The Mazal Library

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NMT03-T1116

NUERNBERG MILITARY TRIBUNAL
Volume III · Page 1116

"Q. And at that time, these twelve people who had served their sentences and had been taken over by the police--that met with the approval of the defendant Dr. Rothenberger, as I understand you?

"A. Well [we] did not approve the concentration camp as an institution altogether, but first of all we wanted to achieve this — that it would no longer happen that a defendant was acquitted and then after acquittal the Gestapo arrested (him) in front of the courtroom. * * * In those cases, too, he did not approve the fact that these people were in a concentration camp because we were of the opinion that only the administration of justice should decide these questions of criminal law and nobody else. But according to the power conditions within the State, as they happened to exist, our interest was first of all to remove the worst evils."

Upon redirect examination by counsel for the defendant Rothenberger, defense witness Hartmann testified as follows:

"Q. Therefore, sometimes was the situation for you and Dr. Rothenberger like this: that apparently you affirmed something with a smiling face, something which as a human being you had to disapprove of and reject?"

To this question the witness answered that Dr. Rothenberger "for reasons of power politics" had to accept the conditions though he did not approve them. After his inspection of Mauthausen concentration camp, Dr. Rothenberger took no action whatsoever with regard to the information which he had received.

It follows that the defendant Rothenberger, contrary to his sworn testimony, must have known that the inmates of the Mauthausen concentration camp were there by reason of the "correction of sentences" by the police, for the inmates were in the camp either without trial, or after acquittal, or after the expiration of their term of imprisonment.

It must be borne in mind that this inspection by the defendant Rothenberger was made at Mauthausen concentration camp, an institution which will go down in history as a human slaughter house and was made in company with the man who became the chief butcher.

We are compelled to conclude that Rothenberger was not candid in his testimony and that in denying knowledge of the institution of protective custody in its relationship with the concentration camps he classified himself as either a dupe or a knave. Nor can we believe that his trips to the camps were merely for pleasure or for general education. He also advised other judges to make like investigations. We concede that the concentration camps were

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