. NMT03-T1079
Volume III · Page 1079
| [extermi…] nation of Poles and Jews was
small compared to the mass extermination of millions by the SS and Gestapo in
concentration camps, nevertheless the courts contributed greatly to the "final
solution" of the problem. From a secret report from the office of the Reich
Minister of Justice to the judges and prosecutors, including the defendant
Lautz, it appears that 189 persons were sentenced under the law for the
protection of German blood and honor in 1941, and 109 in 1942. In the year
1942, 61,836 persons were convicted under the law against Poles and Jews. This
figure includes persons convicted in the Incorporated Eastern Territories, and
also convictions for crimes committed in "other districts of the German Reich
by Jews and Poles who on 1 September 1939 had their residence or permanent
place of abode in territory of the former Polish state." These figures, of
course, do not include any cases in which Jews were convicted of other crimes
in which the law of 4 December 1941 was not involved. The defendants contend that they were unaware of the atrocities committed by the Gestapo and in concentration camps. This contention is subject to serious question. Dr. Behl testified that he considered it impossible that anyone, particularly in Berlin, should have been ignorant of the brutalities of the SS and the Gestapo. He said: "In Berlin it would have been hardly possible for anybody not to know about it, and certainly not for anybody who was a lawyer and who dealt with the administration of justice." He testified specifically that he could not imagine that any person in the Ministry of Justice, or in the Party Chancellery, or as a practicing attorney or a judge of a Special (or) People's Court could be in ignorance of the facts of common knowledge concerning the treatment of prisoners in concentration camps. It has been repeatedly urged by and in behalf of various defendants that they remained in the Ministry of Justice because they feared that if they should retire, control of the matters pertaining to the Ministry of Justice would be transferred to Himmler and the Gestapo. In short, they claim that they were withstanding the evil encroachments of Himmler upon the justice administration, and yet we are asked to believe that they were ignorant of the character of the forces which they say they were opposing. We concur in the finding of the first Tribunal in the case of United States et al. vs. Goering, et al., concerning the use of concentration camps. We quote: |
"Their original purpose was to imprison without trial all those persons who were opposed to the government, or who were in any way obnoxious to German authority. With the aid of a secret police force, this practice was widely extended, and in |
