The Mazal Library

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NMT03-T1088

NUERNBERG MILITARY TRIBUNAL
Volume III · Page 1088

He received the Bronze Party Service decoration in 1941 and the Golden Party decoration, the latter being conferred by Bormann in 1943. During the time in which the defendant was in Saxony, he was a member of the disciplinary court of the SA group which dealt with the purge of the SA in connection with the Roehm Putsch. A brief outline of the official activities of the defendant Klemm is as follows: after transfer to Berlin in 1935, the defendant dealt with acts against the State and Party and, later, the malicious acts law. In this field prosecution could be ordered only by the Ministry of Justice with the permission of the office of the deputy of the Fuehrer, which later became the Party Chancellery. It was during this period that the following circular, dated Berlin, 18 October 1937, and initialed by Klemm, was issued (NG-310, Pros. Ex. 33) :

"1. Criminal procedures concerning more severe interrogations by the Stapo will be dealt with centrally by Chief Prosecutor Klemm. They are to be sent to the competent co-worker Prosecutor Winkler.

"2. As far as reports concerning executions when escaping from concentration camps, etc., suicides in K.Z. arrive, they shall continue to be dealt with by the specialist competent for the respective subject. The general consultant for political criminal matters, however, is to be informed of the reports. They are to be submitted to him once."

The practice of more severe interrogations, according to the testimony of Lautz, caused much worry to those concerned with the administration of ,justice. By the term "more severe interrogations" is meant "third degree" methods which Hitler authorized the police to use in cases considered important for the safety of the State.

From July 1940 to March 1941, while Klemm was in Holland, he had charge of both civil and penal law. The penal section in Holland was for German citizens not in the army and Dutch who infringed on German interests. He was also liaison officer between the commissioner general for the administration of justice and secretary of the Dutch Ministry of Justice at The Hague.

During this period there were published in the official gazette for the occupied Dutch territories, in the year 1944,* decrees of the Reich Commissioner of Occupied Dutch Territories, Seyss-Inquart, pertaining to the registry of Jewish property, the confiscation of same under certain circumstances, and for the transfer

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* This date is evidently a recording error, in as much as the decrees mentioned were published in 1940 and 1941.

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