At this moment I should like to point out the case to which the prosecution referred concerning notaries and their hostile attitude to the Party. They demonstrated it so obviously that when I came to hear of it in my official capacity I could not form a proper opinion on it. If I had tried to suppress those cases it would have been unavoidable that the Party would interfere, which definitely would have claimed that the notaries had violated their duty of allegiance toward the State and the head of the State. Perhaps the Party would have welcomed it, because such opposition would have been a welcome cause to discredit the administration of justice and to jeopardize my personnel policy, on which depended the fate of many officials. DR. KUBUSCHOK: The witness has referred to the case of the notaries which, under Document NG-901, Prosecution Exhibit 436,[159] was submitted by the prosecution. PRESIDING JUDGE BRAND: What was the exhibit number? DR. KUBUSCHOK: Exhibit 436. The prosecution refers to your lecture held at Rostock University in 1936.[160] That lecture is compared as to its aim with a speech by Reich Jurist Leader Frank, and the prosecution sees in it an avowal of national socialism. Please give us some explanations about that speech. DEFENDANT SCHLEGELBERGER: Counsel, you have pointed out that that speech was made in 1936. Before I discuss the details about that speech I should like to say a few words as to how, at that time, one was able at all to discuss political questions in public. It wasn’t that way that, when National Socialist quarters laid down program points, one was allowed to make a frontal attack. I ignore altogether the point of personal danger that might have arisen for an opponent. I would not have fought shy of that danger, because a person who held the office which I held was in daily danger. However, such a frontal attack would have resulted in the opposite of what I wanted to achieve, that is an increase of the opposition against reasonableness. One had to look for opportunities which one could use, and for example, the locality had something to do with that. I chose the university for the place of my speech, and that had a decisive influence on my audience. I had to see to it that the National Socialist ideas which I wished to attack were beaten with their own weapons. The actual reason for my speech was the fact that Freisler again and again, before the public, pointed out that the Party program was enforceable like law and was at least the framework of the law. Therefore, one was obliged to carry out that program immediately and completely.