Treason Cases Involving Border Crossings by Poles
Lautz estimated that from 150 to 200 persons were prosecuted for leaving their places of work and attempting to escape from Germany by crossing the border into Switzerland. These cases were prosecuted under the provisions of penal code concerning treason and high treason.
On 24 February 1942 an indictment against the Pole Ledwon was filed by Parrisius as deputy for the defendant Lautz. The indictment was marked “Secret Treason Case”, and bore the stamp of the Chief Public Prosecutor at the People’s Court. A letter signed by Lautz bearing the same date was addressed to the presidents of the Second Senate of the People’s Court and advises them that he is sending to the court the indictment in the case Ledwon. The indictment alleges that on 28 July 1941 the accused left his place of work in Bavaria and attempted to escape by crossing the Reich border, and that he was stopped by a customs official whom he struck with his fist while evading the arrest. The indictment states that the reason given by the defendant Ledwon for his attempt to escape from Germany “does not deserve credence; it may rather be assumed that he intended to join the Polish Legion organized on the side of the hostile powers”. The indictment states that the defendant knew that the aim of the Polish Legion was to restore a Polish state. On the basis of the foregoing specific allegations, the indictment charges that the defendant prepared within Germany “(1) the highly treasonable enterprise to separate from the Reich by force a territory belonging to the Reich; (2) to have aided and abetted the enemy inside Germany during a war against the Reich, and thus, as a Pole, not to have behaved according to the German laws and to the directives of the German authorities; and (3) to have committed a violent attempt on a German official. * * *.” The indictment was brought under the provisions of sections 80, 83, and 91b of the penal code, and under the provisions of the law against Poles and Jews. Section 80 provides for the imposition of the death penalty upon anyone attempting by violence or threat of violence to detach from the Reich territory belonging to the Reich. Section 83 provides for the punishment of any person who solicits and incites an undertaking of high treason. Section 91b provides for imprisonment or death for any person who undertakes acts in favor of the enemy powers or causes a detriment against the armed forces of the Reich. On 10 August 1942 the case was tried. The court found the following facts: defendant was a Pole who lived in Poland on 1 September 1939. (See: Law against Poles and Jews.) After the Polish campaign the defendant reported “voluntarily” for work in Germany and then tried to leave the country. The court states further that “the prosecution charges the defendant with the intention of going to Switzerland in order to join the Polish Legion there.” It adds that the Polish Legion was interned in Switzerland and that many Poles had been caught at the frontier, some of whom could be convicted of planning to join the Polish Legion in Switzerland. The court, with unwanted candor, states that “the trial did not show any concrete evidence that the defendant * * * had any knowledge of a Polish Legion in Switzerland.” It held that due to lack of evidence “the defendant could not be convicted of the crime of preparation for treason and of treasonably aiding the enemy.” The opinion of the People’s Court continues (NG-355, Pros. Ex. 128):
“The defendant is, however, guilty according to the result of the trial, of an offense under the ordinance relating to the administration of penal law for Poles, of 4 December 1941. The general conditions of this ordinance are fulfilled, as the defendant is, by origin, education, and sentiment, a racial Pole and was on 1 September 1939 resident in the former Polish State. In leaving his place of work as an agricultural laborer, of his own accord, at the end of July, i. e., during the harvest, he disturbed the orderly procedure of the harvest work of his employer to the detriment of the harvest. His action moreover was detrimental to the whole of the German people, for in leaving his place of work in order to go abroad he deprived the German people forever of his labor. Germany, in order to cover her war needs and to ensure food supplies for the front as well as for home, however, needs all persons employed, including foreigners. Every worker who by escape abroad deprives the German war economy for good of his labor, reduces the number of badly needed manpower, and thus endangers the interest of the German people.”
The court held that it was irrelevant whether the Pole knocked the customs official down, because in any event he used force sufficient to prevent his arrest at the time. It observed that under the law against Poles and Jews “the only possible penalty is the death sentence, unless a less serious case can be made out in the defendant’s favor. The senate was not able to recognize such case.”
The opinion concludes as follows:
“But by using violence against the customs officer who was going to arrest him and thus resisting the legal German authority, he has proved himself such a fanatical and violent Pole that he has forfeited any right for leniency. In view of the heavy responsibility of the Polish nation for the bloodshed caused during the weeks of August and September 1939, it is the duty of every member of this nation to obey willingly the rules of the German authorities. A Pole who, on the contrary, uses violence against a German official can only be punished sufficiently by the highest degree of punishment. Accordingly, this has been imposed on the defendant.”
The Pole was sentenced to death.
We are not here to retry the case. We may, therefore, ignore the ridiculous charge that the defendant desired to join an interned legion and the allegation that he came to the Reich “voluntarily” after the invasion of Poland. We have already discussed the essential evil in the practice of prosecutors whereby they charged that Poles were guilty of high treason by attempting to separate from the Reich territory which had never been legally annexed to the Reich. In the Ledwon case the sinister subtlety of the Nazi procedure is laid bare. If the case had been brought only under the law against Poles and Jews, the People’s Court would not have had jurisdiction, so the defendant was charged with high treason for attempting to separate from the Reich, territory which did not belong to it. The proof of high treason failed. There remained only the charge that in attempting to escape from Germany and from forced labor there, the defendant assaulted a customs officer with his fist and that what he did was done as a Pole in violation of the law against Poles and Jews. It was under that discriminatory law that Ledwon was sentenced to death and executed. The defendant Lautz is guilty of participating in the national program of racial extermination of Poles by means of the perversion of the law of high treason.
In a similar case, upon an indictment signed by Parrisius and filed by authority of the defendant Lautz, the People’s Court sentenced three Poles to death upon a charge of preparation of high treason “because they, as Poles, harmed the welfare of the German people, and because in a treasonable way they helped the enemy and also prepared for high treason.” The specific facts found by the court were that the defendant Mazur and others attempted to cross the border into Switzerland for the purpose of joining the Polish Legion. By such conduct and by depriving the German Reich of the benefit of their labor, it was held that the efforts of the defendants aimed “at forcibly detaching the eastern regions incorporated in the Reich * * * from the German Reich.” The opinion contains an illuminating passage concerning treason committed by attempting to join an interned legion. We quote (NG-352, Pros. Ex. 129):