"Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich (265 page)

57.
Situation report of October 1, 1941, by the chief public prosecutor of Posen (BA R 22/3383).

58.
Full details in Broszat,
Nationalsozialistische Polenpolitik
, 134 ff.

59.
RGBl.
I 759.

60.
See the letter of January 9, 1941, from the presiding judge of the Posen Court of Appeal to the Reich Ministry of Justice (BA R 22/850).

61.
See the letter of May 16, 1941, from the head of the Security Police and the Security Service (signed Heydrich) to the RMuChdRkzlei (BA R 43 II/1549). Letter of June 7, 1941, from the Reich Ministry of Justice (State Secretary Freisler) to the RMuChdRkzlei (no answer exists) and of June 24, 1941, to the Wartheland Reich governor (ibid.; also as Nuremberg doc. NG-135).

62.
Letter of July 8, 1943, from the RFSS to the head of the Party Chancellery (Nuremberg doc. NG-2718).

63.
The regulation was worded, “They [the authorities and officials of the Police and Security Service] are to send their reports immediately to the public prosecutor’s office.”

64.
Full overview of these practices in the situation report of September 25, 1943, by the Posen chief public prosecutor (BA R 22/3383).

65.
Cf., for example, the instruction of February 18, 1941, by the Posen Gestapo headquarters to the
Landräte
of the administrative district of Posen (State Archive Pozna
, Landsratsamt Grätz 30, Bl. 29).

66.
Situation report of April 16, 1942, by the Königsberg chief public prosecutor (BA R 22/3375).

67.
Situation report of April 13, 1942, by the Posen chief public prosecutor (BA R 22/3383). Situation report of August 11, 1942, by the Königsberg chief public prosecutor (BA R 22/3375).

68.
Report of May 10, 1941, from the presiding judge of the Bromberg District Court to the presiding judge of the Danzig Court of Appeal (BA R 22/3360).

69.
Thus, the gendarmerie of Wollstein reported the public execution of fifteen hostages in the village of Tuchorza near Wollstein as retribution for the killing of an auxiliary gendarme on July 9, 1942 (State Archive Pozna
, Gendarmerie Kreis Wollstein 4, Bl. 83, and the District Commission for the Investigation of Hitlerian Crimes in Posen, Koppe archives with commentary by Prof. Pospieszalski, 1966); see also the memorandum of November 17, 1942, by the Posen Criminal Police on the handing over to the Gestapo of a Pole (who was fit for “extermination”) for court-martial on account of an economic offense (State Archive Pozna
, Kriminalpolizei Posen 16, Bl. 65). In Upper Silesia the practice was “simply to hang” criminals (situation report of January 3, 1942, by the chief public prosecutor of Kattowitz, BA R 22/3372).

70.
Notification of April 13, 1942 (Main Commission Warsaw, Plakatsammlung XIV, 103 t/5, in German and Polish).

71.
BA R 22/3372.

72.
Verordnungsblatt des Reichsstatthalters im Wartheland
, no. 26 (1942): 282.

73.
Clause 4 of the decree of August 3, 1942 (ibid.).

74.
Closing speech, quoted from a working translation at the ZS (Az I 110 AR 655/73).

75.
See the minutes of a meeting of the chief presiding judges on September 29, 1942, in Berlin (BA R 22/4199), according to which an unnamed participant, designated XXX (perhaps the presiding judge of the Posen Court of Appeal?) informed the meeting that there were still no courts-martial in the Warthegau because the Reich governor did not want to make use of them. However, he continued, the Gestapo carried out numerous executions of hostages.

76.
Nuremberg doc. PS-1249. The establishment of the courts-martial is also announced in the situation report of August 3, 1942, 4 f., by the chief public prosecutor of Kattowitz (BA R 22/3372).

77.
BA R 22/3372; also in the situation report (ibid., Bl. 21).

78.
The catalog contained in the instruction of June 1, 1942 (ibid.), included treason and high treason; resistance against state authority; offenses against the public order; false coinage; sexual offenses against Germans; homicide against Germans; bodily harm against Germans; crimes against personal freedom; theft and embezzlement; robbery and blackmail; abetment and dealing in stolen goods; fraud and perfidy; damage to property; criminal actions against or to the disadvantage of Germans; malicious acts; radio offenses; economic crimes; offenses against the Venereal Diseases Law of February 18, 1927, insofar as the act is directed against Germans; crimes with explosives; and violations of the weapons regulations. According to the situation report of July 3, 1942, by the chief public prosecutor of Kattowitz (ibid.), this list was not even exhaustive but served only as a directive providing examples. The offenses mentioned could also lead to deletion from the German Ethnic Classification List, so that the perpetrator was treated as a Pole. According to the attached recipient list, only the general administrative authorities and the police, but
not
the judiciary authorities, received a copy of this instruction. The decree of June 1, 1942, which spoke only of “serious criminal acts,” was sent to all army and Party offices, all offices of the Security Service, the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of German Nationhood, the relevant chief public prosecutor, but
not
the relevant presiding judge of the court of appeal.

79.
According to the situation report of August 6, 1942, by the chief public prosecutor of Kattowitz (BA R 22/3372), information from the
Oberpräsident
and Gauleiter of Upper Silesia put this percentage at only 6–7% of cases.

80.
Situation report of September 3, 1942, by the chief public prosecutor of Kattowitz (BA R 22/3372). See also the secret report dated December 3, 1941, from the presiding judge of the Court of Appeal and chief public prosecutor of Kattowitz to the Reich Ministry of Justice (Nuremberg doc. PS-674).

81.
Quoted from the situation report of November 26, 1942, by the presiding judge of the Court of Appeal, Königsberg (BA R 22/3375).

82.
Ibid.

83.
Report by an unnamed speaker, designated by the letters NNNN (presiding judge of the Danzig Court of Appeal?) at the meeting of chief presiding judges in Berlin on September 29, 1942 (minutes in BA R 22/4199).

84.
Minutes (ibid.).

85.
According to instructions dated March 11, 1943, from the Reich Security Main Office (promulgated via circulars of April 21, 1943 [Nuremberg doc. PS-701; also ZS, Ordner 225 a G.J. No. 96] and March 11, 1944 [Institute for Western Studies, Pozna
, doc I-37, reproduced in
Doc. Occ.
5:346]), these Poles were also to be sent to a concentration camp “for the duration of the war.”

86.
Situation report of May 31, 1943, by the chief public prosecutor, Posen (BA R 22/3383).

87.
More details in part 2, section 1 (Reich), excursus, 1 (“The Influence of the Party”); regarding the penal competence of the police, see also the letter of September 8, 1943, from the Reich governor of Posen to the Reich Ministry of Justice (BA R 22/850).

88.
See also full details in the minutes of the meeting of chief public prosecutors and presiding judges of the courts of appeal in Berlin, February 10–11, 1943 (BA R 22/4200).

89.
Statements by Thierack at the meeting of chief presiding judges in Berlin, September 29, 1942 (minutes in BA R 22/4199): the judiciary had done a “good political job” in Danzig–West Prussia. Polish affairs occupied 75% of all discussions among judges and constituted the main part of the supervisory activity of the presiding judges of the district courts.

90.
Situation reports of January 3, August 6, and September 3, 1942, by the chief public prosecutor of Kattowitz (BA R 22/3372); situation reports of February 19 and April 16, 1942, and January 31, 1943, 23 ff., by the chief public prosecutor of Königsberg; situation report of November 26, 1942, by the presiding judge of the Königsberg Court of Appeal (BA R 22/3375); report of July 2, 1941, by the chief public prosecutor of Posen to the Reich Ministry of Justice (BA R 22/1463); situation reports of August 14, 1942, and May 31, 1943, by the chief public prosecutor of Posen, whereas that of September 25, 1943, contains the following (all three reports are in BA R 22/3383):

There is reason to believe that the police bureaus of the public prosecutor do not pass on all cases that laws and decrees oblige them to. A Stapo station of the district makes no secret of first checking whether the most important political and other penal cases cannot be dealt with by a court-martial or police measures and passes only such cases on to the public prosecutor as
it
thinks appropriate…. There are even
Landrat
offices that have received such instructions from the State Police. Furthermore, I have been informed in confidence that similar instructions by the present minister of the interior [i.e., Himmler, who had taken over the post as Frick’s successor] exist, about which the judiciary is to know nothing. (p. 2)

In this context, see also the situation report of January 26, 1944, by the chief public prosecutor of Posen (BA R 22/3385): “Apart from this [not passing on investigation cases to the public prosecutor],” cooperation between the judiciary and the Party and State is “not only without friction, but is comradely” (p. 5).

91.
It may be presumed here that the justice authorities had cognizance of only a fraction of the arbitrary operations of the police. For example: situation report of April 27, 1940, by the chief public prosecutor of Posen (difficulties in prosecuting on account of unilateral action on the part of the police, which “is able to curtail freedom in a considerable measure on its own authority,” BA R 22/3383); similarly, the situation report of October 1, 1941 (ibid.); the situation report of May 30, 1940, by the chief public prosecutor of Danzig states that in addition to evacuations, internments, and the sudden searching of entire apartment houses, the shooting of hostages had helped “to suppress any Polish intentions to attack” and thus “to calm the situation” (BA R 22/3360); situation report of October 11, 1940 (11 f.), by the chief public prosecutor of Königsberg (BA R 22/3375), reporting on the public execution of Poles (twenty in Makow, four in Schirpo) as “preventive measures” against “restiveness,” about which all authorities except the judiciary had been informed. In Zichenau the Gestapo had refused all information and indicated the next higher authority, adding, however, that there had been absolutely no signs of “restiveness.” Situation report of November 25, 1940 (BA R 22/3360), on the public execution of hostages in Lipno and (at the order of the
Reichsführer
-SS) in Tuchel as reprisals for attacks on German officials. See also the secret report of December 3, 1941, by the presiding judge of the court of appeal and chief public prosecutor of Kattowitz to the Reich Ministry of Justice regarding the summary execution by the Gestapo of persons suspected of belonging to the resistance movement (Nuremberg doc. PS-647).