The officials of the Party Chancellery, so far as they were group leaders, had no influence whatsoever on politics. On the contrary, this was done by the Party’s own office. The latter had no state functions as had the Party Chancellery. The NSDAP had offices for agricultural policy, people’s welfare, people’s health, a national legal office, an organization of Germans living abroad, and many more. There the political principles were planned, there the influence was exercised that found expression in the sentence: “The Party gives orders to the State.” All these offices of the NSDAP must be separated clearly from the Party Chancellery with its function of a public nature. These Party offices transmitted their plans through the competent “Reichsleiter” directly to Hitler as the Party leader and head of State.

Also the position of Bormann must be explained. He also had a variety of offices and functions as Reich leader, secretary of the Fuehrer, and leader of the Party Chancellery. At the time when Klemm was working in the Party Chancellery, Bormann was regularly in the Fuehrer’s headquarters and thus away from Munich. All important questions of a general nature, also those affecting justice and its policies and organizations went directly to Bormann in the Fuehrer’s headquarters. There Bormann himself ordered that most of the matters be handled at once. In such cases Klemm’s legal group often received no information at all of his decision, or at the most a copy subsequently. When Bormann transferred a job to the legal group in Munich he included as a rule instructions for the handling of the matter. When things were handled in this way by Bormann no objections could be raised. Moreover, the evidence I will produce will destroy the rumor that my client had close contact with Bormann. They disliked each other very much. The main reason was that Klemm did not accede willingly enough to the wishes of Bormann. It occurred only very rarely that Klemm reported to Bormann. To a much greater extent than other subdepartment heads of the Party Chancellery, Klemm also informed Bormann about his own point of view.

After I shall have tried to clarify the unclear and dark picture of the Party Chancellery, I shall discuss in detail the working method of my client and I will outline in what matters he participated and how far he is, therefore, responsible and in what matters he did not participate.

(a) A series of documents submitted by the prosecution carry the dictation symbol of Bormann; I shall show that all these documents can have nothing to do with my client, Klemm. They were prepared solely by Bormann and his staff at the Fuehrer headquarters. No copy was sent to the Party Chancellery at Munich, so that the legal group never received any knowledge of them. This is the reason why it is so important to draw attention to the symbol of the legal group, namely, IIIc. Klemm neither prepared, nor had any knowledge of, any letters of the Party Chancellery which do not bear this file number. Just as an example I mention Thierack’s letter to Bormann on the collaboration of the judicial authorities in the extermination of Poles, Jews, and gypsies (NG-199, 199A, Pros. Ex. 243). As “Top Secret Reich Matter” this writing never reached section IIIc of the Party Chancellery.

(b) I will show that the defendant cannot be held responsible for a possible crime in which the huge organization of the Party Chancellery may have been involved, but not the defendant, if he had never participated in the planning, and if he could never have received information about it. It is my opinion that this is also not possible by using the concept of conspiracy or the broadly defined forms of participation according to the Law No. 10 of Control Council. Such a reasoning is not possible especially if I will prove how strongly Klemm advocated—especially in the Party Chancellery—the idea that law has to prevail in a state, and how he tried to prevent that Party organs be influenced in any unfavorable way. Every day the Group IIIc received complaints against the justice, the judges, and against the offices of the administration of justice which wanted to influence pending proceedings or even to change sentences which had already been passed. Work in connection with such complaints made up the biggest part of the working time of this group. In all these cases the complaints were rejected by stating that the judge is independent. I shall submit evidence to show that the Party Chancellery, particularly Group IIIc, expressly forbade all political leaders (that is, the Fuehrer Corps of the NSDAP) to interfere in the jurisdiction. It will be demonstrated that this circular decree was issued on Klemm’s initiative. I shall disprove the assertion of the prosecution and shall show that my client advocated emphatically the punishment of Party members who were found guilty of an offense. Accordingly, Klemm did not use his position in the Party Chancellery to keep justice under pressure but on the contrary tried to promote the interests of justice and the idea that law has to prevail in a state. In the year 1941, for example, he succeeded in persuading Bormann in a memorandum to reject the plans of Himmler, who attempted already at that time to transfer the jurisdiction over the Poles to his police.

(c) The documents submitted by the prosecution, so far as they really affect the legal group of the Party Chancellery, will not be able to invalidate my above assertions. When I will submit the evidence for the defense I will have the opportunity to explain the purpose and the context of these documents. It will be possible to correct many misinterpretations.

In this connection it seems to be necessary to explain briefly the fact that Klemm’s influence in the Party Chancellery was never so great that it could have played any part in the appointment of Thierack to Minister of Justice in the year 1942. Many a person who could not know the actual events and their background may have had some fantastic ideas in this respect. The explanations of the defense will destroy these conceptions.

(d) With regard to the activity of my client as Under Secretary in the Reich Ministry of Justice, it will be the task of the legal presentation to separate those actions and measures for which he is responsible from those for which he is not responsible. Also with regard to this point I shall emphasize my point of view that on basis of Law No. 10 of the Control Council, my client cannot be held responsible for what he himself did neither instigate nor approve. In order to be able to find the facts which will serve as the basis for such legal arguments, I must give you during the proceedings of evidence a detailed picture of my client’s position as Under Secretary, of his working field, and of the extent of his personal influence. Even externally the position of the Under Secretary had changed considerably since the appointment of Thierack. While before this time the Under Secretary in the Ministry of Justice stood on principle between a section chief and the minister, after that time his function declined to the extent of being a figure [figurehead] beside the minister. Formerly the Under Secretary had a broad working field and had authority to make important decisions himself, and only the most important matters reached the minister himself, such as bills or critical matters with regard to policies of the State and of justice. Thierack himself on the other hand, handled all matters with regard to the administration of penal law which the section chief was not permitted or did not want to decide, and he degraded the under secretary to a position in which the latter could merely give his opinion like any other expert. It is correct, that from an external point of view the working field of my client seemed to be greater than that of his predecessor, Dr. Rothenberger. The sections of Ministries III (legislation in the sphere of criminal law), IV (administration of criminal law), and V (execution of sentences), which were not under the latter’s jurisdiction were formally reassigned to Klemm. This seeming extension—my client was thus practically in charge of the whole Ministry of Justice with all its main sections but with the exception of section XV (section for secret matters) which was already in the process of dissolution—actually resulted in a curtailment of his executive powers. Only in a limited field did he receive the authority to make independent decisions, namely as chief of section II, which was concerned mainly with educational problems and whereby Klemm was entitled in personnel matters to propose appointment and promotion of officials up to the grade of Landgerichtsdirektor and officials of equivalent rank. In all other fields he was subjected to the domineering orders of the minister in the same way as every other official of the Ministry. Although he could call for the report of an expert and could thus bring a matter to be decided within his sphere, he was prevented from doing so if the minister himself reserved the final word for himself. Through presentation of my evidence it will be made clear how Thierack, because of his previous career, directed his interest, perhaps his only interest, to problems of criminal law and execution of sentences.

Thus, we will recognize that the above-mentioned main sections of the Ministry were only formally under the jurisdiction of Klemm and that no change “in the line of the direction of justice,” as Thierack expressed it in a discussion of the section leaders on 7 January 1944 (NG-195, Ex. 45) resulted from the appointment of a new Under Secretary. It will be proved through the evidence how little the Under Secretary could care for other sections, and that because of the external circumstances, as for instance the evacuation of whole sections from Berlin, he was only rarely present at conferences with the minister or was left out intentionally.

(e) This limitation of the tasks of the under secretary through the organization was furthered through the personal qualities of the Minister, Thierack. A picture of Thierack will result from the documents and the statements of witnesses. He was an autocratic, brutal, and even a rude person. He pursued his views and objectives with remarkable stubbornness. Accordingly, he was hardly to be persuaded from an opinion once formed. He tolerated no one next to himself in his struggle for power. For such a person it must have been easy to suppress such a soft and yielding personality as Klemm. Thierack was not interested in problems of the jurisprudence in concepts of law. He thought that he was a politician and merely a practitioner of the administration of justice. The contrast in the characters had an especially unfavorable effect on Klemm’s method of working since Thierack thought he could treat Klemm merely as an official dependent on him personally. That resulted from the previous personal relations of the two men. When Thierack filled the post of Minister of Justice for Saxony immediately after the seizure of power by the NSDAP, Klemm was his adjutant. When Klemm after many years again had to come into personal contact with Thierack through his appointment to under secretary, he was in the opinion of Thierack, not more than his adjutant again. When he contacted his Under Secretary Klemm, his manners were just as rough as in his contact with other subordinate officials. Even in the presence of other officials he showed tactlessness, and treated him, too, with disdain and certainly not as a “friend and confidant,” as the prosecution obviously assumes. Thierack would not attach such weight to an opinion voiced by Klemm as would have been appropriate because of the latter’s official position. In my defense plea this personal relationship is of importance, so that it must also be shown that Thierack was an extremely reserved person. He disclosed his plans and intentions to nobody before they were carried out. He kept the most important political-judicial events and decisions secret even from his under secretary. When he received the visits of other Ministers, or higher Party and SS officials nobody else was present as a rule. This was particularly true in his contacts with Himmler and the people surrounding him, such as Kaltenbrunner. Of the contents of the discussions Klemm like the other officials of the Ministry was not informed until a decree of Thierack was published for the individual sections of the Ministry.