. NMT03-T1158
Volume III · Page 1158
"In dealing with the SS, the Tribunal includes all persons who had been officially accepted as members of the SS, including the members of the Allgemeine SS, members of the Waffen SS, members of the SS Totenkopf-Verbaende, and the members of any of the different police forces who were members of the SS." |
| It is not believed by this Tribunal that a
sponsoring membership is included in this definition. The Tribunal therefore finds the defendant Cuhorst not guilty under counts two and four of the indictment. As to count three the problem is considerably more complicated. There are many affidavits and much testimony in the record as to the defendant's character as a fanatical Nazi and a ruthless judge. There is also much evidence as to the arbitrary, unfair, and unjudicial manner in which he conducted his trials. Some of the evidence against him was weakened on cross-examination, but the general picture given of him as such a judge is one which the Tribunal accepts. The cases to be considered as connecting him with crimes established in this case under count three involve the question as to whether the evidence establishes his connection with the persecution of Poles. In this connection we have given particular consideration to the Skowron and Pietra cases. Unfortunately the records of the Special Court at Stuttgart were destroyed at the time that the Palace of Justice in Stuttgart was burned. There are therefore no records available as to the cases tried by Cuhorst. From the evidence available, this Tribunal does not consider that it can say beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was guilty of inflicting the punishments which he imposed on racial grounds or that it can say beyond a reasonable doubt that he used the discriminatory provisions of the decree against Poles and Jews to the prejudice of the Poles whom he tried. While the defendant Cuhorst followed a misguided fanaticism, certain things can be said in his favor. He was severely criticized for his leniency by the defendant Klemm in a number of cases which he tried. He was tried by a Party court for statements considered to reflect upon the Party, which he made in a trial involving Party officials. Subsequently he was relieved as a judge in Stuttgart because he apparently did not conform to what the State and Party demanded of a judge. This Tribunal does not consider itself commissioned to try the conscience of a man or to condemn a man merely for a course of conduct foreign to its own conception of the law, it is limited to |
* Ibid.
