It does not speak against Hielscher’s oppositional activity that he did not stand out more in public. For him too, camouflaging up to the moment of decision was an imperative requirement, and Dr. Borkenau calls it a downright masterpiece that he so eminently succeeded in doing so.
Sievers was a member of the Hielscher group
There cannot be the least doubt of this fact. Apart from all the testimony, the whole personality of my client excluded any Nazi attitude. His nature and his development necessarily made him a decisive adversary of Hitler’s system of oppression, terror, and murder. Both his origin and the interests of his youth brought him into contact with people who kept aloof as much as possible from the Nazi way of thinking. He was the son of a director of ecclesiastical music; he pursued historical and religious studies. His nature led him to the Boy Scouts, in short to such interests as National Socialism calumniated with all its powers of ridicule and combated violently with stubborn dislike. All those persons who either testified or in affidavits gave evidence about his character describe him as follows: an upright man with lofty ideals of deeply rooted humanity and a strong sense of law and justice. If you combine this picture of Sievers painted by notorious anti-Fascists with all the authenticated aid that Sievers bestowed on victims of Nazism, it is only a small step to the conviction that Sievers was also a member of a resistance movement.
Perhaps the prosecution may say: “I do not believe all these stories, for both Hielscher and Sievers did not achieve anything.”
That would wrong Sievers to a high degree, your Honors! Other resistance groups too had the misfortune that they had not more opportunity to act. The witness Hielscher exposed very clearly the reasons why a standstill was inevitable after the failure of the plot on 20 July 1944. As Hielscher and his associates could no longer depend upon the army, they were compelled to start again from the very beginning.
What were the intentions and the mission of the defendant Sievers within the Hielscher group? Hielscher himself answers that. Sievers’ tasks were of two kinds: (1) Gathering news from the immediate proximity of Himmler as basis for the disposal of the resistance forces with regard to place, time, and kind of action. (2) Sievers was not only a spy and a scout; at the moment of action he was destined and ready to do away with Himmler. These two tasks require a double legal examination: Were they in themselves permissible, lawful, or even a duty? The answer to this question is to be found in the principles which I evolved in the idea of self-defense in the sphere of political struggle. What measures was he allowed to take? To what extent could he venture to advance into the domain of criminality? To what extent could he involve uninitiated third persons in his plans, even actual victims of Nazism? The rules of “necessity” lead the way for judging and solving this problem.
In taking up the first question I can be relatively brief. After all we know today, it is an irrefutable fact that Hitler and his accomplices terrorized the German Nation and the whole world in a criminal way and with criminal means, that from the beginning they were an immediate peril to peace and all civilization and that finally the worst apprehensions turned to ghastly reality. Therefore the first prerequisite for the defense of “necessity” is beyond all doubt a present illegal attack on the highest goods of mankind. To put it in the words of the German Penal Code that was the “necessity” (“not”) which was to be warded off.
But we also know that this defense was not to be accomplished with the normal means of a democratic parliamentary system. I described the truly diabolical organization by which it had been rendered impossible to make use of these means. Thence follows that the removal of Hitler and his accomplices was the only possible expedient to break and smash this system. Less hard and violent means were not available.
As a matter of course it follows that Hielscher’s plan to do away with Himmler had become legal and compulsory for those in the position to execute it. After the evidence of Hielscher and other trustworthy witnesses, it cannot be denied that Sievers had been charged with this task.
If it was justified to do away with Himmler, the accompanying and preparing scouting-activity was justified too.