Regarding her arrest by police sergeant Dirmann, the defendant says she had offered resistance because she had been afraid that the police official would throw her into a cellar; she had not known before what the official really wanted from her.
The defendant Wdowen denies having struck or attacked the old man Gundel and the soldier in the living room. He had only received a blow on the nose from Wanner when Wanner had said something to him and to Kaminska which he could not understand. He had not seized or held him.
Concerning the arrest of Kaminska, Wdowen states that he had “already thought” that Kaminska was to be arrested by the police official; he had also kept “running after them,” although he had been forbidden to do so, and he did not let himself be intimidated by the slappings. Outside the cell he had intended to tear Kaminska away from the police official because he had felt sorry for her. The excuses which the defendants have put forward are irrelevant; for the rest, the afore-mentioned facts have been confirmed by the witnesses Gundel and Wurm. The soldier Wanner has been reported missing since the fighting in Tunisia. The witness, police sergeant Wurm testified, however, that Wanner had made definite and clear statements. The court is therefore convinced that the defendant Kaminska hit the soldier first; she was not authorized to do so in any way. When the witness Miss Gundel had told her that she would first make inquiries at the employment office as to whether the demands for payment of travel expenses were justified, the defendant Kaminska should have been satisfied. If despite that she continued to insist on her imagined demand and together with Wdowen behaved insolently towards Miss Gundel and her father, it was absolutely understandable that old Gundel called the soldier Wanner for help. The defendant Kaminska should have complied immediately with Wanner’s demand to leave the room. She cannot claim that she did not understand his demand. If instead of immediately leaving the farmer’s living room, she slapped the soldier’s face then this constituted a bodily maltreatment and thereby an assault and battery.
As the codefendant Wdowen, too, according to the credible statements which the soldier Wanner had made to the police sergeant Wurm, either gripped the soldier or at any rate took sides with Kaminska, so that Wanner had to fear a joint attack, it was understandable that he drew his bayonet in his defense. If the defendant Kaminska had to run out of the house to get a hoe and with it had walked towards the front door where the soldier was standing, Wanner had to fear the possibility of an attack on his life, although it was not established at the trial whether the defendant had already lifted the hoe to hit him. This behavior must be regarded as a threat within the meaning of article 241 of the Criminal (Penal) Code.
The defendant admits that after the incident in Gundel’s room, “some time later” on the way to Uffenheim she, in her anger, picked up a stone weighing a half pound and threw it after the soldier Wanner who was sitting on a bicycle, however, without hitting him.
The facts thus established prove that the defendant has committed a crime within the meaning of article 1, paragraph 1 of the Law against Violent Criminals of 5 December 1939. For this the death sentence is imposed on a person who, among other things, when committing a serious act of violence uses cutting or thrusting weapons or with such a weapon threatens the body or life of another person.
An act of violence within the meaning of that provision is constituted by a violent attack on a person which, according to design or execution or in view of the consequences for the person who is being attacked, endangers the security afforded by law to a high degree, and which therefore is particularly rejected and detested by the national community which is engaged in a fight for its right of existence, according to the verdict of the Reich Supreme Court of 26 January 1942, Second Criminal Senate, January 1942.
In the present case, the basic punishable deed is a threat within the meaning of article 241 of the Criminal (Penal) Code.
The defendant by throwing, in her anger, such a heavy stone after the soldier did not merely make a purposeless gesture. The court is convinced that it is evident from the over-all attitude of the defendant Kaminska, which she had previously displayed toward the soldier, that she meant to hit Wanner. A stone weighing half a pound when being thrown by someone in a condition which the defendant herself described as anger may kill a human being. Thus, a stone of that weight must be considered equal to a cutting or thrusting weapon; it must be considered as an object equal to a weapon within the meaning of the law against violent criminals. The defendant dared attack a German soldier, she took up an offensive position which would have caused grave injury if the soldier had not evaded the stone which was thrown at him. The defendant was about to endanger gravely the life and health of a German national. The German nation which is engaged in a grim defensive struggle rightly expects the most severe methods to be taken against such alien elements. The crime of the defendant, by design, and execution, as well as a considerable violation of the security afforded by law, constitutes a serious crime of violence within the meaning of the law against violent criminals. The fact that the criminal is a Pole is of particular significance.
From the name of the law it is concluded that it can only be applied against persons who are to be regarded as violent criminals. The defendant had not been provoked to the violent action. After she had failed to hit him with the hoe, she tried to hit the soldier on the road. The over-all behavior of the Polish woman, also toward the farmer, proves that the crime is not alien to her nature. She thereby characterizes herself as a Polish violent criminal. The defendant cannot dispute that she resisted with all her strength when a police official wanted to put her in a cell. Her excuse that she had not known what the official wanted from her cannot be believed. She knew in what manner she had acted toward the Germans on the previous day. She therefore had to expect the police official who moreover was in uniform to try and arrest her. The court has no doubt that she, as well as Wdowen who admitted having assumed that Kaminska was to be “picked up” because of her behavior on the day before, knew that she would now be arrested. By her violent resistance outside the cell, she therefore violated article 113 of the Criminal (Penal) Code.