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
In order to be able to judge correctly the activity of my client in the
Party Chancellery, I consider it my duty to describe first of all the
sphere of work and problems with which the Chancellery itself had to
deal. This seems to me all the more necessary, as evidently completely
false ideas of this organization are prevalent. I shall therefore
have to show that by reason of legal regulations the latter had to
take part in all the legislative and administrative work done by the
Ministry of Justice and that it was not simply an office that carried
out tasks concerned purely with Party politics. In the constitutional
structure of the Third Reich, the Party Chancellery had to perform
public functions. I may already at this point draw the attention of
the Tribunal to the fact that my client is not affected by count four
of the indictment, in spite of the fact that he was employed in the
Chancellery of the Party. It is indeed a significant indication that
the prosecution has formed an incorrect view of the Party Chancellery,
if an official could be employed there who did _not_ belong to the
corps of leaders of the Party.
An explanation of the bureaucratic structure of the Party cannot
be avoided; its division into separate departments and groups will
have to be described. The defendant Klemm was at the head of only
a subordinate group in the Party Chancellery. Its number was IIIc.
I would ask the Tribunal to be so good as to take due note of this
number IIIc in my speech for the defense, so far as the latter is
concerned with the Party Chancellery, and also when I come to explain
the documents relative to the Party Chancellery. My client was
employed exclusively in this legal group. This outward sign alone is
an important circumstance to be considered in arriving at a correct
estimate of the work of my client. The special task of this Group IIIc
was to deal with all matters which affected law, codification, and the
administrative work of the Ministry of Justice. The officials in this
legal group remained, as did Klemm also, officials of the Ministry
of Justice; they were merely delegated by that ministry. They also
therefore represented in the Party Chancellery the idea of justice and
the concerns of _their own_ ministry. Whenever different questions
were raised in Group IIIc, for example, questions as to the legal
disposition of the affairs of foreign peoples, a different department
or group of the Party Chancellery dealt officially with and decided
upon the matter. Owing to this restriction of the field of their work
the legal group could only raise objections against the treatment of
any matter in another department if formal questions were handled. The
legal group had no right of appeal if a matter had been decided on
principle by other groups. Thus, it will be shown that the decree about
penal law with regard to Poles was not dealt with or decided upon in
Klemm’s legal group but in Group IIIa of the Party Chancellery, which
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