In many cases we had found that among the Poles who had been brought to Germany there was a considerable number of highly criminal types from Poland. The agencies which dealt with getting labor from Poland did not select properly and thereby created a great danger. We discovered people who had been previously convicted for murder and had been sentenced to penitentiary for life, but who on account of the outbreak of war had been set free, and who had now come to Germany. That point of view played a part in considering all these questions. That is to say, we did not speak of the subhuman Polish race but we spoke of the subhumanity in Poland.
Presiding Judge Brand: May I interrupt, please? The question of translation has arisen. The Tribunal would be glad to have a check made by the prosecution as to the original document and the proper translation of it. That will dispose of this entire matter.
Mr. Wooleyhan: Yes, Your Honor.
Dr. Koessl: The originals of the files here—I don’t know—probably the prosecution has the copy, and perhaps that copy also has the mistake.
Presiding Judge Brand: It is a question of what the document says and it should be able to be ascertained with definiteness. The suggestion that the document may have used the wrong word is not satisfactory to us. We want to know what word was used in the original document.[537] Go ahead to something else and straighten that out afterward.
Dr. Koessl: Witness, at the trial before the Special Court at Nuernberg, were any facts brought to light which were not mentioned by the judgment passed at Neumarkt?
Defendant Rothaug: That is clearly evident from the judgment. In addition to the facts which had originally been established, a further fact had been established according to which the defendant had attacked the old people who were living on a lonely farm with a dung fork and had exerted so much pressure on them that the only way for them to save themselves was to unleash the dog.
When evaluating the character as a whole of the defendant, as the judgment shows, that fact was taken into account. That fact in the last analysis was decisive.
Q. Can you show that that point in particular was very decisive? Can you show us that by quoting a passage from the original file?
A. That is shown by our attitude to the clemency question. In our opinion on the clemency question we, without exception, repeated those facts which had been decisive for us in deciding on the sentence. We did not state other general points of view concerning the clemency plea because we didn’t know them, and secondly, because we were of the view that they didn’t affect us in any way. That brief opinion on the clemency question says—