. NMT03-T1107
Volume III · Page 1107
| inmates to the Gestapo for liquidation, and
that the defendant, Klemm, approved in substance, if not in detail, this
transaction. When Rothenberger was ousted as State Secretary because he was not brutal enough, it was Klemm who was chosen to carry on the Thierack program in closest cooperation with the heads of the Nazi conspiracy. Klemm was in the inner circle of the Nazi war criminals. He must share with his dead friend, Thierack, (with whom he had lived), and his missing friend, Bormann, the responsibility, at a high policy level, for the crimes committed in the name of justice which fill the pages of this record. We find no evidence warranting mitigation of his punishment. Upon the evidence in this case it is the judgment of this Tribunal that the defendant, Klemm, is guilty under counts two and three of the indictment. |
| THE DEFENDANT ROTHENBERGER |
| From his own sworn statements we derive the following information concerning the defendant Rothenberger. He joined the NSDAP on 1 May 1933 "for reasons of full conviction." From 1937 until 1942 he held the position of Gau Rechtsamtleiter. He states: "As such I also belonged to the Leadership Corps." Parenthetically, it should be stated that the organization within the Leadership Corps to which he belonged has been declared criminal by the judgment of the first International Military Tribunal, and that membership therein with knowledge of its illegal activities is a punishable crime under C. C. Law 10. We consider the interesting fact of his membership in the Leadership Corps no further, solely because defendant Rothenberger was not charged in the indictment with membership in a criminal organization. He was a Dienstleiter in the NSDAP during 1942 and 1943. From 1934 to 1942 he was Gaufuehrer in the National Socialist Jurists' League. In 1931 he became Landgerichtsdirektor, and in 1933 Justiz–Senator in Hamburg. From 1935 to 1942 he was president of the district court of appeals in Hamburg. In 1942 he was appointed Under Secretary in the Ministry of Justice under Thierack. He remained in that office until he left the Ministry in December 1943, after which he served as a notary in Hamburg. Thus, it is established by his own evidence that while serving as president of the district court of appeals he was also actively engaged as a Party official. Other evidence discloses the wide extent to which the interests and demands of the Ministry of Justice, the Party, the Gau Leadership, the SS, the SD, and the Gestapo affected his conduct in matters pertaining to the administration of justice. Rothenberger took over the Gau Leadership of the National Socialist Lawyers' League at the request of Gauleiter Kauffmann, |
