A. Except when I was in the army, all my life I have never worn a uniform.
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Q. What offices were asked about the political attitude of a judge and a prosecutor, and who made out the final qualifications?
A. Political qualifications were exclusively made under the responsibility of the competent bearer of the sovereignty, that is, the Kreisleiter or the Gauleiter. For these questions they had a so-called Kreis personnel office, or Gau personnel office. When a so-called political qualification of a civil servant was to be made, these offices addressed inquiries to offices where the civil servant or official concerned was known; that is to say, if he was a member of the NSRB, they addressed an inquiry to the Gauwalter of the NSRB, or in another instance to the competent office of the Civil Service League, or to the Ortsgruppe, local group of the Party, or to the SA, or SS. The answers to these inquiries were then gathered at these offices and from there, if necessary, by reviewing or examining the facts that were reported the so-called political qualifications report of an official was made out. This political qualification report was made out because the supervisory offices of this civil servant by provisions of the law were obligated to form a judgment on this question with the intervention of the Party.
Q. How did this develop in your case, and according to what principles did that proceed?
A. That was an affair which caused the least difficulty. The Gauwalter gave the slip that had been sent in by the competent Party office to the Gau group administrator who was competent for that official. That was I, myself, in the case of inquiries regarding judges and prosecutors, as long as I was entrusted with that function. I then returned the slip after it was filled out to the Gau administrator again, who on his part then reported to the Party office.
It is important to know here that according to an express order a man who was a Party member was not permitted to be judged as politically unreliable as long as a Party disciplinary proceeding had not been carried out against him because of some established facts.
During the time of my activity in regard to that function, it is of significance that at that time almost all judges and prosecutors were members of the Party on account of the well known action on 1 May 1937.
Q. Did you hear of a case in which a judge or a prosecutor was described as politically unreliable? And if so, what happened to that man?
A. In my time I did not hear of such a case. The declaration which we made in every case had the following stereotyped contents: “Circumstances which could raise doubts as to the political reliability of the person concerned did not occur.”