. NMT06-T0677
Volume VI · Page 677
| the laws in force in foreign
countries concerning the nationalization of corporations, of the right to
acquire real estate and to exploit landed property; this was done at the
request of the member of the Vorstand of the Mitteldeutsche Stahlwerke A.G.,
Mr. Steinbrinck. I handed this digest on 31 March 1938 to Mr.
Amtsgerichtsrat Herbig, the Referent in the Reich Ministry of Justice competent
for this field. 2. I had to deal with the Ignaz Petschek problem first on Saturday 20 June 1938; this was in no connection whatever with the foregoing matter. On this day Mr. Steinbrinck asked me, in virtue of the facts given him by me and related in my expert opinion of 20 June 1938, to let him have an expert opinion on the legal position and on what a legal regulation would look like under the given circumstances, in case the German Government, if negotiations for a sale should fail, would carry out their intention to transfer by law the Czech-Jewish share in the property of the Ignaz Petschek group. Following this I drew up the exposé of 20 June 1938 which is based on a. The result of my objective investigation dated 17/28 March 1938 on comparative law mentioned above in paragraph 1, concerning the nationalization laws of European and American States accessible to me, and on the tabulated survey composed in accordance with it. b. The ordinances of 26 April¹ and 15 June 1938² and their official interpretation cited by me and published in the daily press. In this exposé I gave my opinion on the legal position and drafted the text of a decree safeguarding, as I expressly emphasized, the interests of Jewish stockholders, which provided for the transfer of their share in the property by no means without compensation, nor with a cheap compensation, but only in exchange for the appropriate selling price, i.e., the full value; the amount and nature of this value was to be fixed by the ordinary courts in legal proceedings including appellate courts, in case the parties could not agree. To implement this procedure I provided for the appointment of a trustee for the property to be transferred, to be appointed by the Plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan, the highest functionary of the German Reich government for economic questions, to be subjected to his supervision, to be obliged to render accounts to him or to the owner of the property, and whose competence was to be defined by the Plenipotentiary for the |
¹ Decree concerning the Registration of Jewish-owned Property, Document 1406-PS, Prosecution Exhibit 334, reproduced in B above.
² Affiant Dietrich here makes a mistaken reference so far as the date of the ordinance is concerned. The ordinance referred to is the "Third Regulation under the Reich Citizenship Law" of 14 June 1938. This regulation, Document 1404-PS, Prosecution Exhibit 325, is reproduced in B above.
