“The Judges’ Letters are not meant to create a new casuistry, which would lead to a further ossification of the administration of justice and to a guardianship over the judges. They will rather tell how judicial authorities think National Socialist justice should be applied and thereby give the judge the inner security and freedom to come to the right decision.
“The contents of these letters are confidential; the chief of an office shall keep them, and let every judge and prosecutor take notice of them against receipt.
“For the publication of the Judges’ Letters, the collaboration of all the judges and prosecutors is needed. I expect that suitable decisions from all branches of justice will be presented to me. On publication, neither the judge nor the deciding court will be named.
“I am convinced that the Judges’ Letters will help to influence the administration of justice uniformly according to National Socialist doctrines.”
The first letter was published on 1 October 1942. In a sort of hortatory prelude, many thoughts and ideas from the Rothenberger thesis were embodied. Thereafter, a number of criminal cases and the sentences therein imposed were set forth and commented upon.
Four cases dealing with crimes committed during black-outs were described; those decisions in which the death penalty had been imposed were approved, the others were all criticized for being too mild. Six cases dealing with sex offenses followed; the sentences in five of them were condemned as utterly inadequate. No case was cited where the sentence was thought too severe.
At the end of the letter, three cases dealing with Jews were discussed in great detail. One of these dealt with the racial law which required all Jews to adopt the surname “Sarah” or “Israel” according to their sex. A Jewish woman had neglected to apply to the telephone company to change her listing by the addition of the name “Sarah.” The district court sentenced her to a fine of thirty reichsmarks, or 19 days in prison. The court set forth in its opinion that certain other courts had construed the law as not requiring an application to change a telephone listing, and that the Jewess might have relied on these decisions. Thierack’s letter described the Jewess’ action as “typical Jewish camouflage in her business dealings” and stated that the lack of uniformity in the decisions in no way justified leniency in the punishment.
In the second case, a special coffee ration had been distributed in a certain town, in the autumn of 1940. A large number of Jews had applied to receive the ration. However, since Jews were automatically excluded from the distribution, they did not receive any coffee. The following year, the food authorities imposed a fine on the Jews for the offense of having applied for the coffee; thereupon several hundred Jews sought relief against the fine in the district court. The judge rescinded the fine on the basis of the statute of limitations and for other legal reasons, and expressed the opinion that the Jews had not committed any punishable act in merely applying for the coffee. On this decision, the Reich Minister’s letter commented as follows (NG-298, Pros. Ex. 81):
“The ruling of the local court, in form and content, borders on embarrassing a German administrative authority to the advantage of Jewry. The judge should have asked himself the question: What is the reaction of the Jew 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, and does not devote one word to 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 toward it.”
In the third case, a wealthy young Jew had committed certain violations of the German foreign currency regulations. The district court, although it found certain extenuating circumstances, imposed a heavy fine on the Jew and sentenced him to 2 years’ imprisonment. This decision particularly provoked the Reich Minister of Justice, who said (NG-298, Pros. Ex. 81):