Reply to letter of 28 November 1940

Reich Chancellery 17 428 B

1 Enclosure

I worked on the premise that special conditions in the Incorporated Eastern Territories also require special measures for the administration of the penal laws against Poles and Jews. As soon as the decree issued on 5 September 1939 by the Commander in Chief of the Army had introduced the Special Courts in the Incorporated Eastern Territories, I tried to make these courts, with their particularly prompt and energetic procedure, centers for combating all Polish and Jewish criminals. That I succeeded is shown by the very impressive numbers of cases dealt with by the Special Courts during the first 10 months of their activity in the Incorporated Eastern Territories. The Special Court in Bromberg, for instance, has sentenced 201 defendants to death, 11 to penal servitude for life, and 93 to terms of penal servitude amounting to 912 years in all, thus an average 10 years’ penal servitude for each individual. Only crimes of lesser significance were indicted at the local courts. On the other hand, the criminal courts were eliminated as far as possible as an appeal to the Reich Supreme Court against their judgment is permitted, and I wanted to prevent courts which were not entirely familiar with the special conditions in the eastern territories—even though it be the highest court in Germany—from giving a decision in these matters.

The aim of creating a special system of law [Sonderrecht] for Poles and Jews of the eastern territories was systematically pursued by the decree of 6 June 1940,[329] which formally introduced the German penal law applied in the eastern territories from the very beginning. In the sphere of the code of criminal procedure, compulsory prosecution no longer exists; the public prosecutor prosecutes only such acts which he thinks it necessary to punish in the public interest. The procedure of compulsory prosecution (arts. 172, et seq., of the Code of Criminal Procedure) was rescinded as it seems intolerable that Poles and Jews should in this way compel the German prosecutor to issue an indictment. Poles and Jews were also prohibited from raising private actions and accessory actions.

In article II of the introductory decree [of 6 June 1940], special cases for action [Sondertatbestaende] were annexed to the special system of law in the sphere of legal proceedings—cases which had been agreed upon with the Reich Minister of the Interior because they had become necessary. It was intended from the beginning that such special cases for action should be increased as soon as necessity arose. The decree for the execution and completion of the introductory decree mentioned in the letter from the Fuehrer’s deputy was meant to meet the requirements which had become known in the meantime; whereas the decrees mentioned also in said letter concerning the introduction of the right of extradition, and of the law concerning the use of weapons by persons entitled to the protection of forestry and game laws, are only remotely connected with the criminality of Poles and Jews, and are intended exclusively to develop the general coordination of law in the eastern territories. I shall try to bring about an agreement with the Fuehrer’s deputy in regard to both the last mentioned decrees, as well as the decree for the execution of the law for the cancellation of sentences, and the decree concerning criminal records.

On being informed of the Fuehrer’s intention to discriminate basically in the sphere of penal law between the Poles (and probably the Jews as well) and the Germans, I prepared—after preliminary discussions with the presidents of the district courts of appeal and the attorneys general of the Incorporated Eastern Territories—the attached draft[330] concerning the administration of the penal laws against Poles and Jews in the Incorporated Eastern Territories and in the territory of the former Free City of Danzig.

This draft amounts to a special system of law both in the sphere of actual penal law and that of criminal procedure. In this connection, the suggestions made by the Fuehrer’s deputy were taken into consideration to a great extent. Paragraph (3) of No. 1 contains a statement of facts in general terms, through which penal proceedings can be taken in future against any Pole or Jew belonging to the eastern territories who is guilty of punishable activities directed against the German race, and every kind of punishment is provided. This ordinance is supplemented by No. 1, paragraph (2), which is already contained in the preliminary ordinance, and which threatens the death sentence in cases of violence committed against a German by reason of his belonging to the German ethnic group. Furthermore, the cases in No. 1, paragraph (4) which are also contained in the preliminary ordinance, are only complements, which would perhaps no longer have been necessary in view of the new general statement of facts, but which I have included in order not to arouse a false impression that the scope of the acts liable to punishment according to this draft is more restricted than in the existing legislation. Finally, No. 2 makes it clear that a Pole will in any case also be punished for such acts as are punishable if committed by a German. Furthermore, the ordinance admits a wider application of the law in a manner appropriate to the requirements of the eastern territories. (Art. 2, Penal Code.)

I have already been in agreement with the opinion held by the Fuehrer’s deputy, that a Pole is less sensitive to the imposition of an ordinary prison sentence. Therefore, I had taken administrative measures to insure that Poles and Jews be separated from other prisoners and that their imprisonment be rendered more severe. No. 3 goes still further and substitutes for the terms of imprisonment and hard labor prescribed by Reich law other prison sentences of a new kind, viz, the prison camp and the more rigorous prison camp. For these new kinds of punishment, the prisoners are to be lodged in camps outside of prisons and are to be employed there on hard and very hard labor. There are also administrative measures which provide for special disciplinary punishment (imprisonment in an unlighted cell, transfer from a prison camp to a more rigorous prison camp, etc.).

The new kinds of punishment in No. 3 apply to all offenses committed by Poles and Jews, thus also to cases when the criminal commits a crime specified by the Penal Code. On the other hand, No. 3, paragraph (3), insures that the minimum penalty prescribed by German penal law and a mandatory penalty may be lessened if the crime was directed entirely against the criminal’s own nation.