. NMT06-T0431
Volume VI · Page 431
| H. Testimony of Defendant Burkart | |
| EXTRACTS FROM THE
TESTIMONY OF DEFENDANT BURKART* |
|
| DIRECT EXAMINATION | |
| DR. KRANZBUEHLER (counsel for
defendant Burkart): Dr. Burkart, please give the Tribunal your full name.
DEFENDANT BURKART: My name is Odilo Burkart. Q. When and where were you born? A. I was born on 29 August 1898 in Riedlingen on the Danube in the State of Wuerttemberg. Q. Mr. Burkart, I suppose I hardly need tell you anything about the technical aspect of questioning witnesses, because have seen it long enough. I only ask you to bear it in mind. Please give the Tribunal a short outline of your career. A. In my home town, I first visited the elementary school, then the grammar school, and in 1917 after attending high school [Gymnasium], I took the graduate examination. Then, I studied law and political science at the Universities of Tuebingen, Munich, Berlin, and Wuerzburg. I got my degree in 1921, the degree of doctor of political science; and in August 1922 I got the degree of doctor of law. On the first of October 1922, I began my career in Upper-Silesia. Q. Just a moment, Dr. Burkart, before you come to your professional activities, I would like to hear something about your political development which, after all, may play a certain part in these proceedings. A. I come from a family which for many years belonged to the [Catholic] Center [Party], that is a Christian democratic party. My father was an old adherent of the Center Party, and an uncle of mine who was my godfather, was the founder of the Center Party in Wuerttemberg. For more than 30 years he was delegate of the Center Party in the Reichstag, and for the last years, he was chairman of the party representatives in the Reichstag. My legal thesis I wrote on a subject which has some connection with this attitude. It was the "Development of Parlimentarianism in Wuerttemberg." So, in the elections, as soon as I had reached voting age, it was almost a matter of course for me to vote for the Center Party. In 1932, at that time I was working in Upper-Silesia, at the time when the Hindenburg-Hitler election was being prepared, |
* Complete testimony is recorded in mimeographed transcript, 29 August, 2-5 September 1947 pages 6423-6805. Further extracts from the testimony of defendant Burkart are reproduced later in section VIII E.
