. NMT05-T0061
Volume V · Page 61
| VII. SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES
ARISING OUT OF THE EARLIER EXTRADITION OE THE DEFENDANT HILDEBRANDT TO POLAND |
| A. Extract from the Closing
Statement for Defendant Hildebrandt* |
| Mr. President, your Honors. Just before the conclusion of the case in chief, the prosecution in the session 2 February 1948 (Tr. p. 4749) made the following statement, I quote: |
"We wish to have it clearly set forth in the record that for the period from 1 September 1939 until April 1943 the only charge against the defendant Hildebrandt is the euthanasia charge contained in paragraph 22 of the indictment. We make no other charges against him for that period when he was Higher SS and Police Leader and representative of the RKFDV in Danzig-West Prussia." |
| This statement per se could be a
source of gratification in the defense of the defendant Hildebrandt. However,
the defense of Hildebrandt could be accused of acting irresponsibly if it
limited its argumentation accordingly to the activity of Hildebrandt as chief
of the Race and Settlement Main Office. The defendant Hildebrandt has not forgotten that on 4 September 1946 he was taken from the hospital of the internment camp at Regensburg by a Polish officer, and transferred to Poland with a transport of 60-70 men. The defendant Hildebrandt is familiar with the physical illtreatment and humiliation to which he and his fellow prisoners — farmers, officers, and clergymen — were subjected in the Polish Prisons in Warsaw. The defendant Hildebrandt knows what it means to have to wait for three-quarters of a year for a trial, completely uncertain as to his fate. The Polish law administration had nine months in which to put Hildebrandt before the forum of a Polish court. In article V of the Control Council Law of 20 December 1945, of the "writ of habeas corpus" of German war criminals, promulgated and signed by the four signatory powers, it states, and I quote: |
"If within six months the extradited person has not been convicted by the court of the zone or country to which he has been delivered, then such person shall be returned upon demand |
_____________
* Complete closing statement is recorded in the mimeographed transcript, 18 February 1948, pp. 5113-5138.
