. NMT03-T0160
Volume III · Page 160
These materials on the general structure and organization of the administration of justice are followed by extracts from the testimony of the defense expert witness, Professor Jahrreiss, whose testimony dealt comprehensively with the development of German law and justice from a period far antedating the Nazi regime (sec. D). This section concludes with extracts from the testimony of the defendant Schlegelberger, under secretary (Staatssekretaer) in the Reich Ministry of Justice (sec. E). In addition to giving a leading defense point of view concerning general legal developments during the Hitler regime, this testimony introduces a number of the leading figures who played a role in the administration of justice and whose names frequently arise in the later appearing documents and testimony.
| B. Selected Laws and Decrees, 1933 - 1944 | |
| PARTIAL TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENT NG-715 PROSECUTION EXHIBIT 112¹ [Also Schlegelberger Document 91 Schlegelberger Defense Exhibit 84]² |
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| DECREE, 28
FEBRUARY 1933, BY REICH PRESIDENT VON HINDENBURG. COSIGNED BY REICH CHANCELLOR HITLER AND REICH MINISTERS FRICK AND GUERTNER, SUSPENDING CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS AND INSTITUTING OTHER MEASURES³ |
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| 1933 REICHSGESETZBLATT, PART 1, PAGE 83 | |
| Decree of the Reich President for
the Protection of People and State of 28 February 1933. Pursuant to article 48, paragraph 2 of the German constitution, the following is decreed as a defensive measure against Communist acts of violence endangering the State: |
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¹ The prosecution collected over forty different laws, decrees, extracts from the Weimar constitution, or German legal writings in Document NG-715 and introduced these in one document book as Prosecution Exhibit 112. Numerous decrees and laws from Document NG-715 are reproduced in this and later sections of this volume. Therefore, where a particular law or decree is reproduced in different parts of this volume under the heading "Partial Translation of Document NG-715," this does not necessarily mean that only extracts from that law or decree are reproduced. It merely means that only a part of Document NG-715. which in fact contained many different "documents" reproduced at that point.
² The defense often included all or parts of documents in their document books which had previously been introduced as exhibits by the prosecution. This was not necessary, of course, in order to give the defense the benefit of materials contained in prosecution exhibits, but it was apparently done to bring together in one place (the defense document books) the documentary materials upon which the defendant principally relied. In this volume the editors have occasionally noted the designation or documents as both prosecution and defense exhibits.
³ During the early Period of the Nazi regime, freedom, "this decree served as the basis for numerous "restrictions on personal freedom," including the placing of persons in "protective custody" without trial. For example, see the Goering decree concerning the Secret State Police (Gestapo) of 11 March 1934, (Klemm Doc. 28, Klemm Ex. 28), reproduced below in section V B. See also Document NG-478, Prosecution Exhibit 61, in section C 3.
