The evidence conclusively shows that in order to maintain the Ministry of Justice in the good graces of Hitler and to prevent its utter defeat by Himmler’s police, Schlegelberger and the other defendants who joined in this claim of justification took over the dirty work which the leaders of the State demanded, and employed the Ministry of Justice as a means for exterminating the Jewish and Polish populations, terrorizing the inhabitants of occupied countries, and wiping out political opposition at home. That their program of racial extermination under the guise of law failed to attain the proportions which were reached by the pogroms, deportations, and mass murders by the police is cold comfort to the survivors of the “judicial” process and constitutes a poor excuse before this Tribunal. The prostitution of a judicial system for the accomplishment of criminal ends involves an element of evil to the State which is not found in frank atrocities which do not sully judicial robes.
Schlegelberger resigned. The cruelties of the system which he had helped to develop were too much for him, but he resigned too late. The damage was done. If the judiciary could slay their thousands, why couldn’t the police slay their tens of thousands? The consequences which Schlegelberger feared were realized. The police, aided by Thierack, prevailed. Schlegelberger had failed. His hesitant injustices no longer satisfied the urgent demands of the hour. He retired under fire. In spite of all that he had done he still bore an unmerited reputation as the last of the German jurists and so Hitler gave him his blessing and 100,000 RM as a parting gift. We are under no misapprehension. Schlegelberger is a tragic character. He loved the life of an intellect, the work of the scholar. We believe that he loathed the evil that he did, but he sold that intellect and that scholarship to Hitler for a mess of political pottage and for the vain hope of personal security. He is guilty under counts two and three of the indictment.
THE DEFENDANT KLEMM
Herbert Klemm, formerly State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of Justice, was born in Leipzig on 15 May 1903. After normal schooling, he passed his first legal state examination in 1925, his second legal state examination in 1929. From 1929 to 1933, he was court assessor of the prosecution authority of Dresden. From March 1933 to March 1935 he was the personal Referent and adjutant of Thierack, Minister of Justice, Saxony. In 1935, at the time of the centralization of the administration of justice, he was transferred to the Reich Ministry of Justice where he remained until he was mobilized for war service on 23 June 1940. On 20 April 1939 he was promoted to the office of Ministerialrat. In July of 1940 he was assigned to the Reich Commissioner for the Occupied Dutch Territories, upon the request of the Plenipotentiary for Occupied Dutch Territories. On 17 March 1941 he was transferred to the staff of the deputy of the Fuehrer, which later became the Party Chancellery, in Munich. He remained with the Party Chancellery until 4 January 1944, when he became state secretary of the Reich Ministry of Justice under Thierack. He remained in this capacity until the surrender.
Klemm’s Party connections were as follows: he applied for membership in the NSDAP on 4 November 1930; his membership card, 405576, was received 1 January 1931. On 30 June 1933 he joined the SA; the highest rank which he received in the SA was that of Oberfuehrer. When in Saxony he was the legal advisor of the SA for Saxony and liaison officer between the SA for Saxony and the Minister of Justice for Saxony. When he was transferred to Berlin, he was the liaison officer between the Reich Ministry of Justice and the SA Chief of Staff for Germany and the legal advisor to the Chief of Staff of the SA for Germany.
He was a member of the National Socialist Jurists’ League from 1933. In September of 1944 he was appointed deputy chief of the National Socialist Jurists’ League by Thierack, who was at that time chief.
He received the Bronze Party Service decoration in 1941 and the Golden Party decoration, the latter being conferred by Bormann in 1943.
During the time in which the defendant was in Saxony, he was a member of the disciplinary court of the SA group which dealt with the purge of the SA in connection with the Roehm Putsch.
A brief outline of the official activities of the defendant Klemm is as follows: after transfer to Berlin in 1935, the defendant dealt with acts against the State and Party and, later, the malicious acts law. In this field prosecution could be ordered only by the Ministry of Justice with the permission of the office of the deputy of the Fuehrer, which later became the Party Chancellery.
It was during this period that the following circular, dated Berlin, 18 October 1937, and initialed by Klemm, was issued (NG-310, Pros. Ex. 33):