If the views of the Reich Führer SS and the Reich Minister of Justice disagreed, “the opinion of Reichsleiter Bormann will be brought to bear upon the case, and he will possibly inform the Führer.”
In the above note it is further stated:
“The delivery of asocial elements from execution of their sentence to the Reich Führer of SS to be worked to death: Persons under preventative arrest, Jews, Gypsies, Russians and Ukrainians, Poles with more than 3-year sentences, Czechs and Germans with more than 8-year sentences, according to the decision of the Reich Minister of Justice. First of all the worst asocial elements amongst those just mentioned are to be handed over. I shall inform the Führer of this through Reichsleiter Bormann.”
With respect to the “administration of justice by the people,” he continues:
“This is to be carried out step by step . . . as soon as possible. . . . I shall rouse the Party particularly to co-operate in this scheme by an article in the ‘Hoheitsträger.’ ”
And Your Honors have already seen copies of that publication. I now skip Paragraphs 16 and 17.
A letter from RSHA (which is the Reich Security Main Office) to police chiefs, dated 5 November 1942, which is Document L-316, Exhibit Number USA-346—this was addressed to all police chiefs—recites an agreement between the Reich Führer SS and the Reich Minister of Justice, approved by Hitler—I call the attention of Your Honors to the red border around this original, and then having the Party seal on it—provides that the ordinary criminal procedure was no longer to be applied to Poles and members of the Eastern populations. The agreement provided that such people, including Jews and Gypsies, should henceforth be turned over to the police. The principles applicable to a determination of the punishment of German offenders, including appraisal of the motives of the offender, were not to be applied to foreign offenders. I quote from Page 2 of the document:
“The offense committed by a person of foreign extraction is not to be regarded from the view of legal retribution by way of justice but from the point of view of preventing dangers through police action.
“From this it follows that the criminal procedure against persons of foreign extraction must be transferred from justice to the police.