Every one of the defendants here, if he has been in the ministry, would be able to testify whether that was my handwriting or not.
Presiding Judge Brand: What is the exhibit number on that again?
Dr. Schilf: Exhibit 109, Your Honor, 109; 635-PS. But may I remark it is a later sheet. The prosecution submitted Exhibit [108 and Exhibit] 109 at two different times in two parts.
Now, Mr. Klemm, I want to ask you—
Defendant Klemm: I want to make an additional explanation. The figure “IV” means department IV. “R-V” means “Rundverfuegung”, circular order, with the addition that such cases are to be submitted to me, that is Thierack, and are to be submitted not for quashing but for the purpose of examining the question of quashing if they were pending. Thus, a quashing was not considered from the very beginning.
Q. Did this instruction issued by Thierack have any possibility of inciting the population to lynch Allied fliers, or how did you look at it at the time?
A. After the Minister had issued this instruction to Department IV and thus had arrogated the decision in regard to this to himself, I no longer had a possibility to undertake anything in the matter. This circular order was issued with the stamp “secret” on it if it was sent out at all, and I don’t know that. And one cannot talk about inciting the population for the reason that the population did not hear about it at all. However, after Bormann had informed the Party in this manner and after Himmler had issued his instructions to the police, it was the duty of Thierack to take some measures in regard to the prosecutions in the country. I have already stated that the administration of justice was unwilling, and Thierack was unwilling too, to grant freedom from prosecution without any conditions like that. Thus, if the administration of justice wanted to carry out a trial, the Minister had to assert his authority and to protect the local prosecutors against any elements of the Party or the police who would like to prevent such a penal prosecution. If a proceeding was to be quashed, however, only the Minister himself could do that, because of the regulations by law. What were the consequences of this circular order in the administration of justice, I can no longer remember. It may be one or two very special cases were quashed. I do not know whether there were more such cases.
Q. You said that the administration of justice and Thierack, too, turned against Bormann’s methods. Can you cite examples for this?
A. The Party did not only require that those people who participated in lynchings should not be punished, but on the contrary, it wanted to have severely punished those people who treated fliers who had been shot down in a humane manner; and they wanted to have them punished with the aid of the regulations regarding the forbidden contact with prisoners of war. We did not concur with either of those measures. In a case which took place in Magdeburg, the Party attempted to achieve the most severe punishment of a couple which had given food to an enemy flier who had been shot down and who had received a piece of candy from him. This was stopped. We had received a report according to which a couple was arrested because they had allowed an Allied flier who had been shot down, into their apartment. The Canadian—I believe he was a Canadian flier—had been taken prisoner during the air raid, that is, before the all clear signal, by a civilian, and the civilian took him into his apartment. In this apartment the flier received something to drink and the Canadian offered the wife a piece of candy. At first the woman refused it. When he offered it the second time, however, she accepted it. She then put the piece of candy away and said, “That is for the children.” The Party had achieved it with the local administration of justice that the married couple was arrested and that an indictment would be filed for illicit contact with prisoners of war in a very serious case. When I heard about this report—I shall shorten this description somewhat—I reported this case very emphatically to Dr. Thierack, and during the very same night he called up the Chief Public Prosecutor in Magdeburg and instructed him to have the married couple released immediately the next morning.
Q. Mr. Klemm, that is sufficient. I shall submit an affidavit about this incident. I only want to ask you now, those were cases in which Germans were prosecuted because they were supposed to have treated Allied prisoners of war too leniently. Can you also cite the opposite cases where the Reich administration of justice prosecuted Germans who participated in lynchings?