“The court applies the same criteria for the award of punishment as it would if it were dealing with a German fellow citizen as defendant. This cannot be sanctioned. The Jew is the enemy of the German people, who has plotted, stirred up, and prolonged this war. In doing so, he has brought unspeakable misery upon our people.
“Not only is he of a different race, but he is also of inferior race. Justice, which must not measure different matters by the same standard, demands that just this racial aspect must be considered in the award of punishment.”
Space does not permit the citation of other instances of this form of perverted political guidance of the courts. Notwithstanding solemn protestations on the part of the minister that the independence of the judge was not to be affected, the evidence satisfies us beyond a reasonable doubt that the purpose of the judicial guidance was sinister and was known to be such by the Ministry of Justice and by the judges who received the directions. If the letters [the Judges’ Letters] had been written in good faith with the honest purpose of aiding independent judges in the performance of their duties, there would have been no occasion for the carefully guarded secrecy with which the letters were distributed. A letter of 17 November 1942 instructs the judges that the letters are to be “carefully locked up to avoid that they get into the hands of unauthorized persons. The receivers are subject to official secrecy as far as the contents of the judges’ letters are concerned.”
In a letter of 17 November 1942 Thierack instructs the judges that “in cases where judges and prosecutors are suspected of political unreliability they are to be excluded in a suitable manner from the list of subscribers to the Judges’ Letters.”
Not being content with regimenting the judges and chief prosecutors and making them subservient to the National Socialist administration of justice, Dr. Thierack next took up the regimentation of the lawyers. On 11 March 1943 he wrote to the various judges and prosecutors announcing the proposed distribution of confidential lawyers’ letters. An examination of those letters convinces the Tribunal that the actual, though undeclared purpose, was to suggest to defense counsel that they avoid any criticism of National Socialist justice and refrain from too much ardor in the defense of persons charged with political crimes.
Not only did Thierack exert direct influence upon the judges, but he employed as his representative the most sinister, brutal, and bloody judge in the entire German judicial system. In a letter to Freisler, president of the People’s Court, Thierack said that the judgment of the People’s Court must be “in harmony with the leadership of the State”. He urges Freisler to have every charge submitted to him and to recognize the cases in which it was necessary “in confidential and convincing discussion with the judge competent for the verdict to emphasize what is necessary from the point of view of the State.” He continues:
“As a general rule, the judge of the People’s Court must get used to regarding the ideas and intentions of the State leadership as the primary factor and the individual fate which depends on him as only a secondary factor. * * *”
He continues:
“I will try to illustrate this with individual cases.
“1. If a Jew—and a leading Jew at that—is charged with high treason—even if he is only an accomplice therein, he has behind him the hate and the will of Jewry to exterminate the German people. As a rule this will therefore be high treason and must be punished by the death penalty.”