"Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich (224 page)

7.
Ibid.

8.
Accreditation was granted by the district chief with prior approval from the head of the Department of Justice in the district administration—or so was the practice in the Warsaw District; all other “noncertified” Jewish lawyers (practically all of them) had to close their offices (
Krakauer Zeitung
May 1–2, 1940). The names of accredited “advocates” were made public by means of notices posted on all law courts (
Krakauer Zeitung
, April 9, 1940). Strict standards were necessary because “among the Polish advocates … are to be found the strongest opponents of
Deutschtum
” (report of the Department of Justice in the Warsaw District, March 1940, Main Commission Warsaw, Archive, Regierung des General Government/Hauptabteilung Justiz V/87).

9.
Cf. the item in the
Krakauer Zeitung
on the “purge” among lawyers in the Warsaw District, May 1–2, 1940. According to the
News from the Reich
, May 16, 1940, 1,400 Polish lawyers applied (
after
the purge) for reaccreditation; 718 of the applications were granted (BA R 58/184).

10.
Instruction from the Central Department of Justice issued on August 8, 1941; they were also to be referred to as advocates on letterheads, nameplates, etc. (Main Commission Warsaw, Archive, government of the General Government/Central Department of Justice V/6).

11.
Krakauer Zeitung
, May 1–2, 1940. “Of 2,237 lawyers in Warsaw, more than 1,000 were Jews” (
Krakauer Zeitung
, April 9, 1940).

12.
Discussion on September 5, 1940 (“Diensttagebuch,” 1940, vol. 3; BA R 52 II/178).

13.
In a progress report of the head of the Department of Justice in the office of the Warsaw district chief (signed Brehm) for March 1940, it is stated that “the former
Anwaltsbeirat
(Lawyer’s Advisory Board) used an application by the Jewish community for accreditation of Jewish lawyers to present a lengthy ‘expertise’ that maintains that the … exclusion of Jewish lawyers is legally inadmissible. This attack on the measures of the German administration prompted the immediate and necessary response: a number of lawyers were arrested in the recent round-up of members of the Polish intelligentsia ordered by the Security Service” (Main Commission Warsaw, Archive, government of the General Government/Central Department of Justice V/6).

14.
News from the Reich
, March 16, 1940. An advisory board set up to look into the problem of the accreditation of Jewish lawyers reportedly maintains the view—on behalf of all Polish lawyers—that Jewish lawyers should also receive accreditation. In fact the situation is quite different: the views of the 718 Polish lawyers (among 1,400 applicants) granted accreditation by the German authorities—expressed subsequent to receiving their certificates (in other words, effectively ruling out “the exertion of pressure to declare one way or the other beforehand “)—were as follows: 10 were for unconditional and 83 for conditional accreditation, whereas 625 advocated the exclusion of Jewish lawyers, expressing “their gratitude for the nonaccreditation of Jews” (BA R 58/184). [This result was inevitable since the Nazi authorities had given credentials only to politically reliable lawyers—Author.]

15.
Expert evidence given by Dr. Josef Owsi
ski, Kraków, in the case of Dr. Josef Walbaum, January 17, 1948 (ZS, Ordner 21). (Walbaum was head of the Office of Health). For further details on the healthcare system in the General Government, see K. M. Pospieszalski, Słu
ba zdrowia,
Doc. Occ
. 6:299 ff., with numerous examples.

16.
Hagen thereby made a bitter enemy in HSSPF Friedrich Wilhelm Krüger (letter HSSPF Kraków to SS-
Standartenführer
Max Sollmann, Munich, December 30, 1942; Nuremberg doc., NO-943); the case went as far as to receive the Führer’s personal attention, following a letter to Hitler from Dr. Wilhelm Hagen on December 7, 1942 protesting the planned slaughter of 70,000 Polish people—elderly and children—as part of the “resettlement in the East” on the grounds that, in racial terms, the Poles were “closely associated” with
Deutschtum
(letter from NSDAP-
Reichsleitung
to HSSPF Kraków on January 28, 1943; Institute for Western Studies, Pozna
, doc. I-773). Called upon to state their position, the responsible Department of Population Affairs and Welfare demanded the strongest possible action against Hagen; it was merely a question of Poles infected with tuberculosis, for whom no “special welfare measures” were necessary, unless such measures were in Germany’s interest (correspondence, ibid.). Hagen was dismissed as a result of pressure from the Department (letter from Weyrauch, head of the department, to HSSPF Kraków, February 4, 1943, and letter from HSSPF Kraków to
Reichsführer
-SS with enclosed details of all proceedings against Dr. Hagen of February 17, 1943, ibid.).

17.
According to a letter from the
Reichsführer
-SS to the Reich Chief Health Officer, Dr. Leonardo Conti, dated March 29, 1943, Dr. Hagen was to be committed to a concentration camp; however, Dr. Conti was able to prevent this by means of an emergency order committing Dr. Hagen to compulsory service (letter from the Reich Chief Health Officer to RFSS on March 31, 1943); both letters in Institute for Western Studies, Pozna
, doc. I-773.

18.
Decree on the Deployment of Doctors and Other Healthcare Workers, July 24, 1943 (
VBl.GG
[1943]: 395 ff.), which superseded a corresponding decree on the deployment of doctors issued on September 24, 1942 (
VBl.GG
[1942]: 550).

19.
Of the 8,527 doctors practicing in 1942 in the General Government (4,368 general practitioners and 4,959 specialists), 2,400 (approx. 28%) were Jews (
Gesundheit und Leben
[the official organ of the Chamber of Health in the General Government], 1942, no. 37, 552; University Library, Warsaw, Sign. 032991).

20.
“Report on the Development of the General Government,” July 1, 1940, 2:222 f. (BA R 52 II/249).

21.
Expert evidence given by Dr. Nüssenfeld on January 22, 1948, and statement by Dr. Alexander Biberstein concerning the Walbaum case on January 20, 1948 (ZS, Ordner 21).

22.
“Report on the Development of the General Government” (BA R 52 II/247).

23.
Monthly report,
Kreishauptmann
Sochaczew (Warsaw District), for January 1941 (ZS, Polen 347, 356 ff.); monthly report, Warsaw District, for June 1941 (442 f.); monthly report,
Kreishauptmann
Siedlce, for January 1942 (348, 796 ff.).

Part One. Section 3. C. IV. 2. Labor Law

1.
Confidential note by Bormann on a conversation with Hitler about the character of the General Government, October 2, 1940 (reproduced in
Doc. Occ
. 6:31 ff.). Among Hitler’s comments referred to in this note was the following: “The General Government is our reservoir of unskilled labor … one cannot expect more of the Slavs … than is in their nature.”

Vol. 10 of
Doc. Occ
., titled
Praca przymusowa pod panowaniem hitlerowskim 1939–1945
(Posen, 1976), appeared after completion of the original German edition of the present work. It contains numerous documents detailing labor regulations and conditions for Polish workers.

2.
The Labor Administration was already active in the General Government in fall 1939, and it was fully established as early as the beginning of 1940. The offices of the Labor Administration had already begun work under the Military Administration. A decree issued by the Reich minister of labor on October 30, 1939 (BA R 2/5066, 18), ordered the
Land
Labor Office to take over temporary management of projects involving forced labor. Quotation in Melies,
Das Arbeitsrecht des GG
(1943), introduction, 9.

3.
Quoted from Melies,
Das Arbeitsrecht des GG
, 13.

4.
For further details, see Madajczyk,
Polityka
, 1:629–60, 2:23–24.

5.
Decree of October 26, 1939 (
VBl.GG
[1939]: 5), with implementing order of December 14, 1939 (224), which empowered district chiefs to extend the scope of compulsory labor to include youths aged 14 years and over. Public labor service covered work on farms, the building and maintenance of public buildings, and road construction. This first implementing order stipulated that anyone capable of work was subject to conscription (sec. 1). With the assignment to a workplace, a
de lege
employment relationship was entered into. This relationship could be ended only with the agreement of the appropriate Labor Office (sec. 3). Infringements of labor service regulations, particularly absenteeism, refusal to work, or “wanton slacking on the job,” were threatened with heavy punishment. However, offenders were prosecuted only if this was demanded by the head of the Labor Office; he also had the power to assign punishment. For more details on labor service, see the comments of the chief executive of the (Central) Department of Labor, Max Frauendorfer, “Arbeits- und Sozialpolitik im GG” (1941); according to this account, up to November 1941, 1.75 million people were “assigned to work in the German war economy.” Cf. also report of the former head of the Abteilung Arbeitseinsatz (Department of Forced Labor), Dr. L. Gschließer, June 30, 1960, concerning questions relating to the Forced Labor Service (BA Ostdok. 13 GG IV b/2), which states that compulsory service affected only those Poles who were
not
gainfully employed.

6.
At a meeting on October 30, 1939, in Łód
(“Diensttagebuch,” 1:12).