Trials of war criminals before the Nuernberg military tribunals under control council law no. 10, volume IIIVarious
History
Trials of war criminals before the Nuernberg military tribunals under control council law no. 10, volume III
Various
Nuremberg Trial of Major German War Criminals, Nuremberg, Germany, 1945-1946; War crime trials -- Germany -- Nuremberg
Regarding the carrying-out of sentences we will deal with the legal
provisions and the regulations applicable in penal institutions. The
defense will prove that no crimes against humanity were committed in
penal institutions of justice by its officials with the exception
of occasional violations which are unavoidable even under the best
directions. The rules of the strict legal provisions of the German
Penal Law against the ill-treatment of prisoners will emphasize this
point. The cases mentioned which date from the last days before the
collapse offer, as a singular sign of that moment, no basis for a
general judgment of the German execution of punishment and will be
referred to as each individual case comes up.
The action of the Spruchrichter dealt with in the indictment and
the charges raised in this connection will bring the legal position
of the German judge up for discussion. We shall see the judge as an
independent official who is not bound to directives but only to the
law. We will discuss the positivism of the German interpretation of
law. We will deal with the prosecution’s charges arising from the
directing regulations. We will show that they are merely a reference
to the motive and aims of the law in question, and that they, to
some extent, give a clear conception of the policy of the legislator
regarding crime. They are a clue to the way in which the legislator
imagines punishment should be awarded by the judge. They are in no case
a general directive or a directive pertaining to an individual case.
In dealing with the position of the public prosecutors we will refer
to the principle of legality which is laid down by law, and according
to which the public prosecutor was bound to prefer a charge as soon as
there was sufficient suspicion that the criminal facts as laid down in
a legal provision existed.
In conclusion the defense will also deal with the legal questions,
arising from Control Council Law No. 10 itself. We know that the
Tribunal has been called together in order to pass judgment on the
basis of this law.
On the basis of this actual fact and in compliance therewith, we will
for practical reasons refrain from repeating the relevant objections
already raised in the proceedings before the IMT and other proceedings
before similar Tribunals in session. On account of these considerations
we will restrict ourselves to the real legal questions as to whether
an indictment is permissible from the point of view of conspiracy in
war crimes and crimes against humanity of Control Council Law No.
10. In this respect my colleague, Dr. Haensel, will provide detailed
statements hereon in due course.
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