Q. In what way were you concerned with curtailment of Jewish legal rights which emerged in the subsequent period?
A. I had to deal with that question once again in the spring of 1943. At the end of April, Thierack one day asked me to go see him and told me that on the same day a discussion would take place, a so-called conference of under secretaries. That conference was to be held at the Reich Ministry of the Interior. I believe I had no knowledge of those developments until then.
Q. May I interrupt you, Dr. Rothenberger? At the moment we are concerned with Document NG-151, Prosecution Exhibit 204,[427] which Dr. Rothenberger wants to discuss. This Exhibit 204 is composed of a number of letters in which a draft on curtailment of legal means and legal recourse for Jews is discussed and in which various ministries give their views. Will you tell us, please, whether you had anything to do with that matter?
A. Until that conference I had nothing to do with the previous history. That is due to the fact that the first draft originates from a time before I had assumed office. It is dated 3 August 1942, and it is signed by Dr. Freisler. The second draft is dated 13 August, and that also was before I assumed office. As this was a matter concerning penal law I was not informed about the developments during the subsequent period. As I can see from the documents now, in September 1942 the so-called GBV, the Plenipotentiary General for the Reich Administration—that was the Reich Minister of the Interior—was in charge of the drafting and conference which I have mentioned took place at the Reich Ministry of the Interior.
Q. Would you tell us something about the course of the conference of April 1943?
A. Thierack, before I went to the conference, handed me a draft. That was the draft by the GBV of 25 September 1942. That was already 6 months old by that time because the conference took place in April 1943. I was annoyed anyhow that I was now to deal with a matter the previous history of which I did not know. I had a look at the draft in Thierack’s office and when I had read it, I said to him that I was against such far-reaching restrictions.
What seemed embarrassing to me, in particular, was the provision that if the Jew was not to swear an oath, he was yet to be punished for perjury. Thierack said to me that doesn’t matter. In his somewhat brusque and curt manner he said, “You will have to go there, for I am the minister and I cannot attend a conference of under secretaries.” That, as a matter of fact, was not the custom. I went to the Reich Ministry of Interior. To begin with, I maintained reserve, because I had not dealt with the matter beforehand. Then I heard from the others who were present there that they too were against such an ordinance. Thereupon, I said that that was my personal opinion, too. Of course, I could not say as to the minister’s decision. He was in favor of it, as he had told me beforehand.
Then the provisions of that draft were dropped. Only one person who was present objected; that was Kaltenbrunner. Kaltenbrunner said he had to attach a decisive importance to at least two provisions becoming law. He was referring to 2 provisions which, in effect for some time, had already been applied, which however, required subsequent legalization. One provision was that the property of a Jew who dies goes over to the Reich. He said—as is evident in detail from the exhibit—that until now Jewish property in the case of death had been regarded as so-called property of an enemy of the State and had, therefore, been confiscated all along. But he would like to have a legal provision, because that would constitute a technical administrative simplification.
That provision, as I see from the file, had not been incorporated into the draft before by the Reich Ministry of Justice, but by the Reich Ministry of Interior. It appears for the first time in the draft of 25 September 1942. The Ministry of Justice, thus, did not deal with it. The second provision—
Presiding Judge Brand: Would you mind telling us what happened to that provision?