Q. I do not think I will attempt to repeat it further. I understood your position. It is true, is it not, that there was no tribunal in Germany, perhaps anywhere else, which had statutory jurisdiction to apply international law in a penal proceeding against a public officer of the state who had complied with the state law?
A. Yes, that is correct.
Q. Then, if there were a tribunal that had jurisdiction to apply that law, might it not perhaps, arrive at a different decision, legally, from the decision which this court of the state itself, would arrive at; might not an international tribunal, having jurisdiction to pass upon the question, arrive at a different answer as to criminality of an individual officer who had violated international law, but had not violated the law of the state?
A. Yes, that would be so, but, Mr. President, if I may say so, that is the very thing which I call the tragic situation of the official concerned.
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E. General Development of the Administration of Justice under Hitler
EXTRACTS FROM THE TESTIMONY OF DEFENDANT SCHLEGELBERGER[156]
Dr. Kubuschok (counsel for defendant Schlegelberger): Witness, what is your career, your professional career in particular?
Defendant Schlegelberger: I was born in 1875. After I had finished my legal studies and had passed my doctor’s examination, I became judge in the first and second instance. In 1904 I became judge of the Lyck District Court in East Prussia. In 1909 I became assistant at the Prussian Court of Appeals, Kammergericht. In 1914 I became Kammergerichtsrat. The Kammergericht is the Court of Appeals of Berlin, the highest court in Prussia.
At the Kammergericht, I worked in several senates: in the civil senate which dealt with the ordinary cases of civil law; in the commercial senate; in the patent senate, and in the senate for voluntary jurisdiction. During that period I wrote my first scientific works in that field which dealt with the experiences I have gained in practice. In 1918, that is to say at the end of the First World War, I became assistant at the then Reich Justice Office which later on became the Reich Ministry of Justice. That agency had very little to do with administrative tasks. At that time, it only dealt with one court. It was the highest court, in fact the Reich Supreme Court in Leipzig. Apart from that, the Reich Justice Office only dealt with legislative tasks.