dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Witness, what I want to know is this, and the Tribunal will no doubt let you give your explanation: Are you telling the Tribunal that these training directives were issued one after the other for five years from 1934 to 1939 and that that training was not carried into effect? Tell me. You can answer that "yes" or "no." Was that training carried into effect?
JUETTNER: We carried out training by sport and defensive exercises in order to improve physical condition. I would have to see these directives to be able to state whether we worked in accordance with them or not.
SIR DAVID MAXVTELL-FYFE: I do not propose to put them in detail. If Dr. B6hm wants to ...
THE PRESIDENT: What the Tribunal wishes to know with reference to the document that they asked you to put to the witness, was how the witness explains his answer yesterday which I took down in these words, "Lutze did -not write about military training." That was the answer you gave yesterday with reference to Document 3215-PS. Well, now, we have had put before us a document from Lutze to the Defendant Rosenberg, which thanks Rosenberg for his congratulations incidental to the Fuehrer's decree which assigns all pre-military and post-military training to the SA. Why did you say yesterday that Lutze did not write with reference to military training? '
JUETTNER: Your Lordship, yesterday the matter in question was a newspaper article regarding military training. That article dealt with work the SA was carrying out and that was work of purely defensive education. In the Fuehrer's decree, if I remember rightly, it also says "the pre- and post-military education." It may even say "training"; that I cannot say with certainty, but what is meant is military education. Later, during negotiations regarding the carrying out of this decree which lasted until the war broke out, this conception of pre- and post-military training or education was altered to "training or education outside the military sphere," that is to say, what the Armed Forces were doing was not to be done by the SA. They were merely to prepare everything. They were to prepare the body and mind, so that men who had gone through the school of the SA should become physically fit and capable men, mentally prepared for defensive service. That was the meaning and the purpose of the decree and the innermost meaning of the so-called "SA Defense Badge." And instruction with weapons was not included in that training.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Are you saying that between the Fuehrer's decree of January and the beginning of the war there was no pre-military training done? When did you start it again?
JUETTNER: It was supposed to start with the discharge of the men serving with the Army in 1939, in October or November. That is when the decree was to come into force. The beginning of the war prevented its becoming operative. That was mentioned especially in an order by General Von Brauchitsch in the early days of November and also in a letter from Reichsleiter Bormann to the Chief of Staff, where it was stated...
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Witness, I just want to get this clear. When do you say it was to come into operation? Did you say in October? When was it due to start? When was this pre-military training due to start in 1939? When?
JUETTNER: This training was to start after the beginning of war-in November or October, I am not quite sure about that. Until then preparatory work had been carried 'out to establish the best procedure.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Just let us get this clear. Axe you telling the Tribunal it did not start?
JUETTNER: I am telling the High Tribunal that the carrying out of that decree was scheduled to start in the autumn of 1939.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Then why did you put such an extraordinary untruth in your report of June 1941, which Your Lordships will find on Page 118: "The pre-military training practiced by the SA since the outbreak of war on a voluntary basis in the SA defense groups has been already explained in detail in Reports I and 2." These are your first reports of the war regarding the activity of the SA in the war. Then you go on to explain the report m'* eluding clan target practice, instruction and practice in handling and cleaning rifles, as well as shooting on a range in a field, and further, the throwing of hand grenades under assumed combat conditions. Why did you put such an enormous untruth in your report if what you are telling the Tribunal is true today, that you never started it at all?
JUETTNER: I neither told an untruth in that report nor did I tell one now. May I ask, does that report refer to the period of the war? Did I understand you correctly to say that it does refer to wartime? Yes, I mentioned to Your Lordship yesterday that, after the beginning of the war, the SA had done everything to increase Germany's armed strength. That was our duty as patriots. We then paid the greatest attention to military physical training, that is to say, no longer to ordinary athletics and other physical training, but particularly to military exercises. But even that was no armed service. If the cleaning of rifles is mentioned, it means we demonstrated it to our men with our small-bore arms.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My Lord, the report is in. It includes radio training. The pre-military training includes all men over 18 years of age. Your Lordship has the documents to consider. My Lord, the next group of documents which I have asked Your Lordships to consider relate to the fact that it was stated before the Commission that the SA Mann, which is a part of the evidence of the Prosecution, was an unofficial publication with a circulation of 200,000. That was said before the Commission, at Pages 212 and 213. If Your Lordship will be good enough to look first at Page III of Document Book 16B, Your Lordships will find Document Number 4010-PS, which will become Exhibit GB-613. I am sorry, it is Page 117 of the German book.
THE PRESIDENT: And of ours?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My Lord, it is Page Ill of Your Lordship's. That is a letter from the editor of Der SA Mann to the Defendant Rosenberg. Your Lordships will see "Organ of Supreme Leadership, SA of the NSDAP" on the letter heading. It is sent to Rosenberg and it asks him for an article to commemorate their five years of independent publication and eight years of publication as a supplement to the V61kischer Beobachter. In the middle of the second paragraph Your Lordship will find the sentence, "A subscriber's list of half a million clearly shows the importance of the SA." That was on the 13th of August 1936.
THE PRESIDENT: You said "the importance of the SA." It is "the importance of the SA Mann."
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Certainly, My Lord. I beg Your Lordship's pardon; "the importance of the SA Mann."
THE PRESIDENT: Read the first two lines.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: "In a few weeks, Der SA Mann, combat publication and official organ of Supreme SA Leadership, will look back upon an existence of respectively eight and five years." My Lord, I am obliged. Then, My Lord, on Page 110, Page 116 of the German document book, there is a letter from the Defendant Rosenberg's staff: "Reichsleiter Rosenberg confirms, with his best thanks, receipt of your letter of 13 August and sends you enclosed the preface asked for." If Your Lordship will turn back another page to 109, which is Page 115 of the German document book-this becomes Exhibit GB-614-this is a letter from the editor again to the Defendant Rosenberg. Your Lordship will see on the letter heading this time: "The Press Office of the Supreme Command of the SA, Main Office of the Editor of Der SA Mann." This, My Lord, is 21 April 1938. They have now gone to ten years. There again they are asking Defendant Rosenberg for an article on the subject of the "ideology and combat paper" ("Weltanschauungs- und Kampfblatt") or something similar to it. In the next paragraph: "I do hope that you will be agreeable to our wish, and I am convinced that a contribution especially from your pen will be greeted with particular enthusiasm by our 750,000 subscribers." Your Lordship will remember the evidence that this witness gave that a few months after that, in 1939, the total membership of the SA was 1,500,000, so Der SA Mann went to one in every two. My Lord, I have already referred the Tribunal to the recommendation by the Chief of Staff, Lutze, in the training directive, D-918, of the SA Mann, and, My Lord, as I told Your Lordship, the articles appear in Document 3050-PS, which is Exhibit USA-414. There is a long list of articles that are contained in that document of a military nature, anti-Semitic nature, anti-Church nature, all of which my friend Colonel Storey put to the Tribunal. I do not intend to go over it again.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Now, My Lord, the next document which I had asked Your Lordships to look at is one of the cases of the perversion of the course of justice in the interests of the SA. It is Document Number D-923, which Your Lordship will find on Page 22 of the Document Book 16 B; that becomes GB-615. It is a long document, but I will take it very quickly and if there are any points, Your Lordship, I will be very willing to deal in detail with it. The German page is 22 also. My Lord, that is a report that appears on the top of Page 22. There are five sections which are recapitulated in the sixth. The first is a report of the Public Prosecution Provincial Court, Nuernberg-Fuerth, dated 21 August 1933, regarding the beating to death of one Pflaurner by the SA. Then, My Lord, there is a post-mortem, report. There is a report from the Public Prosecution that the Police were refusing to give evidence in the above case. "This might endanger the well-being of the Reich." As for the report from the Court of Appeal Public Prosecutor: "The Police Directorate Nuernberg-Fuerth refuse permission to Police officials to break official secrecy." Number 5, rather naively, states in the last sentence: "Police Directorate refuse permission to Police officials to break official secrecy for the trial. They also need both, of the accused"-that is the people who 'are accused of beating the man to death-"to guarantee the safety of the Party Rally Day." Then, My Lord, the next document, 6, is a report from the Defendant Frank to the Minister of State for the Interior and, My Lord, it shows that the man Pflaumer, a 29-year-old married mechanic, was beaten up at a guardhouse in August 1933, and then brought to the main Police station by the SA and died there.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: And, My Lord, on Page 23 at the top, Your Lordship will see: "The Provincial Court physician also reported that, according to his findings, Pflaumer was beaten to death in a most cruel manner and tortured with blunt objects." And two lines on, after dealing with the result of the bastinado: "The conclusion had to be drawn that the perpetrators did not cause the injuries to the ill-treated man in self-defense." And then apparently they say there is some question of doubt, but Your Lordship will see on the evidence there was no doubt that these people were concerned. Then, My Lord, the next two paragraphs , deal with political pressure against proceedings and, My Lord, there then comes a somewhat similar case in Section II. I do not want to complicate the matter. It is a separate case of three Jews beaten up by the SS. Now, My Lord, on Page 24, the Defendant Frank says in Section III: "The events described under I and II give me cause for great apprehension." He goes on to say that people are still indulging in brutality; that members of the SA-in the middle of the next paragraph: "still allow themselves to indulge in the inadmissible ill-treatment of opponents." And then, at the beginning of the paragraph after that: "The events show further that unfortunately attempts are still being made to interfere with the legal course of justice." Then the defendant points to the date of the amnesty. Then, at the beginning of the next paragraph he says: "Especially in the case of Pflaumer, I consider it an urgent necessity, in the interest of safeguarding the authority of the State and the good name of justice and the Police, to avoid even the slightest appearance that the Police are shielding this crime." Then he suggests-the last words on that page: "The misgivings of the chief of the political department of the Nuernberg-Fuerth Police Directorate can, however, be taken into consideration by the exclusion of the public during the trial. The carrying out of a trial can furthermore hardly be prevented by refusing to allow testimony.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: For, in view of the confession of the accused Korn and Stark to date, together with the results of the judicial autopsy, the trial will have to be instituted against them and carried out under any circumstances." Now, that goes on and you will see that he has requested, and the Public Prosecution are requesting, the Prime Minister to bring up the matter for discussion at the next meeting of the Council of Ministers, and to invite Roehmand Himmler. Then that is done and, My Lord, there is then a significant inquiry on Page 26 ' from Bormann, asking how the matter is going on and, My Lord, then on Page 27, Page 27 of the German-version too, Document 13 (it is one of the inserts on Page 27): "The Public Prosecution Provincial Court Niirnberg-Filrth report to -Court of Appeal Public Prosecutor, Nuemberg, that the preliminary investigation ended on 19 March 1934. The Poli ce Directorate Nuernberg-Fuerth intend to apply for the quashing of the criminal proceedings." Then, My Lord, in Document 14 that matter is discussed and that is on Pages 27 and 28. Then at the bottom of Page 28, 28 in the German version, you will find a section "Certificate of Opinion." My Lord, that says: "On mature consideration, I assent. to the suggestion of the Police Directorate. "Firstly, it should be considered whether the proceedings could not be brought to an end by cancelling prosecution of the accused. According to the result of the preliminary investigation, Korn ought accordingly to be accused in any case, while the accused Stark could be released from criminal proceedings. However, an investigation or an extension of the investigation against the persons who took part in this matter (accomplices, possible instigators, and helpers) and finally also those who favored the culprits would, according to such and such a paragraph, be indicated. "But if the proceedings were carried out in this manner, it would be unavoidable, even if the public were to be excluded from the actual trial, that the public would get to know about the events.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: This would seriously harm and impair the reputation of the SA, the Party, the Police, and even the National Socialist State." If Your Lordship would look at the bottom of Page 29, last paragraph ...
THE PRESIDENT: Before you deal with that, perhaps you ought to read the last paragraph but one on Page 27, beginning at the second sentence in that paragraph, Page 27, the penultimate paragraph.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My Lord, is that the one beginning, "Therefore..."
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, the second sentence, "As the Police forces. . ."
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: "As the Police forces available were far from sufficient, the SA Sturm for Special Use, which was stationed in Nuernberg in the old Samariter Wache at the Hallplatz Number 4, was appointed to assist the Police in these tasks. In this guardhouse the necessary identification and questionings of arrested Communists took place. The leader of this SA Unit was the then Sturmbannfuehrer (SA Major) Eugen Kom, 25 years old, unmarried, commercial employee in Nuernberg. His deputys" and so on. I am much obliged, Your Lordship. My Lord, I call Your Lordship's attention to Page 29, Page 29 of the German text. "Lastly, it may also be pointed out that this deed was committed relatively shortly after the coming into force of the amnesty decree of 2 August 1933. If it had been committed before 26 July 1933, that is only three weeks earlier, it would have been amnestied like a number of other political excesses. Since the deed did not originate in an ignoble motive, but rather served the achievement of an exceedingly patriotic N, aim and the advance of the National Socialist State, the quashing of the proceedings, also in view of the relation of the time of the deed to the above-mentioned amnesty, does not seem incompatible with the orderly administration of criminal justice. "For all these reasons it is suggested, in connection with the request of the Police Directorate, that the proceedings on account of the bodily injuries resulting in the death of the mechanic Oskar Pflaumer, as well as on account of the actions of criminal participation and complicity immediately connected with this, should be quashed." And, My Lord, in due course that is forwarded by the Defendant Frank, in the next document on Page 30 and on the top of Page 31, and Reich Governor Von Epp says: "I hereby quash the criminal proceedings." That is sent by Frank to the Court of Appeal Public Prosecutor.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: It is interesting, My Lord, and I would have referred Your Lordship to it, in view of what we have heard about isolated acts unconnected with the SA Leadership, that this man Kom was the Sturnibannfuehrer Korn who was on the staff of the Supreme SA Leadership. Now, My Lord, I did not intend to take the other ones as I hoped to be able to cut it even shorter, but there are two others which show this same perversion of justice and therefore, I submit, are important. My Lord, the next is Document Number D-936, which Your Lordships will find on Pages 51 and 52. That will be Exhibit GB-616. My Lord, that is connected with the nine members of the SA who were charged with beating up the editor of the newspaper The Lower Bavarian Peasant. My Lord, that was a Dr. Schl6gl, and The Lower Bavarian Peasant, I think, was a Bavarian People's Party paper, a sort of Catholic Party paper. -And Your Lordship will see that the proceedings are held to fall within the amnesty, but it is interesting again to see the declared motive and the connection with the leadership. If Your Lordship would look at the second paragraph for the reason for the decision of the Amtsgerichtsrat; it says: "There is no doubt, therefore, that the deeds were committed for political reasons. They were committed also to insure the success, of the National Socialist State. It may be that the destruction of the furniture was intended to serve the purpose of a house search in which previously imbibed alcohol may have played a harmful part in the manner of carrying Gut that decision. On the other hand, it may be that by the destruction of the furniture, certainly, however, by the ill-treatment, it was intended to restrain Dr. Schl6gl from further political activity. No other motive for the deeds can be found." I ask Your Lordship to note: "The Supreme SA Leadership have also examined these questions. In their letter of 14 September 1933 they announce that the SA men in question were bound to see, and did see, in the possibility of Dr.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Schl6gl forcing his way into the National Socialist movement a danger for the Movement and thus for the nation itself. Nor were the deeds committed for the purpose of personal profit or other low motives. The Supreme SA Leadership state on this point that the deed and intention of the SA men were only aimed at the well-being of the National Socialist movement. The political reason and the purity of the intention is thus beyond doubt." Now, I ask Your Lordship again to note that it is the Supreme SA Leadership. My Lord, the only other one-I hope I can take it quite quickly. Your Lordship will find in Document Book 16 A, the smaller document book, Page 9. Your Lordship may remember that my learned friend, Major Barrington, mentioned the question of the punishment of those members of the SA-1 think, My Lord, they run to some 30 or so that had been engaged in cruelties in the concentration camp of Hohenstein. My Lord, this is the report dealing with their punishment, and Your Lordship will note-and this is, in my submission, interesting-that it is dated the 5th of June 1935. My Lord, it concerns the penal proceedings against the merchant and SA Obersturmbannfuehrer Jähnichen and 22 companions-I am afraid I said 30; it is 23-for inflicting bodily injury on duty in the protective custody camp of Hohenstein in Saxony. This is a letter from Dr. Guertner to the Defendant Hess. That is, it is a top level letter from the Ministry of Justice to the Deputy of the Fuehrer. My Lord, it is Document Number 784-PS. It becomes Exhibit GB-617. 'Dr. Guertner first of all sets out the sentences that were asked for by the prosecutor. Then he sets out the sentences which were inflicted by the Supreme Court in Dresden. My Lord, I ought to have said that this is Page 9 of the English document; I think Pages 9 to 15 of the German, too.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Turning over to Page 10, which are Pages 10 and 11 of the German document, Your Lordship will see that the Minister of Justice writes: "After the proposal of the sentence, however, still before the announcement of the verdict, the president of the Criminal Division Number 12"-that is, the judge-"received the following letter from the Reich Governor of Saxony."
HERR BOEHM: I beg your pardon, Mr. President, but the document which I received neither has a Page 9 nor a Page 10. It only has a Page 7 at the most. I am, therefore, not in a position to follow the prosecutor's speech.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My Lord, I see the paging is different on Dr. B6hm's copy. This is the letter from the Reich Governor; "As I was informed, it is proposed to impose a punishment of 31/-! years of penal servitude upon the accused Standartenfuehrer Jähnichen. Without wanting to interfere in the proceedings or intending to influence you as judge in any way before the verdict is announced, I should nevertheless once more like to call your attention to the fact that the circumstances brought about by the revolution of 1933 and without doubt still taking effect up to the beginning of 1934, cannot be overlooked when pronouncing sentence. "A further point appears to me to be worth taking into consideration, namely, the fact that one cannot accuse Jähnichen of having a low character and that, above all, in Hohenstein the scum of humanity had to be dealt with. In consideration of this fact I should like to leave it to you to consider whether the misdemeanors call for such a severe punishment"-Your Lordships will note the next words-"or whether an acquittal could not be considered. "As Gauleiter of the NSDAP I consider it my duty to call attention again to the unusual circumstances." Now, My Lord, Dr. Guertner, the Minister of Justice, goes on, and this Your Lordship may well think is the most extraordinary and sinister part of it: "Moreover, the information has come to hand that the two magistrates who functioned as lay judges in the principal trial, namely Regierungsamtmann Helbig and the merchant Pesler, had been expelled from the NSDAP after the announcement of the verdict. I do not know by whom this expulsion was ordered. "Anally it has been put to the Public Prosecutor, Dr. Walther, who is a storm trooper, after the pronouncing of the verdict, by his Obersturmbannfuehrer, that he should resign from the SA." And then you may think that the Minister of Justice goes on with some extremely pertinent observations as to the impossibility of carrying on justice if this goes on.