. NMT03-T1025
Volume III · Page 1025
| in a limited sense. They more closely
resembled administrative tribunals acting under directives from above in a
quasi-judicial manner. In operation the Nazi system forced the judges into one of two categories. In the first we find the judges who still retained ideals of judicial independence and who administered justice with a measure of impartiality and moderation. Judgments which they rendered were set aside by the employment of the nullity plea and the extraordinary objection. The defendants they sentenced were frequently transferred to the Gestapo on completion of prison terms and were then shot or sent to concentration camps. The judges themselves were threatened and criticized and sometimes removed from office. In the other category were the judges who with fanatical zeal enforced the will of the Party with such severity that they experienced no difficulties and little interference from party officials. To this group the defendants Rothaug and Oeschey belonged. We turn to a consideration and classification of the evidence. The prosecution has introduced captured documents in great number which establish the Draconic character of the Nazi criminal laws and prove that the death penalty was imposed by courts in thousands of cases. Cases in which the extreme penalty was imposed may in large measure be classified in the following groups: 1. Cases against habitual criminals. 2. Cases of looting in the devastated areas of Germany; committed after air raids and under cover of black-out. 3. Crimes against the war economy — rationing, hoarding, and the like. 4. Crimes amounting to an undermining of the defensive strength of the nation; defeatist remarks, criticisms of Hitler, and the like. 5. Crimes of treason and high treason. 6. Crimes of various types committed by Poles, Jews, and other foreigners. 7. Crimes committed under the Nacht and Nebel program, and similar procedures. Consideration will next be given to the first four groups as above set forth. The Tribunal is keenly aware of the danger of incorporating in the judgment as law its own moral convictions or even those of the Anglo-American legal world. This we will not do. We may and do condemn the Draconic laws and express abhorrence at the limitations imposed by the Nazi regime upon freedom of speech and action, but the question still remains unanswered: |
