Trials of war criminals before the Nuernberg military tribunals under control council law no. 10, volume IVarious
Philosophy
Trials of war criminals before the Nuernberg military tribunals under control council law no. 10, volume I
Various
Nuremberg Trial of Major German War Criminals, Nuremberg, Germany, 1945-1946; War crime trials -- Germany -- Nuremberg
Apart from these obscurities one has to regard the statement of the
witness Vieweg with the greatest reserve for another reason. Vieweg is
the witness who, with unusual unscrupulousness, committed plain perjury
in the sessions of 13 and 16 December 1946. He tried first (_German Tr.
p. 474_) to give the impression that he had been sent to the
concentration camp without any reason, that he had been committed for
“political protective security”. This representation of the witness
Vieweg is completely in accordance with his previous behavior, because
formerly he had generally pretended to be politically persecuted—an
innocent man who had been thrown into a concentration camp without ever
having learned the reason. Under this false pretense he offered himself
as witness for this trial, and because of this misrepresentation he was
presented as a witness by the prosecution whom he had deceived. However,
during cross-examination, Vieweg had to admit that in 1934 he was
sentenced to 4 and to 6 years’ penal servitude for forgery of documents
and fraud, that is to say for common crimes which, as a rule, have
nothing to do with politics. On repeated questioning the witness Vieweg
stated again and again (_German Tr. pp. 483 ff._) that he could not
remember having received any other previous conviction in addition to
those 4 and 6 years’ penal servitude. He insisted on this statement,
even though he had been repeatedly reminded that he was under oath. His
stereotype phrase was, he could not remember; he even emphasized that he
had deposed to this or that under oath (_German Tr. p. 484_), and he
continued to insist on his statement, even though he was told that his
previous convictions could be determined without difficulty since his
files had been sent for.
Now, let us compare the testimony given under oath with the list of
convictions of the witness Vieweg, which was submitted as Document Ruff
24.
Besides the 4 and 6 years of penal servitude which he admitted, the
witness Vieweg received in reality not less than 6 prison terms prior to
1934, among them 5 years’ penal servitude and 5 years’ loss of civil
rights for repeated grave thefts.
This extract from the penal register shows why the witness Vieweg had
such a “bad memory”. He never was politically persecuted, as he
pretended to be, but he is the type of incorrigible professional
criminal who could not be changed or educated even by the most severe
penalty. If anybody deserved to be sent to a concentration camp it was
this Vieweg. But even the 5 years he spent in the concentration camp did
not help. For now he is again in prison, in Bamberg, where charges were
brought against him on 5 March 1947 at the District Court for forgery of
documents and fraud, as well as for five cases of repeated theft, for
attempted abortion, for active bribery, and for black market dealings.
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