To the Military Governor of the American Zone of Occupation in Germany.
Through the Secretary General at Military Tribunal No. I, Nuernberg.
As counsel for the defense of Rudolf Brandt, who has been sentenced to death, I herewith petition that the judgment of the American Military Tribunal No. I, dated 19-20 August 1947, not be confirmed.
It is perhaps the grandest task of a human being and counsel for the defense to intercede on behalf of another person and to commend him to the clemency of the mighty.
Clemency appeals to the understanding of the great for human weakness. Clemency is the opposite of pure criticism and spiteful anger.
For this reason I remain quiet in the face of the sentence pronounced; I do not raise any complaint because, in one point or another, the decision of the Tribunal does not perhaps entirely agree with my opinion of the course of events, of the position of the defendant at that time, and of his character.
This petition for clemency wants once more to go into the depths of the thoughts which basically were already the subject of my final plea.
One may well believe that at the beginning of the trial, after I had studied the case of Rudolf Brandt, I recognized that this task was hardly to be rewarded with success; nevertheless it seemed to me that it was worth my efforts to take over the defense, since I believed—then as well as now—that Rudolf Brandt is guilty to receive any kind of punishment but not the death sentence.
Not a few of the statements made in my final plea serve this idea. I must admit, however, that even I, as the counsel for his defense, arrived at this conviction only on the strength of the characterization of the personality of the defendant contained in my document book, as well as on the strength of my own judgment of him, which sees in Brandt a beast of burden which dragged on day and night without really recognizing the contents of its burden; for the burden which it carried, together with the weights, which make this trial such a terrible one, were only a small fraction of the gigantic burden under which the bearer himself was not visible any more.
This comparison can be drawn without difficulty from the evidence presented by the defense.