The defendant Oeschey is charged under count four of the indictment with being a member of the Party Leadership Corps at Gau level within the definition of the membership declared criminal according to the judgment of the first International Military Tribunal in the case against Goering, et al.
We have previously quoted the findings of the first International Military Tribunal which define the organizations and groups within the Leadership Corps which are declared to be criminal. Oeschey was provisionally commissioned with the direction of the legal office of the NSDAP in the Franconia Gau and served in that official capacity for a long time. In his testimony he states that from 1940 to 1942 he was solely in charge of the Gau legal office as section chief. The evidence clearly establishes the defendant’s voluntary membership as the chief of a Gau staff office subsequent to 1 September 1939. The judgment of the first International Military Tribunal lists among the criminal activities of the Party Leadership Corps the following:
“The Leadership Corps played its part in the persecution of the Jews. It was involved in the economic and political discrimination against the Jews which was put into effect shortly after the Nazis came into power. The Gestapo and SD were instructed to coordinate with the Gauleiter and Kreisleiter the measures taken in the pogroms of 9 and 10 November 1938. The Leadership Corps was also used to prevent German public opinion from reacting against the measures taken against the Jews in the East. On 9 October 1942, a confidential information bulletin was sent to all Gauleiter and Kreisleiter entitled ‘Preparatory measures for the final solution of the Jewish question in Europe—rumors concerning the conditions of the Jews in the East.’ This bulletin stated that rumors were being started by returning soldiers concerning the conditions of Jews in the East which some Germans might not understand, and outlined in detail the official explanation to be given. This bulletin contained no explicit statement that the Jews were being exterminated, but it did indicate they were going to labor camps, and spoke of their complete segregation and elimination and the necessity of ruthless severity. * * *
“The Leadership Corps played an important part in the administration of the slave labor program. A Sauckel decree dated 6 April 1942 appointed the Gauleiter as plenipotentiary for labor mobilization for their Gaue with authority to coordinate all agencies dealing with labor questions in their Gaue, with specific authority over the employment of foreign workers, including their conditions of work, feeding, and housing. Under this authority the Gauleiter assumed control over the allocation of labor in their Gaue, including the forced laborers from foreign countries. In carrying out this task the Gauleiter used many Party offices within their Gaue, including subordinate political leaders. For example, Sauckel’s decree of 8 September 1942, relating to the allocation for household labor of 400,000 women laborers brought in from the East, established a procedure under which applications filed for such workers should be passed on by the Kreisleiter, whose judgment was final.
“Under Sauckel’s directive the Leadership Corps was directly concerned with the treatment given foreign workers, and the Gauleiter were specifically instructed to prevent ‘politically inept factory heads’ from giving ‘too much consideration to the care of eastern workers’. * * *
“The Leadership Corps was directly concerned with the treatment of prisoners of war. On 5 November 1941 Bormann transmitted a directive down to the level of Kreisleiter instructing them to insure compliance by the army with the recent directives of the department of the interior ordering that dead Russian prisoners of war should be buried wrapped in tar paper in a remote place without any ceremony or any decorations of their graves. On 25 November 1943 Bormann sent a circular instructing the Gauleiter to report any lenient treatment of prisoners of war. On 13 September 1944 Bormann sent a directive down to the level of Kreisleiter ordering that liaison be established between the Kreisleiter and the guards of the prisoners of war in order ‘better to assimilate the commitment of the prisoners of war to the political and economic demands’. * * *
“The machinery of the Leadership Corps was also utilized in attempts made to deprive Allied airmen of the protection to which they were entitled under the Geneva Convention. On 13 March 1940 a directive of Hess, transmitted instructions through the Leadership Corps down to the Blockleiter for the guidance of the civilian population in case of the landing of enemy planes or parachutists, which stated that enemy parachutists were to be immediately arrested or ‘made harmless.’”[675]
As to his knowledge, the defendant Oeschey joined the NSDAP on 1 December 1931. He was head of the Lawyers’ League for the Gau Franconia and a judicial officer of considerable importance within the Gau. These offices would provide additional sources of information as to the crimes outlined. Furthermore, these crimes were of such wide scope and so intimately connected with the activities of the Gauleitung that it would be impossible for a man of the defendant’s intelligence not to have known of the commission of these crimes, at least in part if not entirely.
We find the defendant Oeschey guilty under counts three and four of the indictment. In view of the sadistic attitude and conduct of the defendant, we know of no just reason for any mitigation of punishment.