administration of Justice in a National Socialist spirit." There is no room for doubt that his rapid promotion was made for the same reasons.
1. People's Court.
We know from many documents, as well as testimony of witnesses, that the Poeple's Court was a political court organized and functioning, not for the purpose of punishing criminals, but for punishment of people with different political convictions in order to set a warning example.159 In fact, it has been pointed out that the "duty" of the People's Court "was not primarily that of imposing punishment in accordance with normal 'bourgeois' conceptions of crime and punishment, but rather of annihilating an opposition which could become detrimental to the German aims" and that a defendant's "actual deed was of no particular importance in the determination of the punishment within the framework of the law" but that, "the important thing was whether the man had to be exterminated from the community of the people as a 'public enemy' because of his personal attitudes and his social or anti-social tendencies."160 It is also known that People's Court judges received Thierack's "Judges letters", that extraordinary appeals were filed against sentences which were too lenient, and that defense attorneys could not represent their clients tooo aggressively.161 Before discussing specific activities of the Fourth Senate, of which Nebelung was President, it should be pointed out that active Party membership was a qualification for nomination as a 159 - Ex. 175, NG-384, Bk III E, p. 82 160 - Ex. 176, NG-396, Bk III E, p. 84 161 - Ex. 177, NG-333, Bk III E, p. 87 People's Court judge162 and that The rack had instructed Freisler that only such judges as mastered the material involved along political lines and convinced those present of the correctness of a sentence should preside in important cases.
163 According to164 Exhibit 340 in 1944 the Fourth Senate handled cases of (1) "high treason in favor of all countries of the world except USSR and Poland; (2) damaging of means of defense; (3) punishable offenses of Germans from Lorraine and punishable offenses in Lorraine; and (4) punishable offenses of foreigners from Moravia, in case they were committed after the establishment of the Protectorate; however, not High Treason in favor of the USSR or Poland."
We find that in 1942 the Fourth Senate pronounced 137 sentences against 183 persons, and in 1943 it pronounced 189 sentences against 259 persons.165 The number must have increased in the second half of 1944. An assumption that there was no decrease in the number of cases handled and the number of persons sentenced during Nebelung's term of office as President of the Fourth Senate would, therefore, not be out of order even though only one case record was introduced in evidence. This record166 was a case against the Czech National Nohavicka. He was indicted for preparation of high treason and aiding enemies of the Reich, for spreading inflammatory news from the London radio, aiding Czechs who were actively hostile to the Reich and passing on inflammatory pamplets. He was convicted only on the charge of aiding the enemy but was sentenced to death.
162. Ex. 486, NG 817, III A, Sup. 126 163.
Ex. 103, NG 157, Bk. I B, p. 177 164.
Ex. 186, Bk. V A p. 29 165.
Ex. 124, NG 166, Bk. III A, p. 49 166.
Ex. 567, NG 1904, loose document.
as "the numerous reminders and warnings to the Czech people arc of value only if emphasized by imposition of the most severe punishments against those who cannot be taught." Clemency was denied and the Czech was executed on 24 January 1945.
In addition to this case record, however, we have references in exhibits and testimony concerning Nebelung's participation in other trials before the People's Court, especially the trials with respect to the July 20 attempt on Hitler's life. The People's Court film,167 shows the defendant Nebelung sitting with Freisler during the trial of some of the participants in the plot. It is obvious from this film that Nebelung did nothing to assist the defendants during this trial and interfered in no way with Freisler's shameful conduct thereof.
The defendant Nebelung was President of the 4th Senate of the People's Court. At the very time when Germany's needs for soldiers were the highest, he was found needed to murder, exterminate, enslave, imprison, and persecute at the home front, to wit, to serve at the People's Court. This is competent evidence by which to measure the way in which his services were most highly valued. He was a better exterminator with the gavel and the Reichsgesetsblatt than he was with a schuetzeingewehr at the front.
His legal ability is established by his own affidavit and his own documentary evidence. He must be held to have known that the alleged duty of allegiance of Czechs upon which to predicate a conviction for high treason or preparations for high treason was a factor arising out of Nazi racial arrogance and hatred, which his personal records shows he believes in whole heartedly, designed to exterminate 167.
Ex. 192, NG 1019 those who would eject an international forceful enterer and detainer, and international burglar, from their land, as they had a right to do.
He is guilty under the evidence of committing War Crimes as alleged in Count II, paragraphs 8 and 9 of the Indictment.
Nohovicka, a Czech, is dead. Murdered through an unlawful, judicial fiction wielded by the defendant Nebelung.
The acts of the defendant which do not constitute War Crimes, constitute Crimes against Humanity. He incorporate by reference what we have said here, under our discussion of those crimes.
We cannot close without pointing out to the Court the evidence of the defendants, Lautz and Rothaug, that they never heard of an official of the Ministry or a judge being sent to a concentration camp for failing or refusing to convict and also to Prosecution Exhibit 670, NG-2163, in Rebuttal, the record of People's Court Judge Springman. Springman could not continue to commit murder through perverted justice. He was first permitted by Freisler and Thierack to take a Civil Senate at the Reich Supreme Court and later to resign completely. He was neither sent to a concentration camp nor killed. Also the defendant Schlegelberge testified that he resigned.
Coercion to do a wrongful act is an affirmative matter which the prosecution does not have to overcome to make its case. But we do point out that there is no credible evidence in this record which shows that this defendant or any other defendant was coerced into staying in office or rendering a judgement of guilty or of rendering a death sentence. The defendant Schlegelberger testified that the judge was bound only by the law and his conscience.
168 There is testimony to the same effect in the testimony of the witness Jahreiss169 when he referred to the action of all the judges of the Reich Supreme Court of 8 January 1924.170 There is no evidence in this case that any defendant was coerced into doing any act for which he is criminally charged.
ALLIED FLIERS.
The Defendant Klemm is guilty of taking a consenting part and being connected with, the plan of the Reich Government to murder allied fliers who were forced down in Germany during air raids, in violation of Articles 4 to 7, inclusive, of the Hague Convention.171 The documentary evidence in this case consists of Exhibits 108, 109 and 110.172 Also, Exhibit 417, 1676-PS IA end which is the speech of Goebbels, made in the later Spring of 1944, is calculated to incite Germans to murder Allied Fliers.
168. Tr. 4421.
169. Tr. 4261 170.
8 January 1924. All of the judges of the Reich Supreme Court passed a resolution without a dissent, stating in substance that the idea of faith and good morals is outside and beyond the provision of positive law, and no system of of law which deserve the name of being a system of law can exist without this principle being part of it.
This resolution was passed as a result of a rumor which was then prevalent that the Reichstag would pass a law denying to German courts any power to make a revaluation of property lost as a result of theinflation.
See also Lautz Ex. 93, Bk III A, p. 20, Doc. 278.
171. Ex. 380 for Judicial Notice (Tr. 2584) 172.
NG-364, BK I E 54; 635-PS, Bk I E 56; NG-149 Bk I-E 57, respectively.
The record reveals that this plan and enterprise was determined upon in a desperate attempt by the German Government, which had initiated the bombing of defenseless cities - London, and especially Rotterdam and Belgrade being outstanding examples - to avoid the results of their own initial wrongdoing, terrorizing Allied Fliers and dissuading the Allied governments from continuing their bombing through threats to turn the civilian population against Allied fliers as lynch-mobs without any restraining action on the part of the Reich Government. In fact, the purpose of the government, through the instrumentality of Goebbels, Propaganda Minister, was to incite the population to act. The documents reveal a long series of discussions in which we find some reluctance on the part of Goering in the first instance, because he professed to fear retaliation; and also the same clever device appearing under the guise of legality, to observe laws and customs of war without so doing, is evidenced by Goering's sly statement that until the fliers got into the hands of the Army officially, the Army could not be responsible for what the civilian population did. Assuming that this is correct, it overlooks the fact that the documentary evidence clearly discloses that the incitment of the civilian population was part of the program. A material part of the program was the assurance that there would be no prosecutions by the Reich Justice Administration against Germans if they lynched and otherwise killed these downed Allied Fliers. The success of this program, and the death of fliers pursuant to it is adequately presented by the testimony of the witness, Col. McLendon, who testified that up to May 13, 1947, 57 cases had been tried at Dachau involving the assault and lynch-murder of more than 100 American fliers alone. This figure does not include Canadian and British flier 174 defendants were tried, of whom 24 were acquitted, and the cases against 5 nolle processed; which left 145 convictions, including 48 death sentences.
The documents show that Bormann circulated a decree to party circles advising them to notify the people that there would be no prosecutions if they decided to lynch-murder allied fliers who were soldiers in uniform, contrary to the Hague Convention.
The Minister of Justice, Thierack, received notice of this program, initialed the circular from Bormann's headquarters dated 30 May 1944, and also initialed a circular from Dr. Lammers of 4 June 1944 which accompanied the Bormann circular. Thierack directed that the Bormann circular should be sent to Department IV and circulated to all Ministry of Justice officials concerned in the Reich.
The Bormann circular, which is Exhibit 108, reads as follows:
"Re: The People's Judgment of Anglo-American Murderers.
"During the past weeks English and North American fliers have repeatedly shot at children playing on play-grounds, at women and children working in the fields, at ploughing peasants, at vehicles on the highway, at trains, etc., from a low height, thus murdering in the meanest manner defenseless civilians - especially women and children.
"It has happened several times that members of the crew of such air craft who had jumped out or made a forced landing, were lynched on the spot by the highly indignant population immediately after their arrest.
"No police or criminal proceedings have been taken against citizens who have taken part therein.
"Distribution: (s) M. BORMANN" Reichsleiter Gauleiter Verbaendefuehrer Kreisleiter It also contained a notation to the Gauleiters and Kreis leiters indicating that the participants knew that they were acting in violation of International Law because it was ordered that Ortsgruppenleiters should only be informed verbally of the contents of the circular.
It is obvious that to circulate the foregoing instructions to this many people would leave written evidence which could not possibly be destroyed. This instruction reads as follows:
"30 May 1944 "To All Gauleiters and Kreisleiters!"Re: Circular 125/44 g. (initials) The.
"The Chief of the Party Chancellery requests that the Kreisleitersminform the Ortsgruppenleiters only verbally of the contents of this circular."
(It is this second, page of the Bormann circular that Thierack initialed.)
The Lammers letter, which is addressed to Thierack, is verbatim as follows:
"The Reich Minister and Chief of the Reich Chancellery "R.K. 681 Berlin W 8 4th June 1944 "To the Reich Minister of Justice Dr. Thierack.
"Regards: Peoples Justice against AngloAmerican murderers.
(Initial) K1 (Klemm)
(Handwritten note: IV, circular with the addition that such cases are to be submitted to me when they arise, for an examination of the question of quashing. (Initial) TH (Thierack) "Most revered Dr. Thierack, "The Chief of the Party Chancellery informed me about the enclosed transcript of a secret circular letter and requested me likewise to inform you.
"I herewith comply with this and beg you to consider how far you want to instruct the Courts and district attorneys with it, "The Reich's leader and chief of the German Police has, as I was further told by executive leader Bormann, so instructed his police-leaders.
Heil Hitler!
Your very devoted Dr. LAMMERS".Initialed Klemm; hand written notation or circled with the additional notation, "are to be submitted to me when they arise";Thierack wants to examine the .question of quashing.
At this point of the record, it is valuable to note that the witness Hartmann, who was Klemm's personal adjutant testified that he and Klemm saw this letter from Lammers to Thierack after Thierack had put his notations on it, and discussed the letter and Thierack's notation together.
The witness Hartmann also obligingly advises us that the Bormann letter was to be circulated by Department IV among the proper authorities, This is obviously, at least to the Oberlandesgericht Presidents, who would in turn advise their courts, including the Special Courts and the Senior Public Prosecutors attached to the various courts in the same districts. Hartmann obligingly corroborates the affidavit of Hans Bejlovec173 who testified that while at Stuttgart he received one of these circulars.
The record now proves that the purpose of this program was to incite the German population, through Goebbels, to lynch Allied fliers and to assure them, through Bormann, with Thierack's cooperation, that there would, be no criminal action, and that Thierack agreed to cooperate and informed Klemm of this decision.
173. Ex. 440, NG-1306, III B Sup., The evidence which we have reviewed also shows, through the witness McLendon, that Allied fliers were in fact murdered.
Now, then, we come to the part played by the Ministry of Justice. The defendant Klemm in his testimony attempted to make much of the fact that he interfered in a case in Duesseldoff and required the prosecution of an SA leader who had shot two Canadian fliers in September 1944. The SA leader was named Kluetgen. The Klemm witness, Hans Hagemann, a Chief Public Prosecutor at Duesseldorf, testified for at least forty minutes on this matter about which Klemm had boasted, and his testimony can be summarized as follows: That when the SA leader, Kluetgen, shot down the two Canadian fliers while they were being marched to a place of internment by members of the Land Police in time presence of the Kreisleiter of Kleve, a man named Hartmann; Hagemann never prosecuted Kluetgen who was finally tried and sentenced to death at Dachau in late 1946 or 1947. Hagemann presented the most disgusting evidence of complete lack of Nazi morality and the most revealing statement of the character of Nazi administration of justice which was produced on the witness stand in this case. The Prosecution is obliged to the defendant Klemm for producing him.
His story was that he did not want to prosecute Kluetgen, who committed his murder in the presence of the Land Police, until he had interviewed the Kreisleiter, but under the rules prevailing, he could not interview the Kreisleiter until the Gauleiter gave his consent. The record will show that he never rationalized or gave any explanation for failing to prosecute Kluetgen without prosecuting the Kreisleiter. He even had Kluetgen in his home to have dinner with him one night, and Kluetgen explained that he had lost five relatives in an air raid, and still had three more Allied fliers to kill.
Kluetgen continued to walk the streets, and no explanation was given as to why he was never tried. Finally, Hagemann came up with an idea that means of transportation and communication got kind of bad in Duesseldorf in late 1944-1945, but that was the best he could offer. However, he did reveal that he called that very able student of international law, that valient civil servant, that ardent protector of justice, Dr. Mettgenberg for advice, and that Dr. Mettgenberg informed him over the telephone and by letter that he was proceeding properly and should not do anything until at some distant date be could be permitted to question the Kreisleiter. Now the Kreisleiter may well have been guilty as an instigator, or as a principal in the second degree, aiding and abetting the killing, but there is no justification in law - even in Nazi law -- for failing to institute proceedings against Kluetgen immediately and proceedings later against the Kreisleiter. Of course, this whole thing was a sham and subterfuge. We timourously hope that eventually Hagemann will be tried for his part in this matter by our British Allies, particularly in view of the fact that the fliers both were Canadians.
Be that as it may, Mettgenberg reported regularly to Klemm; he was in Department IV under Klemm and unquestionably between the telephone call from Hagemann and the time he wrote the letter, he conferred on this grave decision with Klemm, because these matters, according to Thierack, had to be reported.
We now come to Exhibit 529, which was introduced on the 14th of July during the cross-examination of the defendant Klemm. This exhibit consists of the notations made by the Prosecutor Helm at Munich of the instructions given him.
by Ministerial Counsellor Mietschke on the 16 August 1944. Mietschke was Klemm's witness and testified that he went to Munich at Klemm's instructions. Helm was a Prosecution witness and testified that he wrote down the same day that Mietschke was there, instructions that Mietschke had given him (Tr. 9336).
We now feel obliged to insert the material parts of this document (the document also dealt with matters other than Allied fliers):
"Notation:
"At his visit today, Ministerial Councillor MIETZSCHKE put up the following points for discussion:
"I. Whenever flyers who had participated in a terror-raid have been killed by the population, the submission of a detailed report by the police cannot be dispensed with (decision of State Secretary KLEMM). The reason is that punishable behaviour, as f.i. acts from egotistical motives such as robbing the dead, deeds of vengeance against Germans who afterwards are dressed in the uniform of killed enemy flyers etc., must be excluded with certainty."
We now ask the court to read the revealing instructions on what was to be done in the case of Allied fliers and observe that the reason for making the report was that possibly some German might have killed another German. Not only is it a logical and reasonable inference that no report was wanted where Germans had killed Allied fliers which is consistent with the program, but more than that, if read in the light of the Thierack notation which Klemm had discussed with Hagemann, it will be remembered that Thierack said he wanted reports "for the purpose of examining the question of quashing". Now it is obvious that you did not need to examine the question of quashing unless you intended to quash. But it is also obvious that Mietzschke, at Klemm's direction, want to Munich to advise Helm that the Ministry of Justice was still interested in prosecuting Germans for killing other Germans under the guise that they had killed Allied flyers, but that he was not to prosecute any case in which an Allied flier's murder was involved.
The witness Mietzschke himself testified that he only went with instructions to tell Helm to report and that he received no instructions from Klemm to tell Helm to prosecute (Tr. 9326). From these primary facts, the Prosecution contends that it is clearly inferable beyond any reasonable doubt that Thierack placed the conduct of this program in the hands of Klemm; that Klemm cooperated fully in the program, and that in at least two instances - the case at Munich and the case at Duesseldorf - we have evidence of the way in which he acted. In the Munich case, he sent word to Helm that he was to prosecute only Germans who used the subterfuge of murdering Allied fliers as a cloak for murdering other Germans. In the case at Duesseldorf, we see that he positively encouraged Prosecutor Hagemann, through direction of his agent, Dr. Mettgenberg, to continue to pursue a policy which would guarantee that the SA leader involved would not be prosecuted for a plain cold blooded murder as Hagemann's description of the facts reveal (We are also entitled to ask the Court to recall that this is SA leader Klemm who is acting).
The Prosecution not only charges, therefore, that Klemm's part, recognized in common law as that of an accessory before the fact, if not a principal in the second degree, under the provisions of the law under which we act, is that of a principal, responsible for participating in a plan and enterprise which had its design and purpose to excite the German people to violate the Hague Conventions covering the treatment of prisoners of war, and that the corpus delicti of this crime is shown by the testimony of the witness McLendon and also by the testimony of Hagemann in that, in that instance, Hagemann, with Mettgenberg and Klemm, consenting, acted openly and flagrantly, so that all the other Nazi Party members down to the Ortsgruppenleiters, at least in the District of Duesseldorf would know that in the period from September 1944 until the end of the war in Hagemann's district, you could kill a shot down Allied flier with impunity.
This amounts to instigation to murder. The defendant Mettgenberg is also guilty under the evidence, for it was he who advised Hagemann, first by telephone and second by letter, that the evasive wrongful procedure which he was following was in line with the policy of the Ministry of Justice established by Thierack and administered by Klemm.
The crime is adequately alleged in the indictment in Count II thereof, paragraphs 8, 9 and 19. It is adequately alleged against the defendant Mettgenberg, for the mere fact that the paragraph states that the defendant Klemm was "charged with special responsibility for and participation in these crimes" docs not in law entitle any other defendant in the Dock, including the defendant Mettgenberg to say that the crime has not been adequately described and that his responsibility has not been adequately stated in paragraphs 8 and 9 of Count II.
If your Honors please, may I read The Sonnenburg Massacre so that we may read the crimes against humanity in the morning?
(Copy The Sonnenburg Massacre)
THE SONNENBURG MASSACRE From the Frau Leppin Affidavit 174 that Russian 174.
- Ex. 293, NG 741, Bk. VII, B. 34.
and Polish prisoners had been moved into Sonnenburg before the Sonnenburg massacre, the Court can conclude that the judicial facts to establish a war crime are present. However, under the facts this is equally a Crime against Humanity as a War Crime, and the Prosecution chooses to discuss it in its discussion of the Crimes against Humanity committed by the defendant Klemm.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will recess until tomorrow morning at nine-thirty.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 14 October 1947 at 0930 hours.)
Official transcript of Military Tribunal III in the matter of the United States of America against Josef Altstoetter, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 14 October, 1947, 0930-1630 The Honorable James T. Brand, presiding.
THE MARSHAL: 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 well be order in the court.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Marshal, will you ascertain if the defendants are all present?
THE MARSHAL: May it please Your Honor, all defendants are present in the Court.
THE PRESIDENT: Before the argument commences, let the record show that this morning we have received Mettgenberg Book 6, Schlegelberger Supplement IV, Klemm Supplement X, all of which were referred to and disposed of yesterday morning. A few of the exhibits received only numbers for identification. The record will now show that all of those exhibits in the books to which I have referred have been received in evidence. You may proceed with the argument:
MR. KING: Crimes Against Humanity:
The Prosecution will discuss all types of Crimes against Humanity in this section instead of dividing them into categories of one or more major or basic crimes, as we did in our presentation of the subject of War Crimes.
The substantive crime, as pointed out in Appendix 3, is simple. It is one of the "atrocities of offenses" enumerated in the law, beginning with the offense of "murder" and ending with that of "persecution", which was committed on "racial, political or religious grounds". A domestic law condoning, authorizing or directing such a crime is not a defense, consequently obedience to such a law is no defense. Certainly, acts done to further the purpose of such a law cannot be pleaded as a defense, but on the contrary are affirmative evidence of guilt.
Therefore, where the substantive crime is so clearly shown a legal discussion of the questions of guilt may be limited almost wholly to a discussion of the relevancy and probative value of the evidence, and the ultimate facts inferrable from it. We shall devote most of our general discussion of these crimes to this field.
We choose also to divide these crimes into two basic classifications: First, those charged in Count Three of the Indictment, which took place after 1 September 1939, and, second, those charged in Count One of the Indictment, which took place before 1 September 1939.
The position taken by the Prosecution in U.S. v. Flick, 175 is that the crime is not committed by or during isolated flare-ups of racial, political or religious persecution. We contend, therefore, that Law 10, when properly construed, makes the crimes of murder, enslavement and imprisonment, normally national in character, international, when they follow a pattern of persecution on racial, political and religious grounds, or are performed, as they were in this case, in connection with a national plan or enterprise shown in this case to be national in scope, to commit them on racial, political or religious grounds. This does not mean, however, that the prosecution must show, as against any individual defendant that he, personally, committed so many crimes that they prove a personal determination or plan to commit the crime every time the opportunity arises, or in any over-whelming percentage of times. This is not the test. Using murder as an example, the test is this; did the defendant, 175 - U.S. v. Flick, Case No. 5, pp.
106-7.
"Private and occasional murders and sex offenses, such as unfortunately occur even in the most orderly and democratic nations, are not within its intendment. Nor, we believe, are localized outbursts of rare hatred, or petty discrimination, covered by the word "persecutions". At the opposite end of the scale are wholesale, nationwide campaigns, openly supported or connived at by the government, to make life intolerable for, to expel, to degrade, to enslave, or to exterminate large groups of the civilian population. Such persecutions, and murders enslavements or other inhumane acts committed in connection therewith, certainly fall within the scope of the definition."
on one occasion, act as a principal or accessory, or take a consenting part in, or was he connected with a plan or an enterprise, national in scope, if not indeed governmental in character, to murder human being, on racial, political or religious grounds, on which occasion a human being was in fact murdered? If so, he has committed Crimes Against Humanity.
The crime is personal to the defendant. The purpose, plan or enterprise -- to murder human beings on racial, political or religious 9720 a grounds - is national in policy and scope.
If we fail to keep before us this distination, we fail, as officers of the courts, also created by that law, to follow the purpose inherent in the plain, clear meaning of the law under which we function. But what is more serious, would be our failure to remember that in times of peace in the civilized nations of the world, yes, in this land of Germany, before the Nazis completely brutalized it, one murder on racial, political or religious grounds would have shocked the conscience of the community, and if proven in court beyond a reasonable doubt, would have resulted in a conviction given without question or qualm. Indeed, if we fail to clearly seat all tines the enormity of the crime of murder, of one human being, under the guise of judicial process, because the record in this case is so full of evidence of the murder of hundreds of thousands -including the dead who died in Mauthausen, Flossenbuerg and Auschwitz, we too will have become infected. And thereby we will have our own moral and legal perceptions dulled and destroyed by the brutalizing effect of evidence proving the existence of governmentally sponsored plans and enterprises, under which mass murder, based solely on a man's race, or his thoughts, or his prayers, were complaisantly accepted as the justifiable sacrifices demanded by the eruption into being of the omniscient and omnipotent Germanic plan for the world.
Before proceeding to discuss the evidence, it is necessary for the Prosecution to state its position upon the evidence which it considers to be more than adequate to establish under the proper application of the rules of law the guilt of the defendants, beyond a reasonable doubt, of crimes against humanity.
It is the position of the Prosecution that the Nazi Decrees both substantive and procedural, which are in evidence in this case,176 176.
NG 715, Ex. 112, Pros. Doc. Bk. II, contains most of them; also Ex. 625, NG 700; Ex. 624, NG 1807; Ex. 501, 2006 PS.
when considered against the background of Nazi philosophy and purpose, of which the evidence shows these defendants had knowledge, are of themselves evidence of a governmentally sponsored plan to create a legal and judicial system intended to be used to support a governmentally sponsored plan to murder? exterminate? enslave? imprison and persecute other human beings? including German residents? civilians and nationals? on racial? political and religious grounds. A study of these decrees against the background of Nazi seizure of power? initiation of aggressive wars? treatments of over-run peoples and the progress and development of the war? discloses such a regular and interesting pattern that the promulgation and administration of these laws is evidence of strong probative value of intent to commit Crimes against Humanity.
The first phase of Nazi activity after the seizure of power was the design and plan to consolidate power and to acquire a position from which Jews could be persecuted and opposition within Germany throttled and effectively eliminated. The first of the substantive laws passed in this period is the Decree for the Protection of People and State of 28 February 1933? thereafter follow in order? the law of 4 April 1933 against violent political acts; the law of 24 April 1934 amending the Penal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure; the Law of 20 December 1934; on treacherous acts against Party and State; the law of 28 June 1935 amending the Penal Code; the Nurnberg Laws of 15 September 1935 for the protection of German blood and honor marked the culmination or highlight of this period, and evidence the fact that the Nazis now felt that they had sufficient control of Germany to permit them safely and brazenly to present the bold implications of their domestic racial policy. In this same period in the field of procedural law, we find the Decree for the Formation of Special Courts of 21 March 1933; the law of 7 April 1933; the law of 7 April 1933 regarding admission to the Bar? which prohibited Jews from practicing law; the procedural provisions of the law of 24 April 1934 previously referred to, which included the establishment of the People's Court; the procedural provisions of the law of 28 June 1935 previously referred to, which included those "ready to hand" judicial weapons of oppression, "guilt by analogy" and "punishment according to the common sense of the people."