"Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich (251 page)

23.
Freisler, “Deutscher Osten” (1941) (“All those who have proved themselves in the East will leave their mark on the judicial practice of the entire Reich. Each one who feels a calling to the higher should therefore pass through this eminent school of responsible constructive work!”).

24.
Freisler, “Das deutsche Polenstrafrecht” (1941); similarly, Drendel,
DJ
(1942): 188.

25.
Full details in von Rosen–von Hoevel, “Das Polenstatut” (1942).

26.
See. e.g., art. 2 of the Decree on the Implementation of German Penal Law of June 6, 1940 (
RGBl.
I, 844); secs. 4 and 5 of the Decree on the Administration of Justice in the Eastern Territories of September 25, 1941 (
RGBl.
I, 597 ff.); the Decree on Penal Law for Poles of December 4, 1941 (
RGBl.
I 759).

27.
See von Rosen–von Hoevel, “Das Polenstatut,” who says: “Although we have not yet finalized a Polish statute book, many special regulations exist for Poles in many legal domains.” (Von Rosen–von Hoevel was a
Regierungsrat
in the Reich Ministry of the Interior.)

28.
Ibid.

29.
See, among many others, the article by Freisler, “Psychische Grundlagen der Polengreuel” (1940).

30.
Memorandum of November 25, 1939, from the Race Policy Office of the NSDAP (Nuremberg doc. NO-3732).

31.
Drendel, “Aus der Praxis der Strafverfolgung im Warthegau” (1941). (Drendel was chief public prosecutor of Posen.)

32.
See notes 24, 29, 31 and 33.

33.
Drendel, “Aus der Praxis der Strafverfolgung im Warthegau.” See also Pungs, “Die bürgerliche Rechtspflege im Warthegau” (1941) (Pungs was head of the Chamber of the Court of Appeal, Posen); Froböß, “Zwei Jahre Justiz im Warthegau,” 2465 (Froböß was presiding judge at the Posen Court of Appeal); Tautphaeus, “Der Richter im Reichsgau Wartheland,” 2466 ff. (Tautphaeus was assistant presiding judge at the Posen Court of Appeal); Thiemann, “Anwendung und Fortbildung” (1941) (Thiemann was a public prosecutor in Posen); Fechner, “Das bürgerliche Recht in den eingegliederten Ostgebieten” (1941), 2481 ff., 2482 (Fechner was OLG-Rat [councillor of the State Superior Court] and responsible for the civil law desk at the Reich Ministry of Justice; see letter dated February 8, 1940, from Reich Ministry of Justice to Reich Ministry of the Interior, BA R 43 II/1520).

Part Two. Section 2. A. Stages in the Implementation of
Völkisch
Inequality

1.
For more details see Broszat,
Nationalsozialistische Polenpolitik
(1961), 29 ff.

2.
Cf. two decrees issued by the commander in chief of the army concerning the establishment of special courts in the occupied Polish territories, September 5, 1939 (
VOBl. Polen
, 2 f.; reproduced in
Doc. Occ.
5:40 ff., 40). Decree on Possession of Weapons of September 12, 1939 (
VO Bl. Polen
, 32, reproduced in first and second supplementary decrees dated September 21 and October 10, 1939;
VOBl. Polen
, 32, reproduced in
Doc. Occ.
5:45 ff.); decree of September 10, 1939 (
VOBl. Polen
, 8 f.).

3.
RGBl.
I 2042

4.
“News from the Reich,” June 27, 1940 (BA R 58/151).

5.
Cf. the collection of essays in
DR
(1941) (A): 2465 ff. (see part 2, section 2, introduction, note 33).

6.
Tautphaeus, “Richter im Reichsgau Wartheland” (1941).

7.
The regulation agreed literally or in general meaning with the existing Führer decrees on the incorporation of territories, according to which the principle of continued validity of local legislation was the rule (cf. art. 2 of the Law on the Reunification of Austria with the German Reich of March 13, 1938,
RGBl.
I 237; decrees issued by the Führer and Reich Chanceller on the incorporation of the Sudetenland and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia of October 1, 1938,
RGBl.
I 1331; and March 16, 1939,
RGBl.
I 485, respectively). In these areas the existing law (usually that of the Austrian statute book) was not fundamentally affected by the incorporation (Fechner, “Das bürgerliche Recht in den eingegliederten Ostgebieten” [1941]; cf. also minutes of a meeting of presiding judges and chief public prosecutors on February 10–11, 1943, in Berlin, BA R 22/4200, 51 ff.). The same is true for the General Government, where—as a matter of principle—Polish law continued to be in effect (sec. 4 of the Decree of the Führer and Reich Chancellor on the Administration of the Occupied Polish Territories, October 12, 1939,
RGBl.
I 2077).

8.
Hitler in a speech on July 30, 1932, in Kempten, quoted from Tautphaeus, “Richter im Reichsgau Wartheland”; in this sense see also Buchholz, “Zur Ostrechtspflegeverordnung” (1941); Froböß, “Zwei Jahre Justiz im Warthegau” (1941).

9.
Tautphaeus, “Richter im Reichsgau Wartheland”; Froböß, “Zwei Jahre Justiz im Warthegau”; Buchholz and Wolany, “Zum Grundstücksverkehrsrecht in den eingegliederten Ostgebieten” (1941), 682 ff.; Thiemann, “Anwendung und Fortbildung,” 2473; Buchholz, “Zur Ostrechtspflegeverordnung,” 2477. The reasoning was that international law (art. 43 of the Hague Warfare Convention, according to which, in principle, the law of the occupied territory was to be respected) was not applicable since the Eastern lands were no longer “occupied territory” but an integral part of the Reich (Froböß, “Zwei Jahre Justiz im Warthegau”; Pungs, “Die bürgerliche Rechtspflege im Warthegau” [1941]; see also part 1, section 2, introduction); cf. also verdict of the Supreme People’s Court of Poland vs. Artur Greiser, July 9, 1946 (“quod
ab initio turpe
est, non potest tractu temporis escere”), quoted from a working translation of the ZS (Az. I 110 AR 655/73). Or purely “political” arguments were used: the annulment of Polish law was justified merely on the grounds that “in many instances it had been conceived—or at least had served—as a means of opposing Germanness in the reconquered (‘
wiedergewonnene
’) territories” (Fechner, “Das bürgerliche Recht in den eingegliederten Ostgebieten”; Buchholz, “Zur Ostrechtspflegeverordnung,” 2477); the continuation of Polish law “would have destroyed the political objectives” and would only have been “seen by the Poles themselves as a sign of political weakness and the transience of German domination.” There were also practical reasons, such as ignorance of Polish law and the “impossibility” of allowing Polish judges to remain in office (Froböß, “Zwei Jahre Justiz im Warthegau”; Tautphaeus, “Richter im Reichsgau Wartheland”).

10.
Cf. Spanner, “Fragen der Verwaltung besetzter Gebiete” (1944), 96 ff. (101 ff.), which explains that the occupying power had the right to alter the political system and laws of the occupied territory as it saw fit. If this discretion existed for territories administered according to international law, it must be all the more valid for territories that—in the German view—were incorporated into the Reich.

11.
Tautphaeus (see note 6). See also Buchholz (see note 8), 2477 (exception: cases dealt with under earlier law); Buchholz and Wolany, “Zum Grundstücksverkehrsrecht in den eingegliederten Ostgebieten”; Pungs, “Die bürgerliche Rechtspflege im Warthegau,” 2491. The idea of applying German law did not arise spontaneously but had been prepared for well in advance. As early as 1935, a
Reichsgrenzausschuß
(Reich Border Committee) in the Reich Ministry of the Interior ascertained that, in all newly acquired territories, “only the will of the Reich” was to prevail (minutes of a committee meeting, November 21–22, 1935, BA R 22/5, Bl. 49–51).

12.
Froböß, “Zwei Jahre Justiz im Warthegau.”

13.
Cf., for example, a report by the
Regierungspräsident
of Hohensalza (Inowrocław) dated March 18, 1941, Bl. 17 (Posen University Library), objecting to a verdict of the
Amtsgericht
Dietfurt that commanded a
Volksdeutscher
to return a horse to its Polish owner in accordance with sec. 985 of the Civil Code. The horse had been allocated to the accused after the German invasion. The
Regierungspräsident
explained that this verdict was not an isolated instance. “It was only at my prompting that the
Reichsstatthalter
notified the courts that their standpoint would not be tolerated.” At any rate, “the overarching legal principle that ‘justice is what serves the German people as a whole, everything else is injustice’ has been completely ignored.”

14.
Tautphaeus (see note 6).

15.
Enke, “Die Rechtspflege im Volkstumskampf” (1941).

16.
Tautphaeus, “Richter im Reichsgau Wartheland,” 2467.

17.
Ibid.

18.
Cf. “News from the Reich” (BA R 58/150): “In legal circles there is a desire to see the rapid introduction of German law in the Annexed Eastern Territories.”

19.
The position of the
Reichgrenzausschuβ
in the Reich Ministry of the Interior was stated on November 21–22, 1935, recommending, on grounds of Reich security, that “in all future territorial acquisitions, German law should be introduced in an appropriate degree by legal prescription relating to each specific case” (BA R 22/5).

20.
Express letter from Reich Ministry of the Interior (signed by State Secretary Pfundtner) to the Supreme Reich Authorities, November 16, 1939 (BA R 43 II/694).

21.
Enke, “Die Rechtspflege im Volkstumskampf,” 2489. Enke was, as is apparent from the minutes of a discussion between representatives of the Party Chancellery and the Reich Ministry of Justice held on June 22, 1943,
Oberregierungsrat
in the Party Chancellery (Nuremberg doc. NG-889). His remarks can therefore be considered as representing the official Party line.

22.
Fechner, “Das bürgerliche Recht in den eingegliederten Ostgebieten,” 2482.

23.
A complete list is given in the “Supplement to the Official Gazetteer of the
Reichsstatthalter
Wartheland” (IfZ).

24.
RGBl.
I 844.

25.
RGBl.
I 587 ff.

26.
See part 1, section 2.

27.
RGBl.
I 759.

Part Two. Section 2. B. I. Principles of Substantive Special Penal Law

1.
Drendel, “Aus der Praxis der Strafverfolgung im Warthegau” (1941), 2472.

2.
More in R. Freisler, “Ein Jahr Aufbau der Rechtspflege im Reichsgau Wartheland,”
DJ
(1940): II, 1125 ff.

3.
Drendel, “Aus der Praxis der Strafverfolgung im Warthegau.”

4.
For details, cf. Klinge, “Bemerkungen zur Begriffsbildung im Polenstrafrecht” (1942), 324 f. (325); Thiemann, “Anwendung und Fortbildung” (1941), 2473.

5.
More in Freisler, “Ein Jahr Aufbau der Rechtspflege im Reichsgau Wartheland,” 1126.

6.
Official Gazetteer of Poland, p. 2 (reproduced in
Doc. Occ.
5:40 ff., 44).

7.
Thiemann, “Anwendung und Fortbildung,” 2473.

8.
Beurmann, in “Das Sondergericht Danzig,”
DR
(1942) (B): 77 ff. (78), also assumes that the decree of September 5, 1939, would continue in force.

9.
Drendel, “Aus der Praxis der Strafverfolgung im Warthegau,” 2472.

10.
Thiemann, “Anwendung und Fortbildung,” 2474.

11.
VOBl. Polen
, 24, reproduced in
Doc. Occ.
5:48; the decree was considered still effective, even after October 26, 1939 (Beurmann, see note 8).

12.
Beurmann (see note 8).

13.
Letter from the staff of the deputy Führer to the
Gauleitung
Wartheland of the NSDAP, February 24, 1941 (Institute for Western Studies, Pozna
, Doc., I-1; unsigned; reproduced in
Doc. Occ.
5:335).

14.
On the same lines, legally binding sentences by Polish courts against
Volksdeutsche
were carried out only in extreme cases; in most cases, they were not carried out because “the motive for the wrongdoing … [was] the economic hardship resulting from the political situation of the time” (cf. report of the Reich Ministry of Justice to the deputy Führer on November 28, 1940, BA R 22/848). Regarding the incorporated territories of Silesia, the chief public prosecutor of Breslau (Wrocław) reported that he knew of no “untoward occurrences” (
Unzuträglichkeiten
) resulting from the execution of sentences passed by Polish courts against
Volksdeutsche
(BA R 22/848).

15.
More in Freisler, “Ein Jahr Aufbau der Rechtspflege im Reichsgau Wartheland.”

16.
The text of sec. 125 of the Penal Code at that time was: “When a crowd of people gang together in public and join forces in acts of violence against persons or property, each individual perpetrator of this mob violence shall be punished with prison sentences of no less than three months for breach of the peace. The ringleaders and anybody perpetrating acts of violence against persons or guilty of plundering, damaging, or destroying property will be punished with up to ten years in a penitentiary; also the admissibility of police supervision can be recognized. If there are mitigating circumstances, a prison sentence of no less than six months will be passed.”