LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE BERLIN COURT OF APPEAL TO DEFENDANT SCHLEGELBERGER, 3 JANUARY 1942, COMMENTING UPON “INFLUENCE EXERTED UPON THE JUDGES”
The President of the Berlin Court of Appeal
File number—3130.—A. 522/36
- Berlin W 35, 3 January 1942
- Eltzholzstrasse 32
- Phone No. 27 00 13
To: Under Secretary Dr. Schlegelberger
in Berlin W 8,
Wilhelmstrasse 65
Subject: Report about the general situation in the districts.
Reich Ordinance of 9 December 1935—Ia 11012.
1. When I paid a visit to the criminal court a few months ago in order to attend proceedings of the Special Court, I heard from the representative of the president of the district court in Moabit that “the Reich Ministry of Justice was expecting two death sentences” in the criminal case which was on the docket. My investigations produced the fact that the competent public prosecutor had informed the president of the Special Court prior to the session that he had received a directive from the Reich Ministry of Justice to ask for a death sentence in two cases. The president of the Special Court had informed me the representative of the president of the district court hereof. I consider it undesirable that officials of the public prosecutor’s office pass on prior to the proceedings such directives given them by a higher authority to the president of the court, as it has been done here. For I am afraid that judges, including those sitting in the Special Court, are in some cases much more easily inclined to pronounce a given penalty, especially the death penalty, if they hear that “the Reich Ministry of Justice” has given a directive to the public prosecutor’s office to ask for such a sentence or that “according to the views of the Reich Ministry of Justice” this penalty is necessary. I consider such a communication, given to the court by the public prosecutor, as undesirable, also because the “opinion of the Reich Ministry of Justice” conveyed by the public prosecutor, might possibly, in an individual case, but represent the personal views of a minor official of the Reich Ministry of Justice, about which he had informed the competent official of the public prosecutor’s office.