This decree provides for the creation of summary courts for decisions on crimes committed by non-Germans in the East. The courts are to be presided over by a police officer or an SS leader, who have authority to order the death sentence or confiscation of property, and those decisions are not subject to appeal. The general commissar is given the right to reject a decision. Thus, the determination of the SS, of these summary courts, is made subordinate to the authority of a representative of the Rosenberg Ministry.
At Page 4 of the translation of Document 1056-PS, the position of the Commissioner General is defined. It is stated here that: “The Commissioner General forms the administrative office of intermediate appeal.”
Three paragraphs down it is stated, and I quote:
“The SS and Police Leader assigned to the Commissioner General is directly subordinated to him. However, the Chief of Staff has the general right of requiring information from him.”
The document goes on to describe the function of the various subdivisions of the Ministry, concluding with regional commissioners who preside over the local administrative districts. They, too, have police units assigned to them and directly subordinated to them.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, Mr. Brudno, surely that could have been stated in a sentence without referring us to all these passages in this document. I mean, Rosenberg was the Minister for the Eastern Territories. He had under him Reich commissioners and SS units, who had the full administration—civil administration—of the Eastern Territories. If you had stated that, surely that would have been sufficient.
MR. BRUDNO: Very well, Your Honor.
I will proceed from that point, then, merely to point out that the economic exploitation of the territory was undertaken in the fullest co-operation with the Commissioner of the Four Year Plan, as shown by Paragraph 2 of Page 7 of the translation. It is stated there that the economic inspectorates of the Commissioner of the Four Year Plan will be substantially absorbed in the agencies of the civil administration after the establishment of the civil administration.
I also wish to call Your Honors’ attention to the first paragraph on Page 6, which reads as follows:
The various commissioners, it says, “are, aside from the military agencies, the only Reich authorities in the Occupied Eastern Territories. Other Reich authorities may not be established alongside them. They handle all questions of administration of the area which is subordinate to their sovereignty and all affairs which concern the organization and activity of the administration, including those of the police, in the supervision of the autonomous agencies and organizations and of the population.”