"Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich (263 page)

25.
Statement by Hitler at the discussion on October 17, 1939, with the chief of the high command, West, on the future form of the Polish relationship with Germany (Nuremberg doc. PS-864; reproduced in
Doc. Occ.
5:27 ff.).

26.
Memorandum by Gürtner on a discussion with Lammers on October 14, 1939 (Nuremberg doc. NG-190, reproduced in Broszat, “Zur Perversion der Strafjustiz,” 411, doc. 5). The minister of justice was nevertheless not informed in more detail of either the decree of September 3, 1939, or Hitler’s order to Himmler, in spite of a request for such notification; the head of the Security Police, Heydrich, who was present at the meeting of September 28, 1939, directed him instead to Hitler personally (memorandum by Gürtner dated September 28, 1939) (see note 24 above).

27.
See note 22 above.

28.
This emerges from a notification by the
Landrat
of Plozk (administrative district of Zichenau) on the execution of judgments by the Gestapo court-martial of March 27 and April 4, 1940 (
Kreisblatt Płock
of March 28 and April 5, 1940, Institute for Western Studies, Pozna
, doc. I-706).

29.
See notes 16 and 18 above.

30.
Memorandum by Minister of Justice Gürtner dated September 28, 1939, point 4 (see note 24 above).

31.
Draft of February 21, 1940 (BA R 43 II/647).

32.
See the explanation of the draft by Himmler (ibid.).

33.
More details in Broszat,
Nationalsozialistische Polenpolitik,
132 ff., and the references there; memorandum dated February 27, 1940, by
Ministerialdir.
Kritzinger, Reich Chancellery (BA R 43 II/647; Nuremberg doc. NG-944).

34.
Letter of May 4, 1940, from Himmler to Göring (BA R 43 II/647).

35.
Letter of March 31, 1940, from the state secretary of the plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan and the Prussian prime minister (Körner) to the RMuChdRkzlei (BA R 43 II/647). In the General Government, in contrast, Himmler’s concept prevailed completely; see part 2, section 3, excursus, 2 (“The Extension of Police Summary Jurisdiction”).

36.
RGBl.
I 844.

37.
According to the (radioed) instruction by the RFSSuChddtPol of June 14, 1940, to the higher SS and police leader in the Annexed Eastern Territories, all procedures still pending before the police courts on June 15, 1940, should be temporarily suspended or passed on to the regular criminal courts (BA R 22/848).

38.
RFSS instruction of June 18, 1940 (ibid.).

39.
Thus, for example, in his situation report of September 4, 1940, the presiding judge of the Königsberg Court of Appeal speaks of the “immediate cessation” of court-martial activity as of June 15, 1940 (BA R 22/3357).

40.
Order of March 25, 1940, by the commander of the regular uniformed police (quoted in “Geheime Anordnung des Kommandeurs der Gendarmerie beim Regierungspräsidenten Posen vom 6.5.1940,” State Archive Pozna
, Gendarmerie Kreis Rawitsch 3, Bl. 5), whereby one court-martial in Posen should be set up under the regular police and one under the Gestapo; higher SS and police leader order of the day of May 9, 1940, no. 37, point 4, according to which permanent courts-martial were to be established under the staff officers in Posen, Hohensalza (Inowrocław), and Łód
(quoted in “Anordnung BdO” of June 13, 1940, State Archive Pozna
Befehlhaber der Ordnungspolizei 3). The courts-martial of the regular police were composed of the commander of a police regiment or battalion and two further members of the staff (instruction of October 14, 1939, by the commander of the Security Police, Posen, State Archive Pozna
, Gendarmerie Kreis Schrimm 3, Bl. 20).

41.
Secs. 1 and 2 of the decree of September 21, 1939 (
VOBl. Polen
9, reproduced in
Doc. Occ.
5:47). According to order of the day no. 10 by the commander of the regular uniformed police in Posen dated June 13, 1940, the police had instructions to hand over all information on illegal possession of weapons to the police courts-martial, which would then decide on submission to the courts. A case was to be passed on only if from the outset a death sentence was
not
to be expected.

42.
Order of April 25, 1940, by the commander of the regular uniformed police, Posen (quoted in note 40 above).

43.
Cf. the situation report of September 6, 1941, by the chief public prosecutor of Kattowitz (Katowice) (BA R 22/3372, Bl. 7); secret report dated December 3, 1941, by the presiding judge of the Court of Appeal and chief public prosecutor of Kattowitz to the Reich Ministry of Justice (Nuremberg doc. PS-674). Public proclamation of August 2, 1941, by the
Landrat
of the
Land
of Posen, “Sabotage means death,” on the execution of a Pole by the Gestapo court-martial in Posen in September 1941 for “damaging harvest trucks” and an attempted attack on his employer (Main Commission Warsaw, Plakatsammlung XIV, 103 t/5, photocopy); telegram of August 6, 1941, from the Wartheland Reich governor to the administrative president of Hohensalza (State Archive Pozna
,
Reichsstatthalter
1232, Bl. 1) on the death sentence by the court-martial on a Polish agricultural worker for attempted murder (the Reich governor had decided against a pardon from the start).

44.
At least as far as the Wartheland is concerned, nothing is known about court-martial proceedings against Jews (from information by public prosecutor Lehmann, Posen, October 1971). According to a letter dated October 11, 1941, from the Posen Gestapo to that of Lissa (A 7 B No. II B-Wi, Institute for Western Studies, Pozna
), the “special measures” (i.e., summary execution) for Jews were not limited to cases of escape from the camp (by which concentration camp is doubtless meant) but were also applied to other punishable acts such as “sedition,” “incitement,” etc. Description of details of so-called Jewish operations (executions, etc.) in the notes on the trial of an ethnic German accused of raping a Jewish girl, June 1940 (Institute for Western Studies, Pozna
, doc. I-849).

45.
Cf., for example, the public proclamation of August 8, 1940, by the higher SS and police leader southwest (von dem Bach-Zelewski) in Kattowitz on the execution by court-martial of twenty Poles (“professional criminals, fences, thieves, violent criminals, etc.”) and on shootings in August 1940 as reprisals for “murder and attacks by Polish professional criminals” (Main Commission Warsaw, Plakatsammlung XIII, 98 t/7). Situation report of October 11, 1940, by the chief public prosecutor of Königsberg (BA R 22/3375, 11 f.) on the execution of Poles by the Gestapo in October 1940. Report of November 7, 1940, by the
Landrat
of Tuchel (Tuchola) to the Bromberg (Bydgoszcz) Gestapo on the execution by court-martial of ten Poles as “retribution” for an attack on an SS man in Danzig–West Prussia in fall 1940 (Institute for Western Studies, Pozna
, doc I-598). On May 19, 1941, the Bromberg Secret State Police publicly announced that on that day twenty Poles had been executed by court-martial in Thorn (Toru
) “for setting fire to vital factories and incitement to terrorist acts,” and in Bromberg itself ten Poles had been executed by court-martial on account of an attack with explosives (Main Commission Warsaw, Plakatsammlung XIV 103 t/5). See also the report of May 23, 1941, from the district president of Posen to the Wartheland Reich governor on the execution on May 22, 1941, of twenty-five Poles in Kleinberg, Schroda district, in reprisal for an arson attack on the property of a German returnee (State Archive Pozna
,
Reichsstatthalter
1232, Bl. 102). See also note 91 below.