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Volume III · Page 1142
not succeeded in having the order issued by the police withdrawn, nothing was left but to issue the instructions to the executing authority not to offer any resistance but to hand the man over to the police when they requested him." |
| Notwithstanding the reluctance with which
the officials of the Ministry of Justice acted, it appears from the foregoing
that they did cooperate in the transfer of prisoners to the police.
From 10 September 1942 to March 1943, Joel reviewed 105 death sentences passed by courts in the Incorporated Eastern Territories and in most cases gave final authorization for their execution. In his capacity as such Referent, Joel reviewed and passed upon 16 death sentences of Poles who had committed alleged crimes against the Reich or the German occupation forces. One of these Poles was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States, and his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment because Joel was fearful his execution would involve the Reich in international complications. The remaining 15 Poles were executed. As Referent, Joel was shown by captured official documents to have had knowledge that many Jewish and Polish political prisoners were being executed under the law against Jews and Poles. This matter was called to his attention because of a dispute as to who should handle the corpses of the executed prisoners. One main difficulty was that, under Himmler's orders, these corpses were to be turned over to the Secret Police for disposition. The mayor and police of Posen [Poznan I refused to handle the corpses of Poles and Jews who were not executed as political prisoners. Joel was thereupon instructed to handle the matter temporarily and to work out a permanent plan for such burials, which he later assisted in doing. As Referent in the department of justice and as liaison officer between the department and the SS, Joel obtained extensive information and exercised far-reaching power in the execution of the law against Jews and Poles. He therefore took an active part in the execution of the plan or scheme for the persecution and extermination of Jews and Poles. Concerning Joel's membership in the SS and SD, a consideration of all of the evidence convinces us beyond a reasonable doubt that he retained such membership with full knowledge of the criminal character of those organizations. No man who had his intimate contacts with the Reich Security Main Office, the SS, the SD, and the Gestapo could possibly have been in ignorance of the general character of those organizations. We find defendant Joel guilty under counts two, three, and four. |
