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Volume III · Page 943
| 3–L, according to which separate reports
were made to me on individual cases and to the Minister on death sentences. If
the prosecution bases its case on the testimony of the witness Altmeyer, this
testimony has been refuted with overwhelming clarity by the testimony of
Hartmann, Franke, and Ehrhard, and the prosecution overlooks that, in his
cross-examination, the witness Altmeyer, in particular had to deviate from his
affidavit. The prosecution mentioned furthermore a case of theft from airmen
where proceedings were quashed. I remember the case distinctly. An airplane had
been destroyed, and from the wreck objects had been stolen which had already
been partly destroyed by rain and fire. The proceedings were stopped because
the subjective prerequisites of theft could not be proved. The prosecution has
failed to show what this theft from a wrecked airplane had to do with lynching
of aviators. All in all, the result of the statements of the prosecution is as
follows: In this trial it was not only German justice of the past years that
was indicted, but the continental legal system, a system in which for many
decades the obedience to the law and the norm created by the State has been the
only task of the jurist. Before 1933 I had been educated and trained in this
school of thought. What legal and factual opportunities were open to me I used
in favor of justice wherever I could do so. To revoke laws and norms which had
existed for years was not in my competency. PRESIDING JUDGE BRAND: The defendant Rothenberger may address the Tribunal. DEFENDANT ROTHENBERGER: I was a National Socialist, and in that respect I distinguish myself from those who for 10 years and more were placed in leading positions in the Third Reich and today say that they were not National Socialists. When I realized that national socialism was destroying the very values for which I had lived and for which it had promised to work, I decided with all my energy to influence the development of national socialism in the sphere of justice. I did not want to be a hanger-on. It was not my way to content myself with tactical maneuvers or withdrawals, which gradually brought about an undermining of the administration of German justice. The struggle for the idea of the judiciary within the framework of a totalitarian state I made the focal point of my life. And, therefore, I consider myself to be under an obligation to declare today that the German judge and his judgment, since 1933, were subjected to excessive attacks from the Party and from the SS without being given any backing from the leadership of the Ministry. Here lie the causes for my actions. At the beginning, I believed that in a totalitarian state there could exist a free judiciary. In the course of time I realized that most |
