According to the opinion of the medical expert, which the Court shares, the defendant shows no symptoms which could justify doubts as to her responsibility for the crime.
As the defendant on 1 September 1939 was a resident in the territory of the former Polish State, she had to be found guilty in application of articles II, III, and XIV of the Penal Ordinance for Poles, of a crime of assault and battery in conjunction with a crime of threat, a crime under article 1, paragraph 1 of the Law against Violent Criminals, and of a crime of offering resistance to the police.
The defendant was further charged with intentionally having torn off the infantry assault badge of the soldier Wanner. That could not be proved during the trial. The witness, Miss Gundel, testifies that after the defendant Kaminska had slapped the soldier’s face, a fight ensued and that afterward the soldier’s infantry assault medal was missing. In view of this evidence there is, at any rate, a possibility that the badge might have loosened in the course of the fight. A particular acquittal was not necessary, however, as the attitude of the defendants must be regarded as one action.
Although the old feeble farmer Gundel was not physically injured by the thrust of the defendant Wdowen, he did rightly feel the action of the Ukrainian to be an offense to his honor as a German. The defendant Wdowen, by holding Kaminska with both hands when the Polish woman was about to be put into a cell so that the police official was unable to do so for the moment, and by allowing himself to be removed only after the intervention of other persons, offered forceful resistance to an official who was lawfully doing his duty.
By his action, he also tried to free the codefendant Kaminska from the hold of the official in whose custody she was.
His act, therefore, constitutes an attempt to free a prisoner in conjunction with resistance to the police under articles 120, 43, 113, 73 of the Penal Code.
That, however, does not exhaust the entire unlawful character of his deed.
The defendant Wdowen knows very well that the German economy, on account of wartime conditions, is dependent on foreign labor, in particular on labor from the eastern territories. He speculated that his offenses would be overlooked in order not to lose him as a worker. The defendant also knew that because of the drafts into the armed forces the security organs in the Reich have been reduced and that Germany is deprived of the population fit for military service so that the rural population is largely helpless against the insolent and obstinate behavior and against attacks, which occur more and more on the part of such elements from the East. The defendant Wdowen, therefore, committed the offense taking advantage of the extraordinary wartime conditions. His action is therefore particularly despicable and demands that the ordinary limit of punishment be exceeded.
The defendant therefore had to be sentenced for a crime under article 4 of the Decree against Public Enemies in conjunction with resistance toward the police and an attempt to free a prisoner.
Under article III, paragraph 2 of the Penal Ordinance for Poles, the death sentence must be passed if the law provides for it. The defendant Kaminska, therefore, under the law against violent criminals is deserving of the death penalty.