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Volume III · Page 1081
| on death of the owner. They knew that the law
against Poles and Jews had been extended to occupied territories, and they knew
that the Chief of the Security Police was the official authorized to determine
whether or not Jewish property was subject to confiscation. They could hardly
be ignorant of the fact that the infamous law against Poles and Jews of 4
December 1941 directed the Reich Minister of Justice himself, together with the
Minister of the Interior, to issue legal and administrative regulations for
"implementation of the decree". They read The Stuermer. They listened to
the radio. They received and sent directives. They heard and delivered
lectures. This Tribunal is not so gullible as to believe these defendants so
stupid that they did not know what was going on. One man can keep a secret, two
men may, but thousands, never. The evidence conclusively establishes the adoption and application of systematic government-organized and approved procedures amounting to atrocities and offenses of the kind made punishable by C. C. Law 10 and committed against "populations" and amounting to persecution on racial grounds. These procedures when carried out in occupied territory constituted war crimes, and crimes against humanity. When enforced in the Alt Reich against German nationals they constituted crimes against humanity. The pattern and plan of racial persecution has been made clear. General knowledge of the broad outlines thereof in all its immensity has been brought home to the defendants. The remaining question is whether or not the evidence proves beyond a reasonable doubt in the case of the individual defendants that they each consciously participated in the plan or took a consenting part therein. |
| THE DEFENDANT SCHLEGELBERGER |
| The defendant Franz Schlegelberger was born on 23 October 1875 in Koenigsberg. He received the degree of doctor of law at the University of Leipzig in 1899 and passed the higher state law examination in 1901. He is the author of several law books. His first employment was as an assistant judge at the local court in Koenigsberg. In 1904 he became judge at the district court at Lyck. In 1908 he was appointed judge of the local court in Berlin and in the fall of the same year was appointed as an assistant judge of the Berlin Court of Appeals. lie was then appointed councillor of the Berlin Court of Appeals in 1914, where he worked until 1918. During the First World War, on 1 April 1918 he became an assistant to the Reich Board of Justice. On 1 October 1918 he was appointed Privy Government Councillor and department chief. In 1927 he was appointed ministerial director in the Reich |
