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Volume III · Page 127
position, and to the extent of that position, have to deal with criminal cases.
If the prosecution on account of this, his position, has indicted him on these individual counts and included him in the common legal framework of conspiracy, the defense will first of all show that Control Council Law No. 10 does not provide a legal basis for an indictment of conspiracy to war crimes and crimes against humanity. My colleague, Dr. Haensel, responsible for the entire defense, has taken over this subject and will make the necessary statements and put forward motions. In addition, I, myself, will submit sufficient evidence to prove that with a person of Schlegelberger's caliber, conspiracy and violent thinking are incompatible. I shall submit proof, as to his basic attitude during the whole of his tenure of office, that he could never have either favored or promoted principles of violent thinking, that on the contrary, all his activities were aimed at preventing or at least modifying the course set by Hitler's dictatorship. We shall see, how he wrestled with the opposing forces of the Party, and how unequally distributed the powers were, and how his defensive attitude was breached but forcibly. We shall learn how much Hitler had always disliked the administration of justice and its expert administrators, and that, at a time, when not only the whole of the administration in Germany but also the entire public life, even to a certain extent private life, had already been "coordinated" and shaped according to National Socialist ideas. On 20 August 1942, he had to realize the fact that he had to build up a "National Socialist administration of justice." Does this not constitute the truest judgment of Schlegelberger that he be judged by a man, who after all, was best qualified to judge? Is it not evident that the administration of justice under Guertner and Schlegelberger had done their utmost to face the avalanche? Is Hitler not best qualified to testify against the charges brought by the prosecution, namely that Schlegelberger had lent himself to the carrying out of rational Socialist ideas of violence as personified by Hitler?
With this point of view in mind we shall have to judge the defendant Schlegelberger: A man, known to us only by his work, performed with integrity, and whose activities, viewed from National Socialist aspects, Hitler criticized in the above-mentioned way both in his Reichstag speech on 26 April 1942 and in his decree of 20 August 1942. Such a person has a right to point out: the charges brought by the prosecution which superficially regarded, appear to be against me, and the charges that the prosecution has brought against me in order to incriminate me for my 10 years of service as Under Secretary cannot be judged as isolated facts and without considering motives but must be evaluated
