. NMT03-T1159
Volume III · Page 1159
| the evidence before it as to the commission of certain alleged offenses. Upon the evidence before it, it is the judgment of this Tribunal that the defendant Cuhorst has not been proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes alleged and that he be, therefore, acquitted on the charges against him. |
| THE DEFENDANT OESCHEY |
| The defendant Oeschey joined the NSDAP on 1
December 1931. He was war representative for the Gau Main Office for legal aid
and legal advice. After filling other offices he was appointed on 1 January
1939 to the office of senior judge of the district court at Nuernberg, which
office he held until 1 April 1941. He was then appointed district court
director at the same court. He was a presiding judge of the Special Court in
Nuernberg. By decree of 30 July 1940 of the Reich legal office of the NSDAP, he was provisionally commissioned with the direction of the legal office of the NSDAP in the Franconia Gau, and the leadership of the Franconia Gau in the NSRB, the National Socialist Lawyers' League. He carried out his duties in the Leadership Corps of the Party at the same time that he was serving as a judge of the Special Court. His personnel file in the Reich Ministry of Justice shows that he was highly recommended for his Party reliability by at least five different public officials. He was drafted into the army in February 1945, and remained in the army until the end of the war; however, he was released for the period from 4 April until 14 April 1945, during which time he functioned as chairman of the civilian court martial at Nuernberg. The record discloses that he and the defendant Rothaug were the guiding, if not controlling, spirits of the Special Court at Nuernberg, which was known as the most brutal of the special courts in Germany. Among many cases which gave evidence of his arbitrary character we will give detailed attention to two: In March 1943, Sofie Kaminska, a widowed Polish farm laborer, and Wasyl Wdowen, a Ukrainian, were indicted before the Special Court at Nuernberg for alleged crimes as follows: Kaminska for a violation of the law against Poles and Jews in connection with the crime of assault and battery and threat and resistance to an officer; Wdowen for the alleged crime of being accessory to a crime according to the law against Poles and Jews, and for attempting to free a prisoner. The case was tried before the Special Court, the defendant Oeschey presiding. The facts on which the sentence was based may, with complete fairness to the defendant Oeschey, be very briefly summarized. Shortly after the invasion of Poland, Kaminska "came to Ger- […many] |
