. NMT03-T0772
Volume III · Page 772
| there were more of those. One was the lack of
experts in the field of genetics which was caused by the war. The other reason
was the thing that had occurred with the courts in Vienna. In other courts it
did not occur, as far as I know. There in Vienna a particular difficulty arose
owing to the fact that the police, as far as Jewish witnesses for these descent
trials were concerned — in most cases it was a question of so-called
witnesses for the investigation or witnesses for the purpose of comparison
— that the police, as I said, for reasons of security had removed these
witnesses and now refused to produce them or to release them. That can be seen
from the letter of the police of 3 May 1944, which is in this exhibit.
Objections against the attitude of the police which were raised by the
subdepartment chief, Ministerialrat Rexroth, in the course of a conference with
a Referent, were only successful to the extent that the police consented in
exceptional cases to produce witnesses if the Reich Minister of Justice
expressly demanded that. Moreover, the police referred to the lack of means of
transportation and escort personnel caused by the war. With matters as they
stood, the Reich Ministry of Justice could do nothing else but to bring them to
the attention of the courts in Vienna through the president of the district
court of appeals. For the people concerned who desired to carry out by that
suit, as I have called it, an Aryanization, the fact that these witnesses were
not produced as a rule did not amount to any disadvantage. The persons
concerned on their part, either if they had instituted the proceedings
themselves in their own interest or if they had requested of the public
prosecutor to institute proceedings, had themselves presented to the public
prosecutor evidence for their assertion that they were not descendants of a Jew
or a person of mixed Jewish descent. And if the court could not produce the
expert opinions of geneticists which officially had to be produced and for
which these witnesses for the purpose of comparison were needed, then the court
could do nothing else but on the basis of the evidence which the Jews concerned
had submitted, to decide, and that this evidence was in favor of the person
filing the claim is obvious. And to that the remarks in Exhibit 463 refer, that
one had to put up with it if in this manner the intentions to cover up for the
true descent could not be prevented. Q. Witness — PRESIDING JUDGE BRAND: Let me ask you this. Concerning these claimants suspected of being Jews but claiming to be Aryans, how far back did they have to trace their ancestry to prove that they were Aryans? DEFENDANT ALTSTOETTER: They were not compelled to go far back. It sufficed to prove that either one of the parents was not |
