The Civil Service Law of 7 April 1933 contains certain exceptions applying to Jews. Originally these exceptions were planned to be much more extensive; did you do anything to restrict them to the form in which they were then issued?
VON PAPEN: May I just add one thing? I believe you forgot to submit to the Tribunal Document 33, relevant to the question of foreign monopoly in the German legal system.
DR. KUBUSCHOK: I shall submit that document after your answer to the question I have just put.
VON PAPEN: I approved of the Civil Service Law of 7 April 1933 only insofar as it applied to Jewish civil servants appointed after the year 1918. For after the war large-scale immigration into Germany had taken place from the east, especially from Poland, a country which was strongly anti-Semitic at the time.
I successfully pleaded with Hindenburg that soldiers who had taken part in the war should under no circumstance be affected by this law, for I always held the view that a German, no matter of what race, who had done his duty to his country should not be restricted in his rights.
DR. KUBUSCHOK: I refer now to Document 33, Page 114. It is a report of the Ministry of Justice, which shows that when the Civil Service Law was issued 3,515 Jewish attorneys were practicing. On the basis of the mitigation which the witness has just mentioned, 735 ex-service men and 1,383 other attorneys who had been admitted to the bar before 1914 were exempted from this law. Thus 2,158 Jewish attorneys remained, whereas 923 had to resign from office.
What was your view of the Civil Service Law as a whole?
VON PAPEN: I think it was completely normal that the National Socialists, since they were partners in the coalition government and controlled more than 50 percent of the German people’s vote, should have a part in filling civil service posts.
I might point out that the National Socialists, in the propaganda which they conducted for years, fought with all means against the so-called “Bonzentum” (boss rule); but one could not, of course, predict that they themselves would later make that same mistake.
THE PRESIDENT: Would this be a convenient time to adjourn?