. NMT03-T1051
Volume III · Page 1051
[interpreta…] tion by defense counsel is not always sufficient because their French mostly is not good enough and defendants were brought to the place of trial only shortly before it was held." |
| The same difficulty arose as to Czech defendants. A report on a conference with respect to new procedure in treatment of Night and Fog cases originating in the Netherlands, signed "von Ammon" and "Mettgenberg, 9 November 1943", addressed to Ministerial Director Engert and others, states that while returning from The Hague to Berlin the undersigned representative of the Reich Ministry of Justice held on 5 November as scheduled, a conference with the head officials of the court of appeals at Hamm and that defendant Joel thought the housing of NN prisoners, also such of Dutch nationality, at Papenburg, would be possible and unobjectionable. This was later carried out. A secret letter dated 29 December 1943, addressed to defendant von Ammon from the presiding judge and chief prosecutor of Hamm Court of Appeals notified von Ammon of an imminent conference concerning transfer of the NN trials to the NN Special Courts at Oppeln and Katowice. A letter from Breslau dated 10 January 1944, signed by Dr. Sturm, asks that ministerial councillor, defendant von Ammon, be available for a meeting at Breslau between 15 and 31 January 1944 to discuss routine proceedings for handling NN cases. A letter addressed to the German commander of the French occupied zone states that effective from 15 November 1943 all cases of crimes committed against the Reich or the occupation forces in occupied French zones hitherto submitted to the ordinary legal authorities were to be taken over by the Special Court and attorney general in Cologne and Breslau. The defendant von Ammon attended conferences with public prosecutors in Breslau and Katowice (Poland) on 18 and 19 February 1944, concerning housing of NN prisoners and possibility of transferring NN cases from the Netherlands, Belgium, and northern France to Special Courts in Poland for trial; von Ammon reported the results of these conferences in detail to, among others, the defendant Klemm (under secretary) and personally wrote on his report that he had secured appropriate Gauleiter's concurrence to the proposed transfer. Shortly thereafter the Ministry of Justice issued a decree endorsed to the defendant Mettgenberg for signature, and submitted twice to von Ammon, for information and cosignature, whereby these Dutch, Belgian, and northern French NN cases were to be transferred to Silesia for trial. In response to this decree, von Ammon was personally notified that the defendant Joel (then general public prosecutor at Hamm) |
