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Q. Witness, were you active in party politics?
A. No, I never joined any party; I always stayed away from politics. My life was devoted to the practical administration of justice, and to legal research. If looking back now, I should say which one of parties of the German people I fitted into, I would call myself as belonging to the right one of the progressive, conservative direction which was promoted by the German People’s Party, [Deutsche Volkspartei] and which was also represented by the German Nationalist Party [Deutsch-Nationale Volkspartei].
Q. What was your attitude towards the NSDAP and national socialism?
A. In 1933 I was approached on the subject of joining the NSDAP; I refused. My reason was, first the fact that I could not subscribe to the program of the NSDAP. Furthermore, another reason was my view that Under Secretary of justice should remain neutral even on the surface and, therefore, must not be obliged to any parties. I was never a National Socialist. It is obvious that a party program, in its manifold aspects, has many a point which one can adopt; for example, the program’s aim of bridging class differences, that is to say, the creation of a true national community; that point I welcomed heartily, but, concerning the program of the NSDAP as a whole above all, the way in which it was to be put into effect, that was far removed from my own ideas. My own conservative attitude as a human being and as a jurist accounted for that. It came as a great surprise to me when, on 30 January 1938, the Fuehrer’s Chancellery informed me in a letter, signed by Bouhler, that Hitler had ordered that I was to join and be accepted by the NSDAP. I said that that came as a great surprise to me. I myself, like other Under Secretaries who had also come from the middle classes, had never heard of that order, and it was impossible to refuse because that would not merely have meant I would have given battle not only to the Party, but the State itself. But I never departed from that view. The membership which was ordered against my will and forced upon me, I never made use of. I never attended a Party conference or meeting. Naturally, I did not hold any office in the Party either.
Perhaps the fact that I never changed my attitude is also demonstrated by the fact that neither my wife nor my sons ever belonged to the Party. My social contacts, too, as far as they were not conditioned by official affairs, moved almost exclusively within the circles of non-Party members.
Q. The Hitler order by which Schlegelberger’s membership in the Party was decreed will be submitted by me as Schlegelberger Document 34, Schlegelberger Exhibit 92,[158] as soon as the document books shall have been completed.
Witness, what effect did that attitude of yours have on your official position?
A. I always saw to it that Party members and Party functionaries were treated just like every other citizen. That played a part particularly in personnel matters. I only appointed that person to an office who, in my view, was properly qualified; and I refused to reward Party stars by appointing them to an office.
On the other hand, the attitude of the Party toward the Ministry and myself—and I shall have to come back to that later on—made great difficulties and brought about many inner conflicts.