Defendant Petersen: Your Honors, World War I signified a deep cut in the history of the German people. There existed the great danger for Germany of being swamped from the East. It was in the hope to prevent this that I joined the NSDAP. Germany was to remain one bulwark against bolshevism, a pillar of Western culture. I once entertained the great hope that national socialism would contribute its part toward this end. I do not want to describe my disappointment; the way led past stations of terror. In all my actions I was guided by the ideal of fulfilling my duty and of serving my country. It was solely my conscience that formed the basis for my actions, irrespective of whether I was an officer, SA leader, State counsellor, or only an honorary associate judge of the People’s Court. I have nothing further to add to this. My conscience is clear. Therefore, I am calmly expecting your verdict.
Presiding Judge Brand: The defendant Nebelung may address the Tribunal.
Defendant Nebelung: I was a German judge. I followed the laws of my country and my knowledge and my conscience in passing judgment. Germany has lost the war. If the law of the victors so demands of you—I do not believe it does—then you must condemn my actions. In this trial the tragedy of the office of the judge has been mentioned frequently. Is that anything special? Does not every soldier find himself in the same situation? I, too, have had that experience both as a soldier and as a judge, but not here in prison, not in the dock, but by the gun and on the bench. By that I want to say the tragedy does not lie in the consequences. I do know how to bear the consequences of a sentence, for I believe in the words of the German who was both a judge and a poet, Theodor Storm, “One man asks, ‘What will happen next’? while the other merely asks, ‘Is that right’? And that is how the free man is distinguished from the serf.”
Presiding Judge Brand: The defendant Cuhorst may address the Tribunal.
Defendant Cuhorst: Your Honors, I have to add the following brief words to the final plea of the defense counsel appointed on my behalf. Indictment and prosecution statements reveal that in these proceedings I am only pars pro toto. The prosecution with its evidence is unable to prove any charge which would actually apply to me. The prosecution in its final plea has failed to mention a whole series of charges in the indictment, and others for the same reason, namely, lack of evidence, it left in abeyance. In presenting its evidence the prosecution not only ignored my evidence but also its own, in part. What other reasons are there to explain that they submitted in the course of the cross-examination Document No. 983 [NG-983, Pros. Ex. 570], which reveals in an account of traveling expenses that on 21 March 1943 I was absent for weeks in the East on an official journey, and at the same time had the witness Eberhard Schwarz testify with alleged full assurance that on 24 March 1943 I was in Stuttgart and presided over the case against the foreigner Englert. The prosecution has submitted the verdict in the case of Untermarchtal, but what they said in the indictment about its contents is not contained in the verdict, but just the contrary. This is the type of evidence submitted if facts are involved. Only documents, not arguments with many sources of error, can show the facts.
Justice, above all, penal justice, in Germany since 1918 was always considered an institution not in accordance with the times due to political attacks on its reputation, thus losing its reputation. In spite of early hopes, also after 1933 this development continued, and it still continues. Neither in 1937 did Guertner protect my predecessor, nor in 1944 did Thierack protect me. The many stages of this development pretended to have various good aims, but they actually had only the one effect—to destroy what we call justice. Contrary, for example, to the profession of a doctor, that of a penal judge creates only few friends. A man who is acquitted takes his acquittal for granted. The man who is sentenced, his defense counsel considers the verdict as unjust or too severe. Confusion caused in the transitional periods showed this in a particularly conspicuous form. In spite of this dangerous situation for a criminal judge now accused of being a criminal himself, no person ever convicted under my jurisdiction has testified against me. Only a judge who is a saint is free of errors. I never denied mine. The struggle for independence and against destructive influences of the time has not left me unscathed. They wanted to eliminate me from the Party and from my profession, and an unfree minister and his accomplices removed me from office. The prosecution witness against me was quite right who said: “He wanted to maintain independence and he did maintain it.” Due to the collapse of my Fatherland, I am again involved in struggles. I am involved in an indictment against judges full of unexpected and excessive charges. From 1933 to 1944, one side spoke of me as if I were strange, suspiciously mild, unbearable, unsuitable for office, and detrimental to the Party and so on. Today the strong terms read as follows: Disgusting, exceptionally severe, convinced Nazi, and the like. Also in my prison cell which has been my fate for almost 1 year, though as a prisoner of war and an army officer I am subject to the Geneva Convention, I accept these reproaches quietly. I have sworn the oath to observe the law independently and to apply it irrespectively of the person involved. I have duly observed this, and let the consequences be whatever they may be. Either time will be able to bear judges who do not bend themselves or the time is already here which has quite different views. In handling these problems my own case is receding to the background. The decision concerning the basic questions of the entire problem of the judiciary brings the solution, also for me, of the question—Am I as a judge a criminal? Before all the world, and even where war opponents are concerned, a judicium parium can answer this tremendous question with one word only, namely, no.
Presiding Judge Brand: The defendant Oeschey may address the Tribunal.
Defendant Oeschey: May it please the Court, what need be said in my case has been said by my defense counsel, and all that is left for me is to agree to his statements, to give you the assurance that I always acted in the belief and in the conviction that I was doing right, by obeying the law to which I was subjected and applying it in the manner in which my conscience told me to. And it is the truth that it was a matter of conscience for me not to misuse the law in a criminal way, but to apply it in accordance with the will of the legislator, and to grant the offender a proper trial and a just verdict. Therefore, my conscience knows that it is clear of the crimes with which I am charged.
Presiding Judge Brand: The defendant Altstoetter may address the Tribunal.
Defendant Altstoetter: The charges which the prosecution has raised against me because of my alleged participation in war crimes and crimes against humanity and on account of my capacity as honorary SS leader, do not apply to me. My conscience is free of any guilt. I certainly do not propose to evade responsibility for my actions. On the contrary! These proceedings gave me the possibility to justify my actions before my people—by whom I stand even in these hard days—and before the entire world, that is, my actions during the past regime, and particularly so during the period of my activity in the Reich Ministry of Justice, and to prove that I always only served law and justice. For this reason I have done everything to give the best contribution possible in order to bring out the truth in this trial as far as I am concerned. As a witness in these proceedings I have testified to the truth to the best of my knowledge and belief.