Reich Minister Dr. Goebbels stated at the outset that he had been asked by President Thierack to address the members of the highest German court of justice. He had gladly complied with this request. What he had to say had a special political aspect owing to the Fuehrer’s approval of his comments, the draft of which he had submitted to the Fuehrer.

The civil servants of the administration of justice had, owing to the nature of their work, always been subject to public criticism. Also today decisions of the courts were criticized and called alien to the spirit of the German people. One must not reply to the reproach that justice had failed by protesting that always only certain cases of wrong decisions had been singled out and the great number of the good and correct judgments had been disregarded. We are dealing here with a principle, i.e., of a wrong attitude of many judges who could not redeem themselves from their old ways of thinking. The one-sided teaching at the universities is to be blamed for it to a considerable extent and also the fact that the judge lived secluded in his professional surroundings and knew too little of life itself. Decisions alien to the spirit of the German people had, however, very detrimental effects especially during wartime. All must be done to remedy the situation before it is too late for the administration of justice. No professional men except the judges had heretofore had the guaranty of being irremovable. Even generals could be removed. A powerful state could not renounce the right to remove officers unsuitable for their office because of inaptness or other reasons. This had to apply to the judge as well. The idea of the irremovable judges he went on to say, originated in an alien intellectual world, hostile to the German people.

The Minister then referred to individual judgments that nowadays were unbearable. He cited in the first instance the case of the Jew Leo Sklarek. (In the Minister’s speech stated by error is the case of “Barmat.”) He could not understand that this notorious Jewish profiteer, who after his emigration to Prague had been a spy, had only been sentenced to 8 years’ penitentiary (the judgment of the People’s Court of justice of 16 April 1942 was delivered for having incited to commit high treason, based on paragraph 92 of the Penal Code). The judgment which the court of Eichstaedt had delivered, in the case of a man killed in action in the East having been insulted, was also untenable. A woman upon receipt of the news of his death who had uttered, “Thank God,” had been acquitted by reason of impossible justification. The Minister also referred to Moelder’s letter.

While making his decisions the judge had to proceed less from the law than from the basic idea that the offender was to be eliminated from the community. During a war, it was not so much a matter of whether a judgment was just or unjust but only whether the decision was expedient. The State must ward off its internal foes in the most efficient way and wipe them out entirely. The idea that the judge must be convinced of the defendant’s guilt must be discarded completely. The purpose of the administration of the law was not in the first place retaliation or even improvement but maintenance of the State. One must not proceed from the law, but from the resolution that the man must be wiped out. The criminal must know beforehand that he will lose his head, should he assault the foundations of the State. These drastic measures must not be left to offices outside of justice but are the duty of justice. The big sacrifices of life which must be made by the best part of the people during the war give us a special reason to treat the offender with all ruthlessness. We must bear in mind that during the winter 1941–1942 every criminal had better billets in the prisons than 3½ million German soldiers. Today we have an entirely different conception of certain offenses which in normal times would not have been considered serious at all, but are now regarded as deserving death penalty; (theft during an air-raid alarm, robbery of handbags during black-out hours, and heavy penalties in cases of listening to foreign wireless stations this action being mental self-mutilation). Justice ridiculed itself by placarding summons to missing persons prior to their being pronounced dead, as everybody knew the missing person in the East or even in any enemy’s country could not report at all.

In this connection the Minister went on to speak about the Jewish problem. He went on to say that if still more than 40,000 Jews whom we consider enemies of the State could freely go about in Berlin, this was solely due to the lack of sufficient means of transportation. Otherwise the Jews would have been in the East long ago. The officers of justice must recognize their political task also while attending to the Jews. To feel sorry for them would be a blunder. It was an untenable situation that still today a Jew could protest against the charge of a president of the police who was an old Party member and a high SS leader. The Jew should not be granted any legal remedy at all nor any right of protest.

In his final comments the Minister pointed out again that the State must apply all means to ward off its foes at home and abroad. During a war it was therefore necessary that the idea of the expedient decision took the first place in justice. The people had to be possessed with the will of absolute self-maintenance. He recalled the words which the Fuehrer had said on 30 January 1933 to him on their way from the “Kaiserhof” to the Chancellery of the Reich upon entering the chancellery, “Nobody will ever get me out of here alive.”[254]

After this speech President Thierack expressed his thanks to the Minister for his fundamental comments and said that the Minister had greatly assisted him once before and asked him to repeat his inspiring and directing instructions also in future.

[Typed] [Signed] Dr. Crohne

23 July