There is evidence as to one case pertaining to this matter. The defendant Klemm in his testimony refers to it. Around the turn of the year 1944–45 in Kranenburg, in the district of the court of appeals, Duesseldorf, an SA leader had shot two captured paratroopers in cold blood. Regarding this, Klemm stated:
“We prosecuted that case and even though the police, as well as the Party offices, offered considerable resistance, these discussions were advanced energetically. I do not know of the final outcome.”
The evidence in this case, as shown by the testimony of Hagemann, indicates that during September of 1944, at the time of the Allied parachute attack on Arnhem two captured Canadian paratroopers were shot by one Kluetgen while a Kreisleiter stood by and either permitted or encouraged the shooting.
The witness Hagemann undertook to investigate the matter but was unable to do so fully because a Kreisleiter could not be so examined if he refused to testify. It was necessary if the Kreisleiter was to be examined to have the approval of the Party Chancellery. An application was made for such consent but it was never given. Hagemann stated that he made a report over the telephone to the Ministry about the case. He believed he spoke with the defendant Mettgenberg. Afterwards he made a written report to the Ministry of Justice. He told the Ministry that he needed their support to obtain permission for the Kreisleiter to testify. He received written instructions to clear up the case completely, but since no approval was received to interrogate the Kreisleiter, he could not continue the proceedings. He stated, that again and again he requested the Ministry to obtain permission for him to examine the Kreisleiter. When asked whether he heard from the Ministry regarding this authority, he stated that he had not.
Permission to examine the Kreisleiter not having been obtained, he was never examined. Up to the time of the capitulation of Germany, no indictment had been filed against Kluetgen. This apparently was the prosecution and energetic action on the part of the Ministry of Justice to which Klemm referred in his testimony. In many cases discussed before this Tribunal, indictment, trial, and final execution were certainly more expeditiously handled.
In this plan to incite the population to murder Allied airmen, the part of the Ministry of Justice was, to some extent, a negative one. However, neither its action in calling for a report on pending cases for quashing, nor its action in calling for reports and files pertaining to all such incidents, was negative. Certainly the net effect of the procedure followed by the Ministry of Justice resulted in the suppression of effective action in such cases, as was contemplated in the letter from the Reich Ministry and Chief of the Reich Chancellery to the Ministry of Justice.
The defendant Klemm was familiar with the entire correspondence on this matter. He specifically directed the witness Mitzschke to obtain reports. His own testimony shows that he knew of the failure to take effective action in the case cited, and it is the judgment of this Tribunal that he knowingly was connected with the part of the Ministry of Justice in the suppression of the punishment of those persons who participated in the murder of Allied airmen.
The second transaction of particular importance with regard to the defendant Klemm is connected with the penitentiary at Sonnenburg. The record in this case shows that in the latter part of January 1945 this great penal institution under the Ministry of Justice was evacuated and that prior thereto, between seven and eight hundred political prisoners therein were shot by the Gestapo.
Klemm denies knowledge of this matter and states:
“From the documents in this case only, particularly from the affidavit of Leppin, I found out that over 800 persons were shot at Sonnenburg.”