A. The reason which I have just explained.
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Q. Elkar alleges that you had also talked about pending trials and had discussed also the facts as well as the legal situation and future judgment. (Tr. p. 2891.) Was the name of a defendant ever mentioned as long as trial was still pending?
A. The names of defendants never played any importance in these conversations. The manner of expression was general. The individual cases, as such, were of no importance at all and their outcome even less so. It is possible that in the most infrequent cases—as an example of a definite criminal deed, in order to demonstrate, for example, the method of the consequences of this crime and to use it in the discussions of general questions, that an individual case was mentioned, but not in a single case was it like this that Elkar ever was interested in a certain pending trial or even wanted to get information about the final outcome in advance; such an evaluation was not possible in practice at all for the decision could be given only on the basis of the trial after it was concluded. Thus, Elkar’s activity was not aimed at such a goal.
Q. By mentioning an individual case, did you ask for the opinion of the RSHA in order to find a basis for the political evaluation of the offense?
A. Never. I had no connections whatsoever to the RSHA. Moreover, such a method even in the Third Reich would have been an absolute impossibility, and it was never alleged that this occurred.
Q. Did you, in any individual case, receive an instruction from the RSHA or a recommendation to direct the trial in a certain direction under a certain point of view, or to pronounce a certain definite penalty?
A. This, too, was never alleged so far. Such a procedure, too, would have been an absolute impossibility. No office would have dared to suggest anything of that nature even.
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Q. We started with your relationships to the SD. On what formal basis were your relationships with the SD? Were you a member of the SD?