"Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich (261 page)

71.
See the letter of February 16, 1942, from the presiding judge of the Posen Court of Appeal, State Archive Pozna
,
Landgericht
Posen 14, B1. 185 f.

72.
The official statistics give only absolute figures, no classification by group of offense or perpetrator. Up to May 1942, a total of some 60,000 criminal cases were on record, about 30,000 of which reached adjudication; cf. the report of the Wartheland justice administration (undated, c. May 1942, State Archive Pozna
,
Reichsstatthalter
896, B1. 126); in 1943, 84,000 investigation proceedings were pending in the Warthegau; of these, some 12,000 gave rise to a charge, 21,000 to a penal order, and 35,000 to no action. The special courts dealt with 2,262 charges (Greiser,
Der Tag der Freiheit,
28 ff.). In 1944, 73,400 investigation proceedings were pending, including some 25,000 against Germans and 47,000 against Poles. Sixty-eight thousand proceedings were concluded, 18,500 in the form of penal orders, of which 15,000 were written against Poles. Of the 7,500 charges, 4,700 were directed against Poles; 1,300 charges were brought before the special court (Greiser,
Der groβe Rechenschaftsbericht,
32).

73.
The execution lists were to be submitted in monthly reports to the Reich Ministry of Justice by the chief public prosecutors with a brief description of the facts of the case from 1942 on; further, the decision of the Reich governor (
Oberpräsident
) regarding a pardon was to be reported in each individual case in which a death sentence was pronounced (BA R 22/1320, 1321; excerpts also in BA R 22/3358, book 5). The execution lists were established by the Reich Ministry of Justice on the basis of these documents. Situation report of June 29, 1942, by the presiding judge of the Königsberg Court of Appeal (BA R 22/3375). According to the official figures, the administrative district of Zichenau had a population of 842,819 in 1940 (figures from
Die Ostgebiete des Deutschen Reiches und des Generalgouvernements
[Berlin-Dahlem, 1940], ZS). Dr. Alfred Funk, presiding judge of the district court, was born in Königsberg in 1897. He had held a post in the judiciary since 1927 and in 1939 was appointed head of the Chamber of the Court of Appeal in Königsberg and then commissar for the transfer of the administration of justice for the Memel district at the Memel District Court; in 1943 he was appointed presiding judge of the District Court in Zichenau. Finally Funk became head of the Central Department of Justice of the Reich Commissariat for the Ukraine and head of the German Superior Court in Rowno, Ukraine. He was a long-standing Party member and climbed to the rank of SA-
Oberführer
. He was killed by partisans in the vicinity of Rowno on November 16, 1943. Reich Commissar Erich Koch described him as one of his “most trustworthy and conscientious officers” (from Funk’s obituary notice in
DJ
[1943]: 568).

74.
Execution lists of the Reich governor (chief public prosecutor), Wartheland (BA R 22/1321).

75.
Report of February 8, 1942, from the chief public prosecutor, Posen, to the Reich Ministry of Justice (Nuremberg doc. NG-360).

76.
Execution lists (BA R 22/1321). The number of death sentences
pronounced
is somewhat higher, since the lists contained only cases in which the Reich governor had refused a pardon, even though he made very rare use of the pardon.

77.
Almost all these death sentences were from the Zichenau Special Court, mostly for unlawful slaughtering (execution lists of the Königsberg chief public prosecutor, BA R 22/1320). See also his situation report of August 1943 (BA R 22/3375).

78.
Situation report of June 29, 1942, by the presiding judge of the Königsberg Court of Appeal (BA R 22/3375).

79.
Execution lists of the Danzig chief public prosecutor (BA R 22/1320).

80.
Execution lists of the chief public prosecutor, Posen (BA R 22/1321); of the chief public prosecutor, Königsberg (BA R 22/1320, 1321); of the chief public prosecutor, Danzig (BA R 22/1320); of the chief public prosecutor, Kattowitz (BA R 22/1320, 1321) (but only 21 death sentences, according to the list in Nuremberg doc. NG-309). The relatively low figures are, however, also due to the fact that the police (Gestapo) increasingly appropriated the administration of justice for “aliens” for itself from mid-1942 at the latest; see part 2, section 2, excursus.

81.
Greiser,
Der groβe Rechenschaftsbericht
, 32. Execution lists of the chief public prosecutor, Posen (BA R 22/1321); of the chief public prosecutor, Königsberg; of the chief public prosecutor, Danzig; of the chief public prosecutor, Kattowitz (BA R 22/1320, 1321).

82.
See also the statistical report by the Wartheland Reich governor, according to which 555 of the 589 death sentences pronounced in 1942 were against Poles (94.2%), and 34 against Germans (5.8%) (Greiser,
Der Tag der Freiheit
, 29).

83.
Ibid. According to Greiser, 569 death sentences were passed in the Eastern Territories and 566 (including 34 against Germans) executed. Reich criminal statistics, 1942, Nuremberg doc. NG-767 (2,199 pronounced, including 930 under the Decree on Penal Law for Poles). Contribution by Reich Minister of Justice Thierack to the internal information service
Die Lage
, on “administration of penal justice in the fifth year of the war,” August 1944 (Nuremberg doc. NG-252) and September 1944 (BA R 22/4003); total death sentences in 1942: 3,360, including 894 in Eastern Territories.

84.
Führerinformationen
of July 23, September 9, and November 17, 1942; and January 15, 1943 (BA R 22/4089). Figures also found in Schorn,
Der Richter im Dritten Reich
(1959), 942.

85.
BA R 22/1320, 1321.

86.
Ibid.

87.
Criticism was directed above all against decisions of the regular courts; see the situation report of January 8, 1941, by the presiding judge of the Danzig Court of Appeal (BA R 22/3360); disapproval was also expressed regarding decisions against Reich Germans and ethnic Germans for criminal acts against Poles; see, for example, the situation report of September 10, 1940, by the presiding judge of the Danzig Court of Appeal and that of the presiding judge of the Bromberg District Court to the presiding judge of the Danzig Court of Appeal of February 10, 1941 (ibid.). Quotation in situation report of April 16, 1942, by the chief public prosecutor of Königsberg (BA R 22/3375); also the situation report of March 10, 1942, by the presiding judge of the Court of Appeal, Danzig (BA R 22/3360) (“a useful basis in the fight against Polish law-breakers”); and that of July 25, 1942, by the Posen chief public prosecutor (BA R 22/850) (“a considerable improvement”).

88.
Situation report of May 4, 1942. Situation report of November 26, 1942 (BA R 22/3375); in East Prussia about one judge in four (61 of a total of 246) was over 60 years old; according to the presiding judge of the court of appeal, it was difficult to eliminate superannuated and “otherwise unsuitable people” on account of the personnel situation (p. 2 of the report of November 26, 1942, ibid.).

89.
Situation report of March 8, 1941, by the presiding judge of the Danzig Court of Appeal (BA R 22/3360).

90.
Situation report of July 25, 1942 (BA R 22/3383).

91.
Ibid., Bl. 12.

Part Two. Section 2. Excursus: Encroachment upon the Jurisdiction of the Judiciary

1.
RGBl.
I 295.

2.
Sec. 2 of the Implementing Order of January 16, 1942, to the Decree of the Führer and Reich Chancellor on the Position of the Head of the Party Chancellery (
RGBl.
I 35); even before this, the cooperation of the Party in the legislation was essential: no intended legislation could be enacted without its consent.

3.
Letter of April 22, 1942; see also the position statement of the Reich Ministry of Justice to the RFSSuChddtPol, June 13, 1942 (BA R 22/851).

4.
Letter of April 17, 1941, from the Reich Ministry of Justice to the RMuChdRkzlei (BA R 22/1549).

5.
Letter of November 20, 1940, to the RMuChdRkzlei (ibid.; also available as Nuremberg doc. NG-227).

6.
RGBl.
I 844.

7.
Letter of October 9, 1940, from the head of the Security Police and the Security Service to the Reich Ministry of Justice (BA R 43 II/1549).

8.
Letter of November 20, 1940 (see note 5 above).

9.
See the letter of February 16, 1942, from the presiding judge of the Posen (Pozna
) Court of Appeal to the Posen Reich governor (State Archive Pozna
,
Landgericht
Posen 14, Bl. 185–86); and part 2, section 2, B, III (“The Elaboration of Special Law by the Courts”), notes 69 and 70 above.

10.
Broszat,
Nationalsozialistische Polenpolitik
(1961), 41 ff.

11.
Such “programs” included, for example, the instruction of October 30, 1939, by Himmler, ordering that “all Jews” from Danzig–West Prussia, all “congress Poles,” the “leading anti-German Poles,” and the Polish intelligentsia of Danzig and the Warthegau be “resettled” from the new Eastern Territories by February 1940 (instruction of November 30, 1939, no. 1/II, by the RKF, BA R 49/2, also Nuremberg doc. NG-5586). Full details in Broszat,
Nationalsozialistische Polenpolitik
, 84 ff.; and Łuczak,
Wysziedlenia Ludno
ci Polskiej
(1969) (
Doc. Occ.
8).