. NMT05-T1190
Volume V · Page 1190
| strength for the current year of
1942. It was an integral and important part of the war program of the SS, and
in it Loerner actively participated for 6 days. The document is significant in
showing that Loerner was no mere figurehead charged with casual unimportant
duties on behalf of the SS, but, on the contrary, was entrusted with grave
responsibilities. Document NO-517, Pros. Ex. 86, book 4: This is a memorandum by Baier as chief of staff W, concerning camp regulations for prisoners which Pohl had requested him to draw up. The regulations were to contain, among other things, comprehensive provisions for fixing the so-called wage scale for prisoners. In the work of drawing up the camp regulations, Baier specifies that Loerner should be consulted. Dr. Schmidt's contention is that Loerner was never actually consulted, and, therefore, the exhibit is insignificant. On the contrary, it is significant as showing the recognition of Loerner's position as a consultant, even though his services in that capacity may not have been actually used. Counsel for Loerner in his brief (p. 5) states: |
"In my opinion it is not admissible to draw a connection which is relevant under criminal law between a person, solely because of his employment in an office dealing with the administration of concentration camps, and the crimes committed in the concentration camps, unless there can be ascertained a demonstratable causal connection between the actions of this person and the crimes indubitably committed in the concentration camps, and, in addition, unless it can be ascertained that the defendant himself consciously and deliberately was guilty of acts of omission or commission." |
| In this opinion the Tribunal readily concurs, and so stated in the original judgment (Tr. p. 8079). Nor has the Tribunal deviated from that principle in this supplemental judgment. We pause to state, however, that any indignation over the concept of "mass punishment" and "group condemnation" appears somewhat hypocritical in the face of a national policy which condemned to summary death all Jews, all Bolsheviks, all Communists, all gypsies, all asocial persons, all dangerous elements, all "sub- humans". The SS was an organization with the primary objective of meting out mass punishment and it savagely pursued that objective on a scale never before dreamed of. Now these defendants, members of that same SS, shrink with horror at the mere suspicion that such a policy is being used against them. The Tribunal has heretofore stated and now repeats its repudiation of the theory of mass punishment or group condemnation with all its implications. |
