A. Introduction
This major section of the volume contains selections from the evidence concerning leading questions or issues of the trial. The evidence selected for publication herein constitutes only about one-twentieth of the total mimeographed record. Hence, all issues of the trial are not covered, and numerous items of evidence mentioned in the printed materials are not reproduced herein. Where extracts from testimony have been reproduced, a footnote indicates the pages of the official mimeographed transcript where the entire testimony can be found.
Both prosecution and defense evidence is contained in each of the sections into which the evidence selected has been organized. The prosecution evidence consists in the main of contemporaneous documents of the Nazi era, most of them discovered in German archives by Allied investigators after Germany’s unconditional surrender. The defense evidence consists principally of extracts from the testimony of defendants. A substantial number of the contemporaneous documents offered by the defense have also been selected for publication. With one or two exceptions, the contemporaneous documents have been reproduced within the various sections in chronological order, regardless of whether they were offered by the prosecution or the defense. In selecting defense testimony under the various topical sections, considerable emphasis has been given to the testimony of the three defendants Schlegelberger, Rothenberger, and Klemm who were appointed Under Secretaries in the Reich Ministry of Justice, and to the testimony of the defendant Rothaug, presiding judge of the Nuernberg Special Court.
The defendants were charged with participation in various types of criminal conduct “by distortion and denial of judicial and penal process.” The selections from the evidence below have been grouped into five main sections (sec. VB through VF) treating of various types of conduct by which it was alleged that the defendants engaged in criminal acts as principals or accessories.
In Hitler’s Third Reich many persons were placed entirely outside the judicial process. Therefore the first section (B) is concerned with measures under which persons were committed to the “protective custody” of the police (usually the Gestapo) or to the concentration camps of Himmler’s SS.
The next four sections (C through F) deal with various methods whereby it was charged that perversions of law and the judicial process were employed to persecute, imprison, and execute or exterminate large numbers of persons. Section C, which contains evidence on numerous topics, has been divided into three periods of time: 1933—January 1941 when Guertner was Reich Minister of Justice; January 1941—August 1942, when the defendant Schlegelberger was acting Reich Minister of Justice; and August 1942—1945, when Thierack was Reich Minister of Justice. The next section (D) deals with large groups of persons allegedly subjected to discriminatory treatment of many kinds: Germans, Poles, Jews of several nationalities, the Night and Fog prisoners from occupied western Europe, and others. Section E deals with the growth, development, and application of such concepts as treason, undermining the defensive strength, and public enemies. These concepts were applied in cases against persons who were not nationals of Germany as well as against Germans. The final section (F) deals with the handling of religious matters.
Because of the close relationship of the developments of these various topics to the crowded history of the Nazi regime, there necessarily is considerable over-lap between the several sections into which the evidence has been organized. A case where a Pole was convicted of treason against Germany (reproduced here in sec. E) cannot be divorced from the materials concerning the general treatment of Poles (included in sec. D2). The Night and Fog prisoners offer another example, since these prisoners were ordinarily kept incommunicado in concentration camps, and the evidence concerning them (D3) is closely related to the evidence dealing with protective custody and concentration camps (B). The over-lap is often quite pronounced in the extracts from the testimony of defendants. Most of the defendants were active in a number of different fields and held different official positions during the 12 years of the Nazi era. In making out his case, each defendant chose his own course in grouping together various items. In facing this unavoidable problem of over-lap, the editors have employed footnotes extensively in making cross-references between the materials contained in various sections, particularly in extracts from testimony where mention is made of decrees and other documents reproduced in various parts of the volume.