. NMT03-T1176
Volume III · Page 1176
| Documentary evidence shows that the defendant knew of the evacuation of Jews in Austria and had correspondence with the Chief of the Security Police and Security Service regarding witnesses for the hereditary biological courts. This correspondence states: |
"If the Residents' Registration Office or another police office gives the information that a Jew has been deported, all other inquiries as to his place of abode as well as applications for his admission of hearing or examination are superfluous. On the contrary, it has to be assumed that the Jew is not attainable for the taking of evidence." |
| It also quotes this significant paragraph: |
"If in an individual case it is to the interest of the public to make an exception and to render possible the taking of evidence by special provision of persons to accompany and means of transportation for the Jew, a report has to be submitted to me in which the importance of the case is explained. In all cases offices must refrain from direct application to the offices of the police, especially also to the Central Office for the Regulation of the Jewish Problem in Bohemia and Moravia at Prague, for information on the place of abode of deported Jews and their admission, hearing, or examination." |
| He was a member of the SS at the time of the
pogroms in November 1938, "Crystal Week," in which the IMT found the SS to have
had an important part. Surely whether or not he took a part in such activities
or approved of them, he must have known of that part which was played by an
organization of which he was an officer. As a lawyer he knew that in October of
1940 the SS was placed beyond reach of the law. As a lawyer he certainly knew
that by the thirteenth amendment to the citizenship law the Jews were turned
over to the police and so finally deprived of the scanty legal protection they
had theretofore had. He also knew, for it was part of the same law, of the
sinister provisions for the confiscation of property upon death of the Jewish
owners, by the police. Notwithstanding these facts, he maintained his friendly relations with the leaders of the SS, including Himmler, Kaltenbrunner, Gebhardt, and Berger. He refers to Himmler, one of the most sinister figures in the Third Reich, as his "old and trusty friend." He accepted and retained his membership in the SS, perhaps the major instrument of Himmler's power. Conceding that the defendant did not know of the ultimate mass murders in the concentration camps and by the Einsatzgruppen, he knew the policies of the SS and, in part, its crimes. Nevertheless he accepted |
