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Volume III · Page 350
| which ever happened to this man Guertner,
whose main intention was to serve justice. It was an order which Hitler had
given through administrative channels to the police, and the execution of it
was assured on the basis of the means of power then Prevailing. The attempt on
the part of Guertner to reinstate the respect for court decisions therefore had
failed; but he was not satisfied with that. He wanted to insure that the
administration of justice should be given the authority to intervene in time
and to attempt at least to thwart the execution of the order given to the
police. That, of course, was only possible if the administration of justice was
informed in time about the order that had been given to the police, and that
request by Guertner was actually granted. Subsequently the administration of
justice as a rule was informed by Hitler's adjutant, Schaub, wherever an order
of that kind was given to the police. The question, therefore, as to how after one has been informed, one can make an attempt to prevent the execution of Hitler's order involved great difficulties particularly because the police had a time limit of 24 hours after which it had to report to its superiors that the order had been executed. Guertner then was of the opinion that for these matters he had to assign the one official in his ministry whom he could use as a capable man with the police — who shared Guertner's opinion in these matters — and from whom one could expect, on the basis of previous experience, that he would show sufficient cleverness. Guertner therefore charged my codefendant Joel with that mission. When the information about such an order was received, feverish work started. First one had to try to extend the police time limit; that is, to persuade the police to delay the report. That alone brought great difficulties, because the police official incurred considerable risk. But in some individual cases it succeeded. At the same time, the files of the case were called to Berlin and all other bits of information which probably had caused Hitler to order the transfer of the person concerned to the police. Then a detailed report was made of the act and the culprit which justified the sentence, and telephone calls took place with various agencies whenever that seemed to have chances for success. Some individual cases were successful. But if it could not be achieved that the order turning over the individual to the police was rescinded, although everything had been tried, then there was no other alternative than to issue a directive to the authority which was about to carry it out, telling them that they should no longer resist but should turn over the man to the police. If the Reich Ministry of Justice had failed to give the man up, the police would have broken the resistance by force; the con- […demned] |
