In autumn 1940 a special coffee ration was distributed to the population of the town B. Among others a large number of Jews applied for this coffee ration which, however, they did not receive as they were excluded from the distribution per se. The food authorities saw in this conduct an offense against the distribution regulations and imposed fines on the Jews. Thereupon several hundred Jews appealed against them and asked for a court decision, so that about 500 identical cases were pending simultaneously with the local court in B. The judge informed the food authorities that in his opinion the imposing of fines could not be upheld for legal reasons—one of which was the statute of limitations—and recommended rescinding them. The food authorities did not share this legal opinion of the judge and refused to rescind the fines but suggested to the court that it mention only the point of limitation in case the fine should be set aside. Thereupon the court rescinded the fine in one case; the other cases were to be dealt with according to prescribed procedure and with reference to this decision.
This ruling, in seven sections and covering 20 pages, contains verbose interpretations of the factual and legal position. The introduction tries to justify in long tirades the length of the reasoning. Then it is set forth in detail that the Jews had been able to register with their grocers before the official announcement of the impending coffee distribution, since the distributors had been informed in advance by their respective economic groups. “The contrary interpretation on the part of the food authorities was absolutely incompatible with the established facts,” as the food authorities had “overlooked” various factors. After an entirely immaterial description of the attitude of the individual grocers toward the Jews after the announcement of the decree, the document deals in detail with the investigations undertaken by the food office. The ruling continues that the court had tried in vain to cause the public prosecutor to take over the pending cases and deal with them in the regular manner, but that it had also refused on the grounds that no punishable act had been committed by the Jews, or, at least, that it falls under the statute of limitations. After again dealing with the fruitless efforts of the court to have the food office withdraw the fines, a series of factual and legal questions are declared irrelevant, but nevertheless discussed in detail beforehand. The following nine pages of the ruling deal with the examination of the legal question whether the registration of the Jews must be regarded a punishable act according to the distribution regulations. They arrive at the conclusion that this is not the case and that it would be wrong to prove it “by means of an abstruse interpretation of the law.” The long interpretation culminates in the summarizing statement that the Jews had not committed a punishable act.
Opinion of the Reich Minister of Justice
The ruling of the local court, in form and content amounts to pilloring a German administrative authority by the Jews. The judge should have put himself the question: How will the Jews react to this 20-page-long ruling, which certifies that he and the 500 other Jews are right and that he won over a German authority without losing one word about the reaction of our own people to this insolent and arrogant conduct of the Jews. Even if the judge was convinced that the food office had arrived at a wrong judgment of the legal position, and if he could not make up his mind to wait with his decision until the question, if necessary, was clarified by the higher authorities, he should have chosen a form for his ruling which under any circumstances avoided harming the prestige of the food office and thus putting the Jew expressly in the right. The freedom from punishment for the unauthorized coffee registration was, even according to the law then in force, definitely doubtful. The fact that Jews were not entitled to a supply of genuine coffee was self-evident even if it was not specially mentioned in the official decree. Registration had taken place by presentation of a coupon of the ration card and by having this card stamped. If, considering the special circumstances of this case, this had been construed as an abuse of the right to draw rations, it could have resulted in an affirmation of the punishable character of their act. The impudent, provoking conduct of the Jews would have made it a “particularly serious case.” In this case an offense could legally have been assumed. To such an offense a longer statute of limitations would have applied.
A legal view of this kind on the part of the food office need not have been regarded as “untenable,” “fabricated,” or “abstruse.”
Apart from this it was not necessary to point out to the Jew that he was only one of many members of his race who also had complained. Just as superfluous was the information that the food office in the preceding negotiations had refused to withdraw the fines and that the local prosecutor, through its refusal to take up the case, had also shown its opposition to the food office. These points were irrelevant to the ruling. The Jew could perforce only gain the impression of a dissension between the various authorities. Instead of this a few sentences of the ruling, dealing merely with the statute of limitations, would have been sufficient if the judge denied the punishable character of the offense.
The voluminous argument of the case would not even have been necessary if the case had involved a German. The order of the Fuehrer in the decree of 21 March 1942 on the simplification of the law that “court rulings must be given in short and concise form and must be limited to the absolutely essential” was already a wartime necessity. The German fellow citizen does not expect verbose and learned statements from the judge. The various ancillary and incidental considerations which guide the judge in his decision do not interest him. He wants to be informed by a few easily understandable words on what grounds he was found right or wrong.
4. VIOLATION OF FOREIGN-EXCHANGE REGULATIONS BY A JEW
Verdict by a District Court of 26 May 1942
The defendant, a 36-year-old Jew, had in 1936 taken possession of his deceased father’s textile firm. In 1938 he emigrated to Holland. In 1941 he was arrested in Amsterdam.