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Volume III · Page 1055
the judicial authorities would thus take preventive police measures. There is the question, however, whether the situation of the Reich does not justify even such extraordinary measures." |
| This request was handled by defendant von Ammon, who endorsed it as follows: |
"Submitted * * * first to Department V (headed by defendant Engert) with the request for an opinion. If you have no objections I intend to contact the RSHA in accordance with the report of the attorney general at Katowice." |
| Clemency in the NN Cases |
| As Under Secretary, defendant Klemm was
required to pass upon clemency matters either while acting with or in the
absence of the Minister of Justice. He admits passing upon clemency pleas in NN
death cases and refusing all of them. Fourteen documents concerning NN matters
passed through defendant Klemm after he became under secretary of State. He
knew of the transfer of NN cases from Essen to Silesia and knew of "routine" NN
matters which passed through his department. In the fall of 1944 Hitler ordered the discontinuance of the NN proceedings by the justice and the OKW courts and transferred the entire problem to the Gestapo the NN prisoners being handed over to the Gestapo at the same time. In later conferences attended by defendant von Ammon, the Ministry of Justice agreed to and later actually carried out the transfer by committing them from the Ministry's prisons to the Gestapo's custody. Defendant Lautz was ordered to suspend People's Court proceedings against NN prisoners and transfer them to the Gestapo. The witness Hecker stated that those NN prisoners of the Berlin district, of which he had knowledge, were sent to Oranienburg. The final order of the Ministry of Justice committing all NN prisoners on hand to the Gestapo and the concentration camps was one of extreme cruelty. The foregoing documents and the undisputed facts show that Hitler and the high ranking officials of the armed forces and of the Nazi Party, including several Reich Ministers of Justice and other high officials in the Ministry of Justice, judges of the Nazi regime's courts, the public prosecutors at such courts, either agreed upon, consented to, took a consenting part in, ordered, or abetted, were connected with the Hitler NN plan, scheme, or enterprise involving the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the waging of the recent war against the Allied nations and other neighboring nations of Germany. The foregoing documents and facts show without dispute that several of the defendants participated to one degree or another |
