Q. At the time[308] did you obtain knowledge of Exhibit 109 and the enclosure, as you call it, Exhibit 108?
A. Yes, I saw Lammers’ letter and I must have seen this circular letter of Bormann’s together with it.
Q. Bormann spoke about three of those cases which had occurred in the past. Bormann stated that penal prosecution did not take place. When you saw these two letters—when these Exhibits 108 and 109 were submitted to you—did you know anything about it, that is that in the past the administration of justice, that is the courts abstained from penal prosecution against members of the German population?
A. I consider that that is absolutely impossible. If penal prosecution would have been abstained from, this could have been done only by quashing the trial, and for such a quashing Hitler was competent exclusively or the Minister of Justice to the extent to which this right had been delegated to him by Hitler. This can be seen from the clemency regulations which have already been introduced as a document here, in part. I cannot remember such a case being discussed, and I cannot find anything in these reports about it either. I looked at them with that in mind.
Q. If you say that at the time when you received this letter you did not know any past cases, how should one understand Bormann’s letter? He is speaking of the past and says that penal prosecutions did not take place.
A. This can only be explained as follows: According to the letter, before it was sent out, such cases must have occurred. Himmler had already in 1943 instructed his police not to interfere in disputes between the German population and terror fliers which had been shot down.[309] This was already brought out in the IMT trial. This sentence which Bormann used in his circular letter can be explained in my opinion only as follows, namely: that the police did not forward denunciations to the administration of justice and that in this way a penal prosecution did not take place, but only because the administration of justice did not hear anything about these matters. From the hint that Lammers gives in this letter that Himmler had already informed his police also on the basis of Bormann’s circular letter, it is quite clear to me that such denunciations to the administration of justice were also not to be made in the future. But, of course it could happen that the administration of justice found out about such cases on its own and took them up, but incidentally, that Hitler backed this action himself is in my opinion shown in Exhibit 110.
Q. Mr. Klemm, Exhibit 108 and 109 bear your initials. I now want to ask you, were these statements submitted to you before they were submitted to Thierack or after that?
A. I received these documents after Thierack had seen them and after he had already made his notation on them.
Q. This notation by Thierack reads as follows: “IV R-V with the addition that such cases for the purpose of examination in regard to quashing shall be submitted to me,” that is “to me” Thierack, that is Thierack’s notation. What do you have to say about that? How did you understand that notation?
A. The prosecution submitted this document with a supplementary sheet and this says, at least in the German edition of the document, handwritten note on the right upper corner, signed “Klemm.” That is not right. There isn’t any handwritten notice in the upper right hand corner at all but merely a “Kl,” my initials. Below the initials, that is, about the upper one third of the page, there is the notation which has just been quoted which was written by Thierack. The handwritten note is without doubt in Thierack’s handwriting. If the original were available and not merely a photostat, one would be able to see that this note was written with a green pencil. That was the color in which ministers had to sign, according to the business regulations for the highest Reich authorities. Whereas in a purple pencil only my initials are on this document.