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Dr. Wandschneider (counsel for defendant Rothenberger): Now [beginning in 1933], a great change occurred in your career. Could you tell the Court when and on the basis of what considerations you decided to give up this quiet and secure life?

Defendant Rothenberger[224]: The year 1933 came. On 5 March 1933, there were parliamentary elections in Hamburg, as everywhere throughout the Reich. In these elections the National Socialist Party obtained about 40 percent of the votes. Therefore, it was ordered to form a new government, because it was the strongest Party in the Parliament.

Until that time Hamburg had the government majority which consisted of Social Democrats and Democrats. The NSDAP, which was ordered to form a new government, formed a coalition government with the Democratic Party, the German People’s Party, and the German National People’s Party.

The day after the election, that is on 6 March, the Reich Governor and Gauleiter of Hamburg Kaufmann, called me up. Until that time I had not known him personally. He asked me whether I would be willing to assume the position of the acting mayor in this new government of Hamburg. He told me that he had heard about me, and therefore he was making this offer to me. I requested him to give me one day to think the matter over, and then I refused his offer. I gave as a reason that I considered that my task lay in the administration of justice, that I wasn’t inclined for representative nor for political tasks, and these were connected with the position of mayor of a city like Hamburg. Thereupon, he asked me whether in that case I would be willing to take over the administration of justice of Hamburg as its chief, and I answered that I would.

Q. In the subsequent time did you again refuse leading positions in the Reich? Perhaps you can mention that in this connection here now.

A. In March 1933 I thus became Justizsenator, as he was called, in Hamburg, chief of the administration of justice. And the Tribunal already knows that these Ministries of Justice of the individual states, of which there were, I believe, 18 at the time, in 1935, were dissolved by the so-called centralization of the administration of justice. Therefore, toward the end of 1934, the Reich Minister of Justice, Dr. Guertner, approached me in Kiel where we met on the occasion of a university festival, and asked me whether I would be willing to become presiding judge of the People’s Court, which at that time was being created. I rejected that offer, even though this was the second position of a judge in Germany next to the president of the Reich Supreme Court. But for administration of criminal law I had neither the experience nor the inclination. The political development of the People’s Court, of course, one could not predict in any way at that time. But I remained in Hamburg and when in 1935 the administration of justice was incorporated into the Reich and my office as chief of the administration of justice, Justizsenator, was eliminated. I became president of the Hanseatic District Court of Appeals. That is a position of judge which, however, at the same time also includes administrative jurisdiction. I believe that the Tribunal is already familiar with the fact that, from 1935 on, Germany was divided into, I believe, 35 or 37 areas of district courts of appeal, and at their top there was each time a president of the district court of appeal. In 1936 to 1937 the Reichjustizfuehrer [chief of NSRB] Frank[225] approached me through a representative and asked me if I would like to be his representative in Berlin in his capacity as Reichjustizfuehrer. It was not difficult for me to reject that offer, because during the course of those 2 years I got to know Frank. The personal characteristics of Frank have repeatedly been emphasized in this trial, but I want to add one more attribute, that he was extraordinarily vain and that he never forgave me that I could refuse to become his assistant.

Q. In conclusion, in regard to this question, would you please state something about your additional positions in Hamburg which you had in addition to your position as president of the district court of appeals?

A. In Hamburg I had several extra duties during the years when I was still in Hamburg, that is, from 1935 on. That is in addition to my main duty. I was Honorary Professor at the Hamburg University for civil law, and there I, in a certain sense, continued my activity as repetitor, that is, tutor, so to say. That is, I held lectures for students. From 1938 on I was president of the Reich Maritime Office. That was the final authority in decisions about collisions at sea and about the litigations regarding the withdrawing of a license which resulted from this for captains who were found guilty in case of a collision. From the beginning of the war I was president of the Prize Court [Prisenhof] in Hamburg. The Tribunal probably knows the functions of such a Prize Court. Until August 1942 I remained at Hamburg, and from August 1942 until December 1943 I was in Berlin as Under Secretary. In December 1943 I again left there, returned to Hamburg, and was a notary in Hamburg.

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