A. The order was, as far as I remember, an executory order referring to the law for the prevention of hereditary diseases. It only came into effect one day before the outbreak of war. It was intended to draft people with lesser hereditary diseases. Later on I saw persons who had already been sterilized, drafted into the armed forces.
Q. It may be that you do not understand my question, but you have not told us anything about the meaning of the order of August 3lst.
A. That order of 31 august said that proceedings against me had boon stopped, with the right of resuming than at any time, and that now I was allowed to marry. There were two proceedings against me, one proceeding for not granting me a marriage certificate, and also the proceedings at the hereditary Health Court. Both proceedings were then amalgamated into one.
THE PRESIDENT: No further question.
MR. LAFOLLETTE: That is all. Thank you very much doctor.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness may be excused.
(Witness excused)
MR. LaFOLLETTE: If Your Honor please, Mr. Wooleyhan will proceed with the presentation of further documentary evidence.
MR. WOOLEYHAN: Your Honors, we turn now to Book III-B Supplement.
MR. LAFOLLETTE: If Your Honors please, I wonder if I may address the Tribunal a minute and ascertain their wishes as to the further proceedings.
I am advised by Mr. Wooleyhan that after further studying this book, Supplement Book III-B, he reached the conclusion that quite a few of the documents were purely cumulative, and we will not present them. The other loose documents have not been distributed to permit as to put them in today and possibly tomorrow. The witness Franke, who was due in here today -- the MP's truck, or whatever they are coming in, broke down at Kassel.
I am advised that he was at Kassel this. morning and should get in here sometime tonight. That will hardly give us an opportunity to interview the witness and get him in. We may have a dozen documents that we could, put in, in the coming. I am inclined to think that the Tribunal would have a day, and we would have more time if, after we complete this, we recess until Friday. I think we would have a very choppy day tomorrow. I regret it, but it is another one of those things I think we have done everything to avoid, and nobody is responsible for. If we hold Court on Friday, there nay be a few documents that will be available on Monday, and certainly on Monday or Tuesday we can close. I can tell the Tribunal better on Friday. I see no reason for holding a session tomorrow, because I don't think we can have anything to present to the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you have anything further to offer this afternoon?
MR. LAFOLLETTE: Yes, we have these documents in Book III-3, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
MR. WOOLEYHAN: In the supplementary book III-3, on the Index, the following documents will not be offered in evidence:
NG-853, on page 2.
NG-954, on page 53.
THE PRESIDENT: Page 53?
MR. WOOLEYHAN: Yes, page 53.
THE PRESIDENT: That is No. 954?
MR. WOOLEYHAN: Yes, Your Honor.
NG-982, on page 56.
NG--1002, on page 64.
THE PRESIDENT: I don't find those numbers in the index. However, you might proceed with offering them.
MR. WOOLEYHAN: It concerns me, Your Honor, if your index is not complete; it should be.
THE PRESIDENT: Maybe if you would indicate again which ones you desire to offer, it would be more to the point.
MR. WOOLEYHAN: To avoid any confusion, I will just go ahead and offer the evidence, and anything I omit will not be offered.
On page 7 of this book is found NG-877. This document comprises an indictment by the Reich Chief Prosecutor at the People's Court, and a sentence of the People's Court in 1941 against a stateless Belgian defendant. This stateless Belgian resident was indicted for collecting funds for Communistic activities in Prague, Brussels, Belgium, and Antwerp, and also for distributing something less than one thousand Reichsmarks among the relatives of political prisoners as Charity. The indictment is personally signed by the defendant Lautz and referred by him for trial to the Second Senate of the People's Court.
The last page of the document contains the People's Court opinion, findings, and sentence of this stateless Belgian resident, an opinion and sentence in which the defendant Petersen took part as a judge. The defendant was given five years of hard labor, on the 25th of September 1941.
Of chief interest in this document, other than the defendants involved therein, is the fact that the great bulk of the defendant's activity in collecting and distributing these charitable funds for the Communist Party was done in Prague and various cities of Belgium, and the defendant had in fact emigrated to Belgium in 1937, four years before the trial, and had never returned until brought to Germany for trial.
The prosecution offers this document
DR. GRUBE (Counsel for the defendant Lautz): May it please the Court, in our document book the indictment is only contained in fragments., In the photostatic copy we also see that only a very small part of the indictment is available. The indictment stops at page 2, and then continues at page 16. In other words, in the original of the document s well as in our document book, fourteen pages of the indictment are missing.
Therefore, I do not consider this document to be complete, and I object to the use and to the admission of this document as evidence.
MR. WOOLEYHAN: If the Court will notice, a number of pages--the same pages that Dr. Grube mentions--are missing from the English document book too, but they are not missing in the true sense. Those pages were not captured. The prosecution docs not have them. We offer the document as found, and ask for whatever probative weight the Court desires to give it.
THE PRESIDENT: This is all of the document that was captured?
MR. WOOLEYHAN: It is, Your Honor. The omissions are not intentional, and the same omissions occur in our books as in the German because we did not have the original.
DR. GRUBE: May it please the Court, I believe that this document cannot have any probative value; all the facts are missing in this indictment. Of an indictment of sixteen pages, fourteen pages are mi sing. Whether these fourteen pages are missing accidentally can play no part here, in my opinion. At any rate, an assessment of the case is impossible with these fragments only.
Furthermore, I would like to point out that the statements by the representative of the prosecution, according to which Friedrichs is a Belgian, are not correct. As is evident from the fragments of the indictment, Friedrichs had emigrated and was stateless. He was not a Belgian.
Court No. III, Case No. 3.
MR. WOOLEYHAN: I clearly stated, Your Honor, that the defendant was a Belgian resident, stateless. So far as the facts of the case are concerned, they are repeated in essence in the Court's opinion attached to this document. We think it is clear.
THE PRESIDENT: It is difficult to understand how a Belgian could be stateless. I could understand how a German national might be declared stateless, but it is a little confusing to my mind how a Belgian could be declared stateless.
MR. WOOLEYHAN: The facts, Your Honor, as they appear on the first page of the indictment trace the following history: In 1937 this defendant emigrated from Hamburg, Germany, to Belgium and remained there until 1941 when he was arrested and brought back to Germany for trial. It appears that he never became a citizen of Belgium and that he had been deprived of his German citizenship by some means, because the opinion of the People's Court in declaring the sentence states on Page 9 of the Document Book that the defendant, whose last residence was Antwerp, was stateless, So it appears that he was deprived of his German citizenship when he moved to Belgium and did not acquire Belgian citizenship.
THE PRESIDENT: That is where the confusion arose when you talked about him being a stateless Belgian. But anyway, we understand it now.
MR. WOOLEYHAN: Yes, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: The document, while imperfect, if it is all that has been captured, is certainly admissible for what probative value it may have. The amount of that value is another matter, but for such as it may have, it is admissible as a captured document.
MR. WOOLEYHAN: We offer NG 877 as Exhibit 490.
THE PRESIDENT: The document may be admitted in evidence.
MR. WOOLEYHAN: On Page 11 of the English book is found NG 879. This is an opinion, findings, and sentence of the second senate of the People's Court sitting in trial on 6 June 1941, at which trial the de Court No. III, Case No. 3.fendant Engert, Vice President of the People's Court at that time, presided.
The defendants in this criminal case were three Poles and one German national. All four were indicated, tried, and sentenced for having conspired to join the Polish Legion and thereby to separate a portion of the Reich by force, which constituted, under certain statutes appearing in Book 2, preparation of high treason. We don't wish to go into this case at any length in presenting it. The facts are clear. The Court's reasoning is spelled out in full. We merely wish to call the Tribunal's attention to the fact that none of the defendants in this case had previous criminal records, that three of the defendants were Polish citizens, and that the intention of none of the defendants to join the Polish Legion was proved by any evidence appearing in the opinion but was established by certain subjective assumptions of the Tribunal. To illustrate what I have just said, I wish to read from Page 16, the middle of the first paragraph. This is Page 221 of the German.
"Kopton, one of the defendants, after denying it at first, has stated during the interrogation by the police, that he and Kolodziej, another one of the defendants, wanted to go to Hungary to join the Polish legion and that he also told this to Schweda and Goldamer. During the legal interrogation he softened this statement. In the main trial he stated that he had not intended to join the Polish legion; that he had only mentioned that he had heard about this legion; that his statement to the police had been given under pressure; that he had been afraid in front of the police and then had made the same statement before the court which he had made before the police."
On that and other evidence the Tribunal concludes on Page 17, which is Page 223 in the German:
"In summary, the chamber appraises the statements made in the main trial and arrives at the conclusion that Kolodziej and Kopton did not go to look for work, but intended to join the Polish legion in Court No. III, Case No. 3.Hungary and that Schweda and Goldamer were aware of that.
Kopton also confirmed this during his interrogation by the Secret Police, that is the Gestapo, in Kattowice. His declaration that his statement was made under pressure has been disproved by the testimony of the interrogating official."
Other reasoning of the Court appears in later pages. The entire opinion and sentence is signed by order of the defendant Engert as presiding judge. The three Polish defendants and the one German defendant got sentences of imprisonment at hard labor varying from six years to four years to three years. Without further description the Prosecution offers in its entirety this document, NG 879, as Exhibit 491.
THE PRESIDENT: The document will be received in evidence.
MR. WOOLEYHAN: On page 24 of the English book, which is Page 232 of the German, is found NG 923. This is an opinion, findings, and sentence of the second senate of the People's Court sitting on 24 June 1942, in a trial at which the defendant Engert, then Vice President of the People's Court, presided. The defendants were four German nationals, all living at residences in and around Frankfurt am Main, and all four of them were sentenced to death for distributing two or three types of communistic leaflets and attempting to recruit sympathizers to the Communistic way of thinking during the war. This was said to have constituted preparations for high treason under the existing laws. All that appears from the findings of the Court by way of overt acts of the defendants was that they distributed Communist Leaflets, of which the following is a sample. I am reading now from the bottom of Page 26, which is Page 238 in the German:
"Compatriots, men and women: We address you at the present time because HITLER and his capitalist clique has failed to fulfill any of its promises. Hunger is rampant in the country. The overlords are still drawing high salaries and make profits from the war. Capitalism is being choked by its own contradictions and is Court No. III, Case No. 3.therefore engaged in war.
Wages have been discontinued and cut. You are enslaved and no one worries about you. Capitalism with its contradictions is at the end of its tether and is unable to help you."
On the basis of this and similar leaflets which were distributed by the four defendants and for the fact that they had attempted to recruit followers and also collected army postal addresses to create opposition to the war by writing to soldiers, although they never actually wrote any letters, all four defendants were sentenced to death. Engert as presiding judge had the following to say about the serious nature of these crimes. Reading now from the bottom of Page 29, which is Page 245 in the German:
"The action of these defendants constitutes a considerable danger to the safety of the German Reich, especially if one considers that it was committed during the present war up to June 1941, that is, at a time when the German people are compelled to fight for their existence and are therefore engaged in a struggle which can only be won if the entire home front supports the army."
The prosecution offers as Exhibit 492 this document NG 923.
THE PRESIDENT: The document will be admitted in evidence. We will take our usual fifteen minute recess at this time.
MR. WOOLEYHAN: Your Honor, may I interrupt one moment?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
MR. WOOLEYHAN: I have three documents remaining to introduce this afternoon. Would you rather reconvene and hear those three or have me finish them now? They may take some fifteen, twenty minutes.
THE PRESIDENT: How long will it probably take to introduce those three documents?
MR. WOOLEYHAN: Approximately fifteen minutes, Your Honor. After that we have nothing further to offer this afternoon.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we will hear them now.
MR. WOOLEYHAN: On page 32 of the English book, which is page 249 in the German, is found NG-925. This is a collection of four separate documents found in one dosier , and comprises the following parts: first, a statement signed by one, Parrisius, who is a prosecutor in the People's Court, which was the defendant Lautz' office. The second part of the document, following the indictment, is the opinion, findings, and sentence of the people's Court in the case, signed by the defendant Engert, then vice-president of the people s Court, presiding. The third part of the document is an execution order signed by the Defendant Mettgenberg, pursuant to which it is contemplated that the defendant, having been sentenced to death, was to be executed, and setting forth the manner in which he was to be executed. The last part of the document is a report by the Defendant Barnickel to the Chief Public Prosecutor, namely the defendant Lautz, setting forth the details of the actual execution of the defendant, as he, Barnickel, witnessed it personally. All four of these parts of this document refer to the case against a laborer, Erich Deibel, who was indicted, sentenced to death and executed for scrawling certain phrases on the walls of a lavatory in the factory in which he worked. These phrases that he scrawled on the walls cf the men's lavatory consisted of-
JUDGE BRANDT: Do you mean "laboratory" or "lavatory"?
MR. WOOLEYHAN: Washroom, Lavatory, toilet, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Is it your intention to read those at this time?
MR. WOOLEYHAN: No, Your Honor, it was my intention to merely briefly describe what they were. They were certain political slogans, constituting one or two words each, and he also drew a hammer and sicjle here and there on the walls of the washroom. In addition to drawing pictures and printing political slogans on the walls of the washroom there in the factory, the Defendant Deibel also had the gall to listen to his radio at night and turned in on the british Broadcasting system to get the latest news, after which he was charged with having discussed with other factory workers in his place of employment.
For these things, as the various parts of this document will trace, the laborer Deibel was indicted by a prosecutor working in the office of the Defendant Lautz. He was tried at the People's Court by a senate presided over by the defendant Engert. He was sentenced to death at that trial. His execution was ordered by the Defendant Mettgenberg, and his actual execution--the guillotine--was witnessed and reported by the defendant Barnickel.
The prosecution offers as Exhibit 493, Document NG-925.
THE PRESIDENT: The document will be received in evidence.
MR. WOOLEYHAN: On page 50 of the English book, which is page 272 in the German, is found NG-952. This is a sworn affidavit by one, Gottfried, who continuously, during the period 1933-1945, was employed in the judicial service in Nuernberg in charge of personal administration, office supplies, and as certifying official at the execution of death sentences which had been pronounced by the Special Court or later by the emergency civilian courts martial, In other words, this affiant's job was to be officially present when defendants were executed and to report that fact. The affiant Huemmer describes in some detail the familiar case of Count Montgelas who, as appears from material already in evidence, was tried and sentenced to death by the emergency civilian court martial in Nuernberg in 1945, presided over by the defendant Oeschey. In addition to the Montgelas case, we see on Pages 31 and 32 that the affiant describes four additional case which resulted in death sentences imposed by the emergency civilian courts martial in Nuernberg in 1943, presided over by the Defendant Oeschey. In addition to the Montgelas case, Huemmer next refers to the case of one, Gottfried, who was sentenced to death and executed by the courts martial under Oeschey three days before the arrival cf the American troops. His crime had been to induce the residents of this tiny village where he lived to give up without resistance at the approach of American tanks and troops.
The next case before the court martial under Oeschey to which the affiant refers is that of the woman. Wahlrab, who in conversation with her customers in the small store which she operated, expressed her doubt about the certainty of a German victory.
She was denounced and sentenced to death by Oeschey, and the affiant was present at her execution.
Still another sentence by the Court martial under Oeschey was the sentencing to death of the teacher, Popp, in Fuerth, who in the course of conversation slapped a soldier in the facr and expressed disgust about prevailing conditions. Popp was tried, sentenced to death and executed.
The last case to which the affiant refers was the case, Valentina Witrak, who had been indicted before the courts martial under Oeschey for acquiring illegally certain food ration coupons. This defendant was a girl about 25, but for this act, she was sentenced to death and executed.
We wish in addition to mentioning those cases to call the Court's attention to the fact that all of these cases in this affidavit apparently occurred and were tried and the defendants were executed within a matter of days before the area Nuernberg-Fuerth fe;; after battle by the American troops.
JUDGE BRAND: I wonder if you could give me your idea as to whether the Volksturm was a regular part of the Army. I am not familiar with the term.
MR. WOOLEYHAN: Your Honor, the Volkssturm meant the People's Troops at the last stages of the War in Germany, at the last six or eight months of the war. Civilians of old age and extreme youth, and other misfits that were not admitted to the Wehrmacht, were called up without uniforms, often without weapons, to make a makeshift impromtu defense of their home town. It was a makeshift civilian army.
The prosecution offers as Exhibit 494, Document NG--952.
THE PRESIDENT: The document will be admitted in evidence.
MR. WOOLEYHAN: On page 69 of the English Book is found NG-1009This is a single page affidavit by one, Dr. Arno Weimann, a practicing lawyer in Berlin, who used to appear during the war as a defense counsel before the People's Court.
Dr. Weimann here deposed that he defended before the Special Senate of the People's Court a case in which his client was a lawyer named Dr. Will from Hamburg, who had been indicted in 1944 because of making certainremarks of a defeatistic nature as to Germany's victory. For making these defeatistic remarks, this client of the affiant was sentenced to death in the People's Court by Freisler, and all his property was confiscated except 100,000 Reichsmarks. After Freisler had passed that sentence, due to reasons which were not known to the affiant, the Chief Reich Prosecutor raised an extraordinary appeal against the sentence and, as has been seen from previous evidence, the case was tried in the Special Senate of the People's Court which included the defendant Peterson as a judge. The prosecution of the second trial before the Special Senate in this case was represented by Reich Prosecutor Rothaug. The Defendant Rothaug, in this second trial, pursuant to the extraordinary appeal, the defendant was again sentenced to death for the second time. But in the second trial, all his property was confiscated.
The Prosecution offers as Exhibit 495 this Document NG-1009.
THE PRESIDENT: The document will be received in evidence.
MR. WOOLEYHAN: The last document book 111-B is NG-1081. This is a compilation of death sentences passed by the Defendant Oeschey while he was presiding judge of the Nuernberg Special Court. In the first columm is given the official file number of the case; in the next column the name of the defendant; the third column date the date that the sentence was imposed by the court, and in the last column the date that the defendant was in fact executed. There is a total of twentyseven death sentences, here, passed between 11 October, 1943 and the 22nd of November, 1944 namely, a period of thirteen months. The certificate by the research analyst, that is attached to this compilation states in detail the method by which it was compiled and also indicate that this list is intended as a supplement to Document NG-409which was admitted in evidence sometime ago Exhibit No. 238.
DR. DOETZER: (For Defendant Oeschey) May it please the court, I object to the submission of this document because the confirmation of making out this document which was quoted by the Prosecution has not been sworn to; it is merely a simple statement.
JUDGE BRAND: May I ask you, is it your position that all of the infromation contained in NG-1081 is derived from other exhibits which are before us now?
MR. WOOLEYHAN: NO, Your Honor.
MR. LAFOLLETTE: If your Honors please, it is our position that this certificate of General Taylor's shows that the man who makes the certificate, Henry Einstein, is a U.S. Civilian, duly employed and empowered to administer oaths and to obtain evidence in this case; he certified that the facts contained in here are true; he can swear it to some one else if he want's to. I will read the certificate; I don't know whether it is in the book or not.
"I, Henry Einstein, hereby certify that the above list of death sentences is a supplement to document NG-409 which composes all the death sentences passed by the Nurnberg Special Court. NG-1081 is a list of death sentences passed solely by Oeschey. I obtained the facts from the case files of the above persons, which have been brought to my attention."
That is all I can say for it -- and there it is.
THE PRESIDENT: You can say something more at a later date, if you want to, but at the moment that is sufficient.
MR. LAFOLLETTE: I do want to say something at this date though. let more than half an hour ago I inadvertently mislead this Tribunal. I don't think there is any good reason to meet on Friday. I mean we won't have a full day; I have been out and investigated the facts with reference to the document room. We would have a part of a day and then it would be necessary to probably stop. I don't like it, out it seems to be much more sensible to adjourn until Monday rather than to have a piecemeal day on Friday. I may say in passing, to protect myself, that I am not going to Prague or any place else. We simply don't have anything.
THE PRESIDENT: The Court will adjourn at this time then until next Monday morning at 9:30 o'clock.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 19 May, 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 Nurnberg, Germany, on 19 May 1947, 0930-1630, Justice Carrington T. Marshall, presiding.
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the courtroom will please find their seats.
The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal III.
Military Tribunal III is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.
There will be order in the Court.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Marshal, you will please ascertain if the defendants are all present.
THE MARSHAL: May it please Your Honors, all the defendants are present in the courtroom with the exception of the defendant Engert, who is absent through illness.
THE PRESIDENT: Let the proper notation be made.
MR. LAFOLLETTE: It if pleases Your Honors, our first witness this morning will be the witness Filbig, who will be examined by Mr. Wooleyhan. But before the witness is called I would like to make a very short statement to the Tribunal.
There was some discussion in the Court ton days or two weeks ago with reference to document NG 1007. On last Friday the Prosecution learned for the first time that notwithstanding tho fact that on its face, this document a pears to be an affidavit, that it was not, in fact, subscribed and sworn to. This information was adequately checked and found to be factually correct.
THE PRESIDENT: I do not remember whoso affidavit it was.
MR. LAFOLLETTE: That was the affidavit of Dr. Kurt Behling.
Under those circumstances I wish to make this announcement now: The Prosecution has no intention of using that instrument because it is not, in fact, an affidavit. That is not only my opinion, but the unanimous opinion of the Prosecution staff after full discussion. And, that is all I have to say.
JUDGE BRAND: Was it given an exhibit number?
MR. LAFOLLETTE: It has never been introduced, Your Honor. I also want to say that I have received from Dr. Kuboschok, as a result of a discussion we had in the courtroom some three or four weeks ago, a list of persons whose names often appear in the documentation of this case. It is similar to the one which the Prosecution furnished to the Court. I would like to send this to the Tribunal, in English and German, but not formally as a document.
MR. WOOLEYHAN: The Prosecution calls the witness Filbig.
THE PRESIDENT: While we are waiting for the witness, it appears to me to inquire in regard to the disputed translations. Has that matter been ironed out by Counsel on both sides?
MR. WOOLEYHAN: Your Honor, beginning about two weeks ago, the sound recording tape that records every word that is spoken here, has been checked against the transcript, and that automatically eliminates every translating problem that is spoken in the Court, with regard to any translating problem, that has not come up or read into the record. No such problem exists at the present time, and if it docs arise we will take care of it out of Count.
Karl Kaspar Filbig, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:
JUDGE BRAND: Will the witness stand, raise his right hand, and be Sworn? You will repeat after me the following oath;
I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.
(The witness repeated the oath.)
JUDGE BRAND: You may be seated.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. WOOLEYHAN:
Q. Witness, will you please tell the court your full name?
A. My name is Karl Kaspar Filbig.
Q. Mr. Filbig, during the years 1939 to 1945, what work did you do, and where?
A. From 1910 until 1944 I was a watchman in the "Vereinigte Schuhfabriken" - United Shoe Factory.
Q. From 1944 until 1945, what kind of work did you do?
A. During that time, because I had been seriously injured in the war, I became a prison warden.
Q. And in what prison were you a warden, Mr. Filbig?
A. In the prison, Zellon Prison, Zellenstrasse. I was assigned there. I was there until the Americans had the prison evacuated.
Q. Mr. Filbig, is that the same prison that is in back of the courthouse, here?
A. Yes, indeed, that is the same prison.
Q. Yes. As warden in that prison, here in Nurnberg, during late 1944 and early 1945, were you ever ordered to take prisoners to sessions of the Nurnberg Civilian Court Martial -- the Standgericht?
A. Yes, I received the order -- that was on the 15th of April 1945 -- to take the prisoner Gottfried to the Civilian Court Martial, to bring him before that court.
Q. You say that was on the 15th of April 1945?
A. Yes.
Q. Was that the last session of the Court Martial, here in Nurnberg, before the end of the war?
A. Yes, that was on the 15th of April 1945, the last Sunday before the occupation by the Americans.
Q. Y u say the 15th of April, this day that the Court Martial had its last session, was on a Sunday?
A. That was on a Sunday, yes; at a quarter of five the session started.
Q. Mr. Filbig, do you remember -- let me withdraw that -- Did you attend this last session of the Court Martial on the 15th of April 1945?
A. Yes, I was there myself. I brought the prisoner, and during the entire session I was present.
Q. Mr. Filbig, do you remember who was the president of that Court Martial, on that day?
A. The presiding judge of that Court Martial was Oeschey.
Q. Was this Oeschey that you mention, the same man who is named Rudolf Oeschey, or Nurnberg?
A. Yes, that was the man who had been appointed for that Civil Court Martial at Nurnberg.
Q. Mr. Filbig, do you remember who else had anything to do with that trial, on that day, that you saw?
A. I did not quite understand that question.
Q. Mr. Filbig, you have stated that Rudolf Oeschey was the president of the Court on that day.
A. Yes.
Q. Who else was in court, or in the courtroom, that you remember?
A. During that session there were also present the Gau Inspector Haberkern, in uniform; then, a Major from the armed forces, also in uniform -- I can't recall his name; and the, the senior prosecutor, Dr. Schroeder was also present.
Q. You state that during this trial, Mr. Filbig, you brought a defendant to the session, named Gottfried.
A. Yes.
Q. Would you please tell us, with what detail you can remember, f the facts of the case involving this man Gottfried?
A. Gottfried was a man of the "Volkssturm" -- and in that function he was captured by the American forces near his village after the Americans had already taken the nearest village. And, after having been arrested for one night, he was released again and Gottfried returned to his village. He told the inhabitants of the village that the American forces were not so bad, after all; that they were nice people, alright, and that they were not as what they were described over the radio -- he even received cigarettes from them -- and the Americans distributed chocolate... And the case was such that when he came back he told the people in the village that he had seen many tanks. He mentioned the figure thirty when he was asked about it. He also told the inhabitants of the village -- that is to say -- the other two people who had been arrested with him, that under all circumstances they should open the tank traps, the tank barriers, and the "Volkssturm" should stop fighting at once because otherwise the village would be completely destroyed. On the basis of that, the leader of the "Volkssturm" was approached, and by threats he was forced to withdraw his troop ... which actually happened. The tank barrages were removed by a part of the population, and the remainder of the population assumed a threatening attitude against the "Volksturm". Thereupon, the leader of the Volkssturm arrested Gottfried, and Gottfried was brought in. And now, it happened that Gottfried had actually .. excuse me for a moment ... that magnanimous act of Gottfried, who was only interested in the welfare of his village, was evaluated quite differently by the fanatical Nazis of the Civil Court Martial. It was Oeschey who was particularly indignant that Gottfried had such a high opinion of the Americans, and with cynical remarks Oeschey expressed his rage.
Q. Mr. Filbig, during the trial of this man Gottfried, do you remember observing that the presiding judge Oeschey became obviously enraged at any time during the trial?
A. Yes, I noticed that particularly when gottfried made the statement that the Americans were not as bad as that, that they were very decent nice people, and -
Q. Mr. Filbig -- excuse me -- during the trial of this man Gottfried -- was Gottfried, represented by a defense counsel?
A. No, there was no defense counsel there for Gottfried because in that trial, in the trial of the Civil Court Martial, there was no lawyer present at all.
Q. Mr. Filbig, do you remember what sentence Gottfried received?
A. The sentence was for death -- the death sentence for Gottfried. The defendant Gottfried repeated again and again that he was only interested in the welfare of his village, that he wanted to prevent any more bloodshed, and that nothing could have been done against the American forces -- and he tried again and again to explain that -and the Presiding Judge Oeschey interpreted the matter somewhat differently. He tried to accuse him of treason. But it seems that this was not the case with Gottfried. He only wanted to save his village and save it from further bloodshed.
Q. Mr. Filbig, who was it, at the trial of Gottfried, that announced the death sentence?
A. That was the Presiding Judge. He announced the death sentence.
Q. And this Presiding Judge, as you have stated, was Oeschey. Is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, Mr. Filbig, can you describe, from what you saw, the manner in which Oeschey announced the death sentence for Gottfried? How did he say it?
A. As we say -- he "showed off" -- as we say -- in a very cynical manner he pronounced the death sentence -- and, as we say -