the courtroom with the exception of defendants Rothaug and Eng who are absent due to illness.
THE PRESIDENT: Proper notation will be made in the notes.
You may proceed with the cross-examination, Dr. Schilf.
DR. SCHILF: Counsel for the defendants Klemmaand Mettgenberg. With the approval of the Tribunal, I should now like to begin cross-examining witness on behalf of the defendants Klemm and Mettgenberg.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed.
CROSS-EXAMINATION
BY DR. SCHILF:
Q Witness, yesterday you gave us a report saying that in 1935, you left the German administration and that in 1941 you did war work again in the administration. You said in 1931 you left because you considered y work to be intolerable. Would you please give us the reasons why in 1933 y were retired? My second question is why, in 1941, did the Party object to your working further?
A In 1935, I left the Ministry of the Interior in virtue of the 1a for the restoration of the service act and there was no special reason sta in the letter. I was told the reason was that as an official in the Administration, I was considered impossible. I was not a member of the Party and had revised to join the NS Jurist's League. That League changed its name but I do not remember exactly on what date. That would have been the proper reason. I was never told any details.
Q Did you ever belong to another party?
A Yes. I was a member of the Social Democrat Party.
Q Don't you think that was the main reason? The fact that you were a member of the party was the main reason, is that right?
A Yes. I am sure that played a part too. Another material reason that I was the head of the examining office for literature, the purity of literature. I frequently had to reject applications by the Minister; before 1933, I was attacked in the National Socialist Press.
Q May I ask you this: Did you belong to the Republican Judges' League?
A Yes. I did.
Q Would you please, briefly, explain to the Court that League and its aims?
A The aim of the Republican's Research League was to uphold among jurists the ideas of the Weimar Republic and true democracy, to exercise criticism against judgments, passed by judges of a reactionary mentality j the years of the Republic, which showed quite evidently a political tenden And we tried to explain that in a legal manner.
Q That is sufficient as a general statement. Now as to my second question, I should like to know about this. In 1941, you again had difficulties because the Party would no longer have you in the Prussian Interior Administration.
A Yes. I was personally told that the Ministry of the Interior had received a letter from the Braunes Haus in Munich saying that my employment during the war was no longer desirable. I had been compelled to accept the position by an order at the beginning of the war. The reasons were, the fi** vice-president Scholz in Berlin told me, my complete non-observance of the Party organizations. He said he would try to counteract the party objection so he could keep me in my position, but I was not interested in that. He asked me if at least I were a member of the NSV. Then shrugging his shoulder he gave up when I had to say no to that as well.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness should be admonished to speak little slowly.
Q Do you think that on account of your membership in the Social Democrat Party and the Republican Judges' League, you had further disadvantages apart from the fact that you were retired from the Administrative service in 1935?
A I cannot state any further disadvantages.
Q According to what you told us yesterday about your professional career, I suppose it is correct that you left the Administration of Just 1930, and that in 1945 you rejoined?
A That is correct.
Q That means that basically, the things you told us yesterday were observed by you outside the Administration of Justice, that is to say, that conclusions you drew yesterday, the views you gave yesterday, were arrive at on account of the things you saw outside the Administration of Justice.
A Even when I was no longer active in the Administration of Justice I observed the developments of the Administration of Justice during the Third Reich. I also observed the developments of culture under the Third Reich. I followed both consistently and in detail. I studied the Law Cazo and German Justice because I observed the slow degeneration as an adversary of the National Socialist Terror Rule. I talked to friends of the mine who were judges and attorneys-at-law-about the experiences they were having read newspapers and collected clippings concerning the administration of I also collected clippings concerning other fields of public life. I cold such clippings which appeared significant to me regarding the development the National Socialist rule. I intend these to be a foundation for a book which I intended to write later. This collection was lost in my Berlin he I do not know whether it is still in existence because I have not seen my for two and one-half years.
Q The basis for your judgment was therefore essentially the fact that yon followed the laws and publications of German Law and your discussions with judges. Do you believe, Mr. President, that this is a basis from which one could judge the inner events and the administration of justice at the Reich Ministry?
A I believe so, because the text of the laws, the proclamations which were made in the National Socialist phraseology which spoke for itself, they gave everybody who knew how to read a clear picture on the active events# In particular, it was possible for the reader to read between the lines, and if he like myself since 1923 observed National Socialism, considering it a terrible danger for the German people. Until 1933, I wrote political essays and gave my views on National Socialism, and very early on I read the book "My Struggle" (Mein Kampf) which unfortunately as I know from conversations and in fact heard very often, was not done by many jurists, particularly judges who belonged to the Party since 1933. Frequently, nowadays, I hear from judges concerning the status of the Denazification matters, and they have given me the answer that they never read "My Struggle" (Mein Kampf). That is, they who were judges -that is human beings who are not under obligation to form an independent judgement and to come to an assessment of affairs--these men never examined the so-called spiritual foundation of the movement.
Q Witness, what you told us concerns the general political development. My question concerning the difference in your judgment referred more to the technical matters of administration. I intended to ask you whether you think that, after having been outside the administration of justice for 15 years as an observer and as a critical observer, and you wore not within the administration, whother in that position you think you had a rcliablo basis for your judgment of the inner events of technical administration concerning orders, decroos, etc. Don't you think that these who were insic.o Mio administration have a different basis for thoir judgments 'ken those who wore outside?
A I believe that I have already answered your question for I told you that I learned from the text of the laws, from the preambles, and from the statements in the Deutsche Justiz (German Justice) that from all that, I was able quite well to form a picture of inner events as well. It may be correct that persons, who during the Third Reich were active in tho administration of justice, had more manifold insight and experiences, but I do not think that thoir experiences were different or could have been different from those which I, through careful observation of this development had.
Q Mr. President, yesterday you said that after your dismissal in 1955, you went in for witting. May I ask you whether that work was of a legal nature?
A That was literary work.
Q That did not deal with jurisprudence and legislature?
A No, the publications which I might have intended to make in that field, I would never have been allowed to have printed.
Q I possibly put this question to see whether the observations of the term from 1930 to 1935 were also laid down in your writings.
A My answer is "No," because literary activity in that sphere, on account of my views, would have been impossible for me.
Q Mr. President, in 1935 you were retired compulsorily?
A Yes.
Q In 1934, I will quote the law: Reich Law Gazette, 1934, Part I, Page 785. The Act is published both for the Civil Servants and those in service on 20 August 1934. This law contains a form of oath, which in principle, had to be taken by every civil servant and by every soldier. It says, *I swear to Adolf Hitler, and among other things, obedience to the laws." I wanted to ask you, and of course it is obvious because you were dismissed in 1935, whether you over swore that civil servant oath?
A I did swear that oath, just as of that time Jewish civil servants swore it too. The oath was sworn to a person who for their part had made an oath on the Weimar Constitution, with the thought in the back of their mind that at the first opportunity, even though apparently in a legal way, he would remove that Constitution. I discussed this with my Jewish colleagues who also were forced to swear that oath, and it must be understood in that sense.
Q I have a request to time German translator. Would she read the form of the oath from the Reich Law Gazette, to inform the Tribunal on it.
INTERPRETER: "I swear that I shall be obedient to the leader of the German Reich and people, Adolf Hitler; that I shall be loyal to him; that I will observe the laws; and that I will conscientiously fulfill my official duties; so help me God."
BY DR. SCHILF:
Q Witness, you said just now that you and your Jewish colleagues had been forced to swear that oath, if I understand you correctly.
A Yes.
Q Was there no possibility to evade that oath?
A There was the possibility to refuse the oath with all the consequence which the Third Reich had in store for such occasions.
Q I don't know whether the Tribunal understands what possibilities you were having in mind.
A One would have had to count with being moved to a concentration camp and one would have had to count quite definitely on persecution.
Q Wasn't there a possibility to resign first voluntarily? That is to say, to ask to resign. It is known that the oath would have to be sworn by the various officials in various departments. Could one not in order to avoid the oath, have resigned voluntarily first? Do you bolieve that possibility existed?
A It may be possible. In that case too, grave consequences had to ho feared in keeping with the spirit of National Socialism.
Q Witness, I suppose I may now draw the conclusion that if you had no been retired compulsorily, you fool that in that case you would have remain a civil servant?
A In reply, I can only state that through my actions and through my political attitude, I provoked that compulsory dismissal. I talked with the two Jewish colleagues, the Government Councilor Kaiser and Government Councilor Bloch. I associated with them almost exclusively. By way of demonstration: every day I was seen together with them. I had my lunch with them, and thus just as in 1941 where again my attitude brought about what happened, so at that time I gave cause for that pensioning off.
The Vice President of the Police, at that time Bobol, told me in 1936 that I would try to keep me; I refused.
Q. Without any criticism, may I refer to something that at first appeal to be a contradiction to me; earlier you said that when you left in 1935, if I understand your rightly, your superior officer told you that he would like to try and keep you and that he asked you -
A. No, that was in 1941; that is a misunderstanding.
Q. I see.
A. This attempt in 1935 was made in the conversation to keep me.
Q. If that attempt had succeeded, would you have remained in your position for sometime; would you have been so inclined? I don't know the reasons of couse, but would you have been inclined to hold your position?
A. No, I no longer had that inclination, but at that time my two friends on account of the Nurnberg laws were dismissed with me.
Q. Now, going over to quite a different complex of questions; in tnis cross examination I will keep to the same order in which you told us the developments yesterday. Yesterday you described to us how the administration of justice was centralized, and if I understood you correctly, you had a critical view of that development. Any way you spoke as if that centralization meant an undermining of justice, that centralization began such an undermining. Am I correct in that assumption?
A. Centralization of the administration of justice which prior to the advent of National Socialism was already being attempted, and which earlier on perhaps in the interest of uniformity of the administration of justice in a constitutional state like that might have been welcomed, but this centralization at the moment when the central power in Germany was in the h* of the National Socialists, it became a danger and it was shown that contra igation, the penetration of the administration of justice with the National Socialist tendencies; that centralization was facilitated by these ideas. It does not matter that any aim which one desires to achieve is achieved, * what matters is now and in what circumstances such an aim is achieved. In 1935 the so-called Verreichlighung, the centralization of administration of justice was a danger for the Rechts Staat, the constitutional state, against which the National Socialism was sold with distrust and it had the tendency to undermine it.
During the first Numberg trial, Hans Frank stated that Hitler had great distrust as far as the judges were concerned, and that the judges and their aims were a thorn in the flash to him. Here is a statement which I want to comment on, it is from a newspaper I cut; and it is a statement by Hans Frank; Adolph Hitler considered the jurists a disturbance and incompetent; he was against them just as altogether he did not recognize formal orders.
Q. Again I should like to say that is more a consideration of general political nature and not a criticism of justice, but it is only a criticism of Hitler's leadership.
A. That only concerns half of what I said. Under the rule of National Socialism everything was politically penetrated by the National Socialist ideology, and the centralization of the administration of justice in 1935 was intensified in 1935 because the fight with the political attitude of National Socialism and the undermining of the old principles promoted that. Therefore the word "political" only applies to the background of my criticism of that centralization.
Q. The criticism, if I understand correctly, refers to the fact that by the centralization, justice became a tool of Hitler's policy.
A. Yes, that is absolutely correct.
Q. When you quoted Hans Frank you want to say that his judgment was right: would you say that?
A. Yes, that is what I want to say. When you read Mein Kampf, my strug you see that his judgment is right.
Q. I should like to have you differentiate between your criticism of the political aims and the talk which Hitler already said for himself, and your own criticism of the administration of justice concerning the several persons who were active in the administration; to explain my question, whether your statements referred more to Hitler's intents than to the institutions of the ministry of justice and jurists as such.
A. Again I can only say I believe that I have already expressed that quite clearly that the civil servants in the ministry of justice and the jurists in general, by that centralization, were delivered to Hitler; and later on the development proved to what extent, some unwillingly, became gradually the victim to the influence, to the bad influence of National Socialism.
Q. The problem of centralization is acute, and as you told us earlier that you were a member of the SPD; you will admit that the SPD, at least along with the political line concerning the reconstruction of Germany, represented centralized ideas.
A. That is correct, and I have already stated that what matters is not the abstract aim, but what matters is how that aim is achieved, and what matters or the circumstances in which such an aim is achieved.
A. We will assume we have a political case in 1933. The SFD came to power perhaps inside of a coalition government; it became so strong that it could put into effect its political aims, including the centralization of the administration. Of course, I am not discussing methods here. Do you think that in that case too, as far as centralization of justice, would have been part of their political program?
A. That is possible, but as you said yourself, what matters are the motives; that is the essential things.
Q. But we must, and that is difficult today, we must try and make ourselves a picture of the position at that time. Some of the jurists who too part in the centralization-- don't you think that some of them acted in goes faith and at that time did not realize the violent methods of terror of National Socialism? And until 1935, that was the date when you left, don't you think that until that date they believed that centralization, which was the aim of their political party, was a good aim, or could be a good aim; that only today, or any how after 1935 when the legal authority was conclude that those people only realized afterwards the effect of that centralization measure; whether the officials until 1935 who took an active part in the achieving of that aim still night have acted in good faith. I should like have you give mo your view on that question.