THE PRESIDENT: Is he here?
DR. WANDSCHNEIDER: Yes, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: If he is here you con call him.
DR. WANDSCHNEIDER: If the Court will approve, he is here and I shall be very glad to hear him. The same is true of the other witness Billas. Both of them are here.
THE PRESIDENT: Call them.
DR. WANDSCHNEIDER: Thank you, very much.
FRITZ WALENTIN, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:
BY JUDGE HARDING:
Hold up your right hand and 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.)
You may be seated.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. WANDSCHNEIDER (Attorney for the defendant Rothenberger):
Q Witness, please tell the Tribunal your full name; also the place where you were born and other personal date.
A Fritz Walentin; born on the 6th August, 1897; director of the district court at Hamburg.
Q Would you please tell the Tribunal briefly how your career developed?
AAs is customary, I studied law for the prescribed number of semesters, in 1922 I passed my examination as a referendar; at the end of 1924 I passed my assessor examination. Until 1926 I worked as assessor with the prosecution and the latter part cf that period I worked as a prosecutor. After that I became a judge, and I remained a judge until November, 1939. Then, I was discharged for reasons which I think will be discussed later.
Q Please tell the Tribunal now why you were dismissed in 1939?
A I am of Jewish origin, and in November, I believe - I believe I must correct myself now. I was dismissed in 1934; that was a slip of the tongue - 1934, not 1939. In November 1934 I was engaged in correspondence with the Kreisleiter of the party of my place of residence.
Q Witness, for the time being I only wait your personal data. I want to revert to this matter later whether in 1934 you. were dismissed; how long you stayed in Germany?
A I stayed in Germany until August, 1939.
Q Where did you go then?
A I with my family emigrated to Great Britain.
Q And when did you return from England?
A I returned from England in February of 1946, and returned to Hamburg.
Q How long have you known Dr. Rothenberger?
A I can't give you the exact year; I first met him a few years before 1933. I got to know him through official contacts. If I remember rightly, in the years before 1933 he worked in the Hamburg administration of justice, and just a few times we also met socially.
Q How did that social contact come about?
A. Dr. Rothenberger was a school fellow of my brother-in-law.
Q Well, can you tell us something about Dr. Rothenberger's attitude to the Jewish question such as it was at that time when you used to meet him occasionally?
A Well, I can testify to that mainly in connection with my own person, but just as these matters concerned myself very considerably, I was also interested in his general attitude to this problem.
Q And what was that general attitude of his at that time?
AAt that time it seemed to me that his attitude was absolutely moderate. At that time I didn't think that Dr. Rothenberger could have been described as an anti-Semite.
Q Can you tell us about Dr. Rothenberger's general political attitude at the time, around about 1933 and prior to 1933?
Was he unprejudiced?
A Yes, I think you must call him unbiased, and I believe that I can recall a few conversations I had with him, and I think I may say that at that time he was altogether tolerant and generous. At any rate, he certainly was not a fanatic.
Q Witness, may I now ask you to tell us something from your own personal experiences with Dr. Rothenberger. Will you tell us what happened as from 1933. You were investigating judge from January 1933, were you not?
A Yes, on 1st January, 1933 I became an investigating judge. Until the spring, I believe it was the 1st of April or the 1st of May, 1934.
Q Did that situation strike you in any way as being unusual?
A Well, unusual because the general tendency was, and generally that tendency was also put into effect, that all non-Aryan judges were removed from the administration of penal justice very soon after the 30th January 1933, they were either dismissed or transferred to the administration of civil law.
Q Did Dr. Rothenberger at the time tell you that the party had exerted pressure on him to remove you?
A Yes, in 1933, and I believe also in 1934, an occasion which I can't remember now - there must have been several reasons I callen on him, and he told me several times that the party had urged to dismiss me from the administration of penal justice, I believe I must have been the only judge who at that time still worked in the administration of penal justice who was of Jewish origin. He said that he saw no reason for the time being to give way to that pressure.
Q Well, at that time a number of non-Aryan judges still worked in the civil administration, didn't they?
A Yes, at that time there was quite a number of non-Aryans who were still working in the administration of civil justice.
Q Witness, would you make a little pause after my question because otherwise it makes the work difficult for the interpreters. Did your relations with Dr. Rothenberger become more complicated after that?
Will you describe that to us, please. Will you please explain whether matters became more complicated?
A Well, to begin with; I should think I can put it like this. The first difficulty arose when the question of swearing an oath became acute, and that was in August, 1934. Now, I think I ought to interpolate here. Something happened before that time. Frank, who was then the Reich Commissar for Justice, and later became Governor General when the German Reich Legal Front was founded, made a speech at the Hanseatic Court of Appeal and in that speech he made reference to the position of those civil servants who were of Jewish descent. He protested against the fact that the party ha.d been charged with having treated Jewish civil servants badly and the reasons he gave were that after all we left the Jewish front fighters in their office and he made some derogatory remarks that there night have been a few Jews on the front. As I belonged to that category of civil servants, I wrote a pretty strong letter to the Reich Commissar of Justice and I expressed myself pretty frankly, and a copy of that letter I sent to the administration of justice in Hamburg, that is to say to Dr. Rothenberger, and nothing further happened. Dr. Rothenberger did not ask me to go to call on him. As I told you before, then a question of swearing an oath became acute, and that was after Hindenburg's death in 1934. The judges and prosecutors of Hamburg, all of them were asked to appear to take the oath, and all those judges who were nonAryans and still in office were not asked to appear; but they had to go to Dr. Rothenberger's Office. At his office Dr. Rothenberger addressed us and told us roughly this: He could imagine that we would find it embarrassing to take this oath together with all our other colleagues, and, therefore, he had asked us to come to his office so that we could swear to it to him personally. He added that those among us who have any misgivings, and he added a few more words about the significance of the oath, well he said that any of us who have any misgivings about swearing to this oath, I would ask you to leave this room; I will talk to you alone afterwards; and in the meantime I would ask those men who are prepared to do so to swear to the oath.
I had serious misgivings about taking the oath and I left his office. The other men did swear to the oath. Dr. Rothenberger afterwards asked me to go and see him alone. I said to him what my reasons were for finding myself in very serious conflicts with my conscience, and why I was not in a position to take this oath. And Dr. Rothenberger said, well, if that is the way you feel about it, it is up to you. At that time, as I well remember now, he talked to me in a very human way; he tried to persuade me in a very humane way just what a refusal on my part would mean, he said after all, you have a family, a wife and three children, and that just now one judge had been dismissed because he had refused to swear to this oath and he had been dismissed without a pension, and that is why he had to explain all this to me, and I should make no hasty decisions. I asked to delay my decision because I was about to go on leave, and that I would give him my decision in a few weeks later when I returned.
Q What was your decision?
A Inspite of my serious misgivings, on account of my family I decided to swear to the oath and I went to see Dr. Rothenberger.
Q. And what was the situation which caused a final complications?
A. A few months later, at the end of October, or at the beginning of November 1934, I was engaged in correspondence with the Kreisleiter of the party of the district where I lived. I told him in my letter that I refused to continue to pay contributions for the Winterhilfe as long as Hitler continued to describe the non-Aryan people as inferior persons, and in the future I would pay my contributions to the church to which I belonged. The Kreisleiter in his reply stated that it wasn't true that Hitler had said non-Aryans were inferior people, and for the rest he was not the competent person to deal with this matter, and he forwarded my letter to a superior authority, that is to say, had it sent on to the Gau. Thereupon I wrote another letter to him in detail that perhaps Hitler might not have used this word expressly but the Gauleiters were using it all the time, and that they had to be considered as his mouth pieces and to that effect I wrote at great length and asked the Kreisleiter to pass also that letter on to the Gau. About three weeks passed. Then I was asked to go and see Dr. Rothenberger. I immediately noticed that he had that correspondence before him on his desk. He received me with the words which I remember exactly to this day; "You are making it very difficult for me to retain non-Aryan colleagues in office. I cannot discuss this matter with you today as to how I judge your behavior, from the human point of view, but I will have to tell you that after this correspondence you cannot retain your office as judge -- as from the first of January you have to consider yourself dismissed." I said in that case would I be permitted to go on leave immediately, and Dr. Rothenberger agreed.
Q. Did you subsequently receive your full pension?
A. Yes, I did receive my full pension.
DR. WANDSCHNEIDER: Thank you, I have no further questions of the witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Is there any cross examination?
MR. KING: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Before you begin -- Dr. Wandschneider, you have one more witness - you have one more yet?
DR. WANDSCHNEIDER: Yes, I have.
THE PRESIDENT: Who is prepared to proceed after that? I am informed that Dr. Schilf has two witnesses here.
DR. SCHILF's ASSISTANT: One will be available this afternoon.
MR. KING: Your Honor, I know of certain negotiations that are being conducted now with the Prosecution to produce the witness Franka after Dr. Wandschneider has completed his examination of his last available witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Who wants him; who wants Franka?
MR. KING: Dr. Schilf.
DR. WANDSCHNEIDER: I think I understood the Tribunal correctly that you were telling us that we are now to examine the defense witnesses but that in our rebuttal we are entitled to submit further evidence; and I want to conclude our defense case end produce at this stage our defense witnesses and for the rebuttal, within the discretion of the Tribunal, we can still produce evidence?
THE PRESIDENT: be want you to put in all the evidence you have, and that applies to all of the defendants. Put it in and keep the Tribunal busy with your evidence until it is exhausted.
DR. WANDSCHNEIDER: I see.
THE PRESIDENT: I mean until the evidence is exhausted.
CROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. KING:
Q. Witness, you testified, did you not, that a s of the date of 1934 that you were the only full Jew remaining in the just administration in Hamburg? I understood you correctly, did I not?
A. No, that is a misunderstanding. I 1934 I was not the only judge of Jewish descent. At that time there were still a few other non-Aryans, but one by one they were dismissed, but after I was dismissed, at the end of 1934, a few were still in office.
Until November 1938 -
Q. I don't want to labor the point, witness, but are you distinguishing between degrees of non-aryanism?
A. No; that is not what I am doing. Judges, full Jews and halfJews did remain in office after I had been dismissed. I was not the last non-Aryan to be dismissed.
Q. Yes.
A. Perhaps this is what you misunderstood. What I want to say is that I was the sole only Jewish judge who still worked with the administration of penal law, and in the spring of 1934, while other judges who had worked in the administration of penal law had already been dismissed in the course of 1933 from that branch and had been transferred, if they were at all, to the civil administration.
THE PRESIDENT: We recollect the witness' testimony; that was the way he testified before. Pass on.
BY MR. KING:
Q. I regret the necessity of asking you certain personal questions, but I think you can understand. Your wife was an Aryan, was she not?
A. Yes, she is.
Q. And you yourself arc a member of a Protestant church; are you not?
A. Yes, I am.
Q. And you were in 1933 and 1934?
A. Yes, I was.
Q. You were a veteran of the first World War; were you not?
A. Yes, I was.
Q. Arc you familiar with paragraph 2 - one moment, please. Are you familiar with paragraph 2 of the law for the reorganization of civil service which was passed on 7th April, 1933 , which gave certain rights for the time being, employment rights to Jews who had served in the first World War?
A. Yes.
Q. And is that a possible explanation
A. I am familiar with that.
Q. And is that a possible explanation as to why you and and your fellow colleagues of the Jewish faith stayed on for a time after 1933?
A. Yes, it is possible that that played a certain part, but as far as I know that had nothing to do with the fact that I remained on my job in the administration of penal law, but I do know that the front fighters, the veterans of the first World War were not covered immediately by regulations for dismissal.
Q. Witness, may I ask you to read the relevant paragraph of Article II, which is paragraph 2 of the decree?
A. Do you want me to read it out loud?
Q. Will you please, yes.
A. "Civil servants who are not of aryan descent"-- May I just say it is Article 3 -- "Section 1 does not apply to civil servants who during the World War fought on the front for the German Reich or it's Allies, or whose fathers or sons lost their lives in the World War."
Q. Yes, that is the paragraph I wanted you to take note of. You were not arrested in the uprising which occurred in Hamburg on the 9th and 10th of November, 1938, were you?
A. No, I was not arrested.
Q. A great many of Jews of which you knew were arrested though, were they not?
A. Yes, I know of that.
Q. Yes. You know of the damage done in Hamburg by the SS and the SA at that time?
A. I saw it myself.
Q. Yes. Did you consider it extensive?
A. I didn't get your question.
Q.Did you consider the damage done at that time extensive?
A. Yes, very considerable.
MR. KING: I have no more questions.
REDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. WANDSCHNEIDER:
Q. Witness, can you make a comparison between the damage done in Hamburg in November 1938 during the excesses and the damage done in other cities?
A. Quite by chance on the 19th of November, 1938, I was in Berlin, and I saw that there the damage was a great deal more extensive, but -
Q. Is is right to say that in Hamburg the damage was considerably large only in a few streets in the interior of the town?
A. That is right.
Q. And is it correct for the rest to say that the streets remained largely undamaged?
A. Yes, that is correct.
Q. You said before that the Jewish or non-Aryan judges had been dismissed gradually one by one. According to the provisions of the law, would it have been possible for Dr. Rothenberger to have dismissed the non-Aryan judges much quicker?
A. In my view a judge because of Article 6 of the law for the restitution of civil servants, under which I was dismissed in 1934, provided them with the possibility to dismiss civil servants whether they were Jewish or whether they were not Jewish; whether one was a front fighter, a veteran or not.
DR. WANDSCHNEIDER: Thank you. I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness is excused.
HR. KING: I doh't want to usurp Dr. Wandschneider's prerogative here, but it does seem that his next witness is not immediately available. On the other hand, Dr. Franke and the witnesses requested by Dr. Schilf are here, and it might be expedient to proceed with the examination of Dr. Franke, and to that the prosecution is willing to agree.
THE PRESIDENT: We will proceed with whatever witnesses are here if they are witnesses for the defense.
We are once more admonishing counsel that in the last days of the trial it is important that great efficiency be shown in having the witnesses ready and in cleaning up these last bits of testimony without delay.
Is Dr. Schilf available? Let him be called. Let the witness be produced,
DR. DOETZER: Your Honor, I will go immediately and get him.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.
HORST-GUENTHER FRANKE, a witness, took the stand.
JUDGE BLAIR: Hold up your right hand and 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)
You may be seated.
MR. LA FOLLETTE: If Your Honor please, may I ask, is Weiss outside?
THE MARSHAL: Yes.
MR. LA FOLLETTE: May I have Weiss now, and may Franke stand aside, Your Honor?
THE PRESIDENT: Is Weiss a prosecution witness?
MR. LA FOLLETTE: Yes, Weiss is a prosecution witness.
THE PRESIDENT: No. I think we will proceed as we have indicated two or three times this afternoon, with defense witnesses, and defense counsel are expected to be in this Tribunal; we are not to have delays.
MR. LA FOLLETTE: If Your Honor please, I think the prosecution may be partly responsible for this.
THE PRESIDENT. I am not concerned with the past, but I am very much concerned with the future.
MR. LA FOLLETTE: May I explain to the Court what has happened, if you please? I mean, I must state what statements I had made to Dr. Schilf. I am sorry.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you may state them.
MR. LA FOLLETTE: Dr. Schilf and Frau Lehmann came to see me this afternoon at 1 o'clock and stated that Dr. Schilf had to go somewhere and would come back to examine Franke. I investigated and learned that there were to be Wandschneider witnesses, and I said to him that I must have Franke on the stand today and that I would put Weiss on. He had understood that he would be in here by 2:30 or 3 o'clock, assuming that there would be two Wandschneider witnesses.
To that extent -
THE PRESIDENT: There have been two witnesses, as I recollect and the Tribunal expects counsel for both sides to be available and not to cause these delays. We have been waiting about ten minutes for something to do.
Is your witness outside now?
MR. LA FOLLETTE: My witness is outside now.
THE PRESIDENT: Do the defense object? Is the defense willing that the prosecution witness be called out of order?
MR. LA FOLLETTE: I understand Dr. Schilf will be here in a few minutes, but I can dispose of Weiss, who is a witness against all defendants, and certainly all defendants cannot be hart if Weiss is called.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness will stand aside. Call Weiss, and let's get busy.
MR. LA FOLLETTE: I would like to hold this witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Keep this witness available, Mr. Marshal.
(Witness Franke excused)
WILHELM WEISS, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:
MR. LA FOLLETTE: This witness is to be examined on rebuttal for the prosecution.
JUDGE HARDING: Hold up your right hand and repeat after mo 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.)
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. LA FOLLETTE:
Q Will you state your name for the Tribunal, please?
A Weiss, Wilhelm.
Q Were you formerly the editor of the Voelkischer Beobachter?
A I was the Chief Editor of the Voelkischer Beobachter.
Q What was that? I did n't hear the last.
A I was not the publisher, I was the editor. I was the Chief Editor of the Voelkischer Beobachter; I was not the publisher.
Q Yes, you were the Chief Editor.
When did you go with the Voelkischer Beobachter?
A I joined the Voelkischer Beobachter in 1927.
Q What was the circulation of the paper at that time?
A In 1927 the circulation of the Voelkischer Beobachter, as far as I remember, was approximately thirty to forty thousand copies. That is just a guess on my part.
Q Yes, to the best of your ability. And, that same year, did you join the National Socialist German Workers Party?
A I joined the Nazi Party in the course of 1927.
Q What was the circulation of the paper in 1933, just before Hitler's rise to power?
A In 1933, before the seizure of power, as far as I remember, the circulation of the paper was oscillating between fifty thousand and eighty thousand. I cannot give you any accurate figures; I am speaking from my memory, and I cannot reconstruct these figures exactly from memory.
Q In 1935 do you recall to what circulation the paper had then risen?
AAfter 1933 the circulation wont up and up, particularly because, until 1933, there was only the Munich edition and then at that time we also had the Berlin edition, or rather the Berlin editions, and by 1935 I think the total circulation must have been something like throe hundred thousand copies.
Q Now, up to the time of the outbreak of the war, in 1938 or 1939, do you recall what the circulation of the Berlin North German edition was during those years, to the best of your knowledge?
AAs far as I can remember, the Berlin editions, including the North German edition, together with the provincial editions, amounted to about seven to eight hundred thousand copies by 1938, as a total, as far as I remember.
Q Yes. Now then, daring the war, to the best of your knowledge, did the circulation of the North German Berlin edition rise to approximately eight hundred thousand?
A May I ask you to restate your question? I didn't quite get it.
Q Between the years if 1941 and 1945, is it approximately correct to say that the circulation of the North German Berlin edition alone was approximately eight hundred thousand?
A You have to keep two things apart here. There was the Berlin edition and, distinct, from that, there was the North German editions Those two editions were both published in Berlin, The Berlin edition was limited to the City of Berlin and at that time, before the outbreak of war, I think its circulation must have been roughly three hundred thousand to four hundred thousand copies, Then, in addition, there was the North German edition, that is to say, the provincial edition, and that circulation, as far as I can remember, amounted to the same circulation, which means that the total circulation of all editions during the first few years of the war rose to something like eight hundred thousand copies and up to ore million copies.
Q. And in addition at that time were you publishing, during the war, '41 to '45, the Munich and South German editions, and what was their combined circulation?
A. Yes, in addition there was the Munich edition and there were the South German editions. Their total circulation amounted to approximately two hundred thousand, or a maximum of three hundred thousand copies.
Q. And during the war was there a Vienna edition, and what was its circulation?
A. The Vienna edition was first published in 11938. During the war years the average circulation, as far as I remember, was fifty thousand copies.
Q. Now during the war, having regard to the Berlin city edition alone, can you tell the Tribunal what the circulation was in Berlin to the number of inhabitants in Berlin? Was it one to two, one to five, one to ten? What is your recollection?
THE PRESIDENT: Just let him tell, if he remembers, about what the population of Berlin was, and we can save a little time.
BY MR. LAFOLLETTE:
Q. About what was the population?
A. As far as I remember, the population of Berlin numbered approximately four million.
Q. And what was the population of Munich during the war years?
A. As far as I know, Munich had a population of seven hundred thousand.
Q. Now, was the Voelkischer Beobachter the official Party newspaper of the Nazi Party?
A. The Voelkischer Beobachter was considered the Party organ of the National Socialist Party.
Q. And whether or not it was subscribed to, to your knowledge, by all government and Party offices?
A. As far as I know, and as far as I recollect, it was considered desirable and necessary for all official agencies of the Party and the State to subscribe to the Voelkischer Beobachter.
Q. From your knowledge of Party membership and the circulation of the paper, which you have described, will you give the Court your estimate of the number of Party members who were covered by the paper, the percentage of Party members who were covered by the paper?
A. May I re-state your question? What percentage of the Party members subscribed to the Beobachter? If I understand you correctly, that is the question you put to me.
Q. Yes, it is.
A. Well, my estimate is that, expressed in percentages, the maximum number of Party members that subscribed to it may have been 20 percent. Of course, it depends upon what membership figures for the Party one bases one's estimate.
Q. The best that you can. Now, have you any idea as to the percentage of Party families who received the paper?
THE PRESIDENT: I think you have established that it was a paper of general circulation, particularly among officials of the Party. I doubt if you can go much further with that.
MR. LAFOLLETTE: Yes, Your Honor. May I ask about one or two further questions?
BY MR. LAFOLLETTE:
Q. I ask you whether or not, in your opinion, all government and Party officials at least took a scanning look at the Voelkischer Beobachter daily.
THE PRESIDENT: You need not answer that question.
This witness was the editor; he wasn't in charge of the whole community. We will draw an inference from the testimony as to the generality with which it was received and read.
THE WITNESS: I did not understand.
MR. LAFOLLETTE: The Tribunal directed that you need not answer the question.
THE WITNESS: All right, I am not supposed to answer, am I?
BY MR. LAFOLLETTE:
Q. Do you know what was the practice or the custom of the Party officials with reference to any requirement that Party and government officials subscribe regularly to the Voelkischer Beobachter?
A. Canvassing among civil servants was carried out in the regular way, by the same methods that were adopted among the Party as such. Naturally, it is possible that the civil service organizations themselves pointed out to the civil servants at the time that it was desirable for them to subscribe to the Voelkischer Beobachter.
MR. LAFOLLETTE: That is all, thank you. I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Is there any cross examination?
(No response)
It appears that there is none, The witness is excused.
(Witness excused)
MR. LAFOLLETTE: Do you have a witness, Dr. Wandschneider?
DR. WANDSCHNEIDER: Yes. I would now like to call my witness Willers. May I examine the witness Willers, please?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
(HANS WILLERS, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:)
THE PRESIDENT: Has this witness testified before?
DR. WANDSCHNEIDER: No, Your Honor, he has not testified here before. I merely have an affidavit from him.
JUDGE BLAIR: Raise your right hand and 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.)
You may be seated.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. WANDSCHNEIDER:
Q. Witness, please tell the Tribunal your full name, the date of your birth, and your personal data.
A. My name is Hans Willers. I was born on the 14th of May 1886 at Oldenburg.
Q. What was the last position you held?
A. My last position was that of Ministerialdirigent at the Personnel Department of the Reich Ministry of Justice.
Q. Was that Department I?
A. Yes, that was Department I.
Q. How long have you known Dr. Rothenberger?
A. I have known Dr. Rothenberger since the year 1935 when the Administration of Justice of the provinces was united with the Reich Ministry of Justice and incorporated. Since I was in charge of the Hamburg District as Personnel Referent, during the subsequent years I had a great many official contacts with Dr. Rothenberger.
Q. Can you tell us what experience you had in your contacts with Dr. Rothenberger?
A. It was my impression that Dr. Rothenberger held the direction of his district in firm hands, that his character was very energetic and very firm, and that his judges and his other subordinates had a very high opinion of him.