"Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich (274 page)

14.
Sec. 10 of the Decree on Violent Criminality, in conjunction with secs. 1 and 2 of the Decree on Possession of Weapons of September 12, 1939 (
VOBl.
Polen, Bl. 8; also in Weh,
Das Recht des GG
[1943], C 300). As early as 1940, the exclusive competence for sentencing for illegal possession of weapons had been transferred to the police courts-martial.

15.
VBl.GG
1941, 663.

16.
Secs. 11 and 12, par. 3, Decree on Violent Criminality.

17.
See, for example, the decision of July 19, 1940, by the Kraków police court-martial and the documents appended to it (Main Commission Warsaw, archives, department 01, Sign. 997) and the decision of the military court-martial of January 12, 1940, at Minsk, Masovia (AZ 4 KWs 1/40) (ibid., dept.
Landgericht
).

18.
VBl.GG
1942, 409.

19.
Cf. the proclamation of the execution by the court-martial of six Poles for unlawful slaughtering, January 18, 1943, published by the
Kreishauptmann
of Jasło (Kraków district) (Main Commission Warsaw, Abt. II, 17 t/1). See also the proclamation of November 24, 1942, by the
Kreishauptmann
of Przemy
l: “By order of the General Government, cattle are now subject to the decree on protection of the harvest of July 11, 1942 [
VBl.GG
409]. Be warned: from now on I will hand over all cases of unlawful slaughtering made known to me … to the Court-Martial” (Main Commission Warsaw, poster collection V, 39 t/4).

20.
See the report by the governor of Radom, Kundt, at the cabinet meeting of March 11, 1942 (“Diensttagebuch,” 1942, BA R 52 II/242). According to this, the following procedure was followed as a rule in rural areas: if the farmers did not deliver, their horse and cart, their only means to bring in the harvest, were taken away. A fine was also imposed through an administrative penalty procedure. If they were unable to pay, they were sent to a so-called
Verwaltungsstraflager
(work camp for minor offenders). See part 2, section 3, C (“Civil Law”), note 13.

21.
See note 19 above and the proclamation of August 27 by the
Kreishauptmann
of Sochaczew, in which the hanging of a Pole for setting fire to a stack of grain was announced (Main Commission Warsaw, poster collection VI, 45 t/15).

22.
See note 3 above.

23.
“Diensttagebuch,” October 19, 1943 (1943, quoted from a copy in the IfZ).

24.
VBl.GG
1943, 589 (
Doc. Occ
. 6:517 f.).

25.
In this connection see also Broszat,
Nationalsozialistische Polenpolitik,
172.

26.
Directives on the application of the Decree on Combating Attacks on the German Development Effort in the General Government, October 2, 1943, published by the
Kommandeur
(more correctly,
Befehlhaber
) of the Security Police and the Security Service in the General Government (Archives of the Main Commission Warsaw. 962, vol. 43, quoted in Bartoszweski,
Der Todesring um Warschau
[1966], 195 f. n. 3).

27.
Announced to the public by posters.

28.
Cf., for example, the death sentences pronounced by the Warsaw Court-Martial on March 27, 1944 (Main Commission Warsaw, Abt. M, Signatur 996), the Kraków Court-Martial on May 11, 1944 (District Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes, Kraków, transcript), and the Petrikau (Piotrków Trybunalski) Court-Martial on July 25, 1944 (Main Commission Warsaw, Abt. II, Sig. 466).

29.
Sec. 13, Decree on Violent Criminality (
VBl.GG
1939, 10). See also the confidential letter of February 22, 1940, from the Central Department, Internal Administration (signed, Siebert) to the
Kreishauptleute
and
Stadthauptleute:
“The governor general has decreed that execution of court-martial sentences shall until further notice be subject to his approval. Notice is hereby given” (Main Commission Warsaw, Archiv, Reg. des GG, Hauptabteilung Innere Verwaltung II/453).

30.
Discussion of May 31, 1944. As a further reason for his refusal, Wille gave the fact that a whole series of death sentences had come before the Pardons Commission of the governor general in which execution had always been carried out in the past (“Diensttagebuch,” 1944, III, 607 ff., 610, BA R 52 II/217).

31.
In a discussion with Wille on June 6, 1944, Frank vehemently opposed the final pardoning of condemned prisoners by the Pardons Commission in order that they should be sent to concentration camp. He refused to support such decisions, since he did not want an official confirmation of the concentration camps. In his opinion, a pardon was only possible against a certain type of imprisonment, and this was exclusively a matter for the judiciary (“Diensttagebuch,” 1944, IV, ibid.).

32.
In the discussion of June 6, 1940, Wille named cases in which the judiciary had undertaken the enforcement of imprisonment sentences from which the condemned prisoners had been pardoned. He no longer had an influence in the case of the others who had been sent to concentration camp (“Diensttagebuch,” June 6, 1944, ibid.).

33.
See W. Jacobmeyer, “Polnischer Widerstand im deutschen Urteil,”
VjhZ
4 (1977): 658 ff., with many references.

34.
See the report of June 1943 by the commander of the Security Police, Lemberg, to the Reich Security Main Office—III (ZS, Ordner 36, 49 ff.; see part 2, section 3, B [“Criminal Law as the Principal Tool of Discriminatory Law”], note 72): Since the Lemburg Special Court in part stayed proceedings because the (German) accused denied sexual intercourse, “influence [was] exerted directly on both the public prosecutors and the Lemburg Special Court in individual cases in order to counter these exceptional circumstances.” The result: of 13 proceedings, 3 ended with the death penalty, 5 with heavy penitentiary sentences, and 5 were stayed.

35.
Thus, according to a proclamation dated June 3, 1941, by the governor of the Warsaw district, hostages had been taken on account of damage to Wehrmacht installations, with the threat that they would be shot if the sabotage continued (Main Commission Warsaw, poster collection, 68 t/5).

36.
The proclamations were generally worded as follows:

On account of an offense under secs. 1 and 2 of the Decree … of … [
VBl.GG
no. 82 of October 9, 1943], the court-martial of the Security Police and Security Service for the … district condemned the following to death: [list of names]. The sentence has been carried out in the case of those named under figure … on account of recent murders and robbery with violence in…. Those named under figure … are eligible for pardon. Should acts of violence continue in the next three months, however, especially attacks against Germans, members of states allied with the Greater German Reich, or non-Germans working in the interest of the development work in the General Government, and unless the culprits are immediately apprehended, the judgment will be carried out also in the case of those eligible for pardon, in such a way that for each act of violence against anyone under the protection of the Greater German Reich, the intended pardon will be annulled for at least ten condemned prisoners. In the event of attacks or acts of violence against installations useful to the German development work, as many of those named above will be executed as is appropriate to the seriousness of the action. It is therefore up to the non-German population to bring the pardons into effect by a corresponding cooperation in preventing acts of violence and a search for the culprits…. [place]. The SS and Police Leader in the district of…. Signature.

37.
From the collection of proclamations by the respective commanders of the Security Police and the Security Service in the various districts, some 80% of which have been preserved (according to information from the Main Commission Warsaw, in September 1971) and approx. 70% of which are housed in the archives of the Main Commission Warsaw, it emerges that above all from fall 1942 onward, thousands of members of the resistance movement, but also people taken hostage for alleged “illegal activities,” “sabotage,” “economic crimes,” “participation in attacks by gangs,” “robbery,” etc. were executed by the police courts-martial. The actual number of victims is therefore higher.

38.
See the preceding note; and Bartoszewski,
Der Todesring um Warschau
(1968), 195–334; IMT, Nuremberg doc., vol. 36, D-956. In addition there were innumerable executions without trial by the police (so-called street executions), and execution of Jews who were
suspected
of any “offense,” without court-martial proceedings. Since the enactment of the Third Decree on Residence Restrictions in the General Government of October 15, 1941 (
VBl.GG
1941, 595), such “offenses” included leaving the ghetto, which was in fact to be judged by the special courts but was usurped by the police by virtue of a secret order by the commander of the regular uniformed police; see part 2, section 3, B (“Criminal Law as the Principal Tool of Discriminatory Law”), notes 23 and 24. A proclamation by the Security Police unit of Petrikau (Radom district, undated, presumably 1942) indicates that Jews were liable to be shot “without legal proceedings”—here meaning without court-martial proceedings, for the following “offenses”: “buying, selling, bartering, or giving presents without permission,” “noncompliance with camp or factory regulations,” etc. (Main Commission Warsaw, poster collection V, t/3).

39.
According to the proclamations (see note 37 above), between June 1942 and December 1943, 777 people were executed by court-martial there alone. To this was added the extermination of whole villages (e.g., in August 1942, shooting of the inhabitants of two villages; shooting of the “male inhabitants” of three villages). (The district came under the administration of the
Oberpräsident
of East Prussia and Reich commissar for the Ukraine, Erich Koch.)

40.
Statistics from documents at the Main Commission Warsaw (see note 37 above). For the Warsaw district, see also the proclamations of August 27 and November 4, 1942, by the
Kreishauptmann
of Sochaczew (VI, 45 t/15, 18) and of October 1943 by the
Kreishauptmann
of Sokolow (46, t/21) on a total of 17 executions; for the Kraków district, the proclamation of January 18, 1943, by the
Kreishauptmann
of Jasło (II 17 t/2) on 6 executions. See also the following proclamations (all Institute for Western Studies, Pozna
): SS and police leader of the Warsaw district, October 3 and December 15, 17, 20, 1943 (a total of 439 executions); commander of the Security Police, Warsaw, February 28, 1944 (80 executions); SS and police leader, Lublin, December 1943 (18 executions); and commander of the Security Police, Lublin, December 14, 1943 (18 executions). It has not been established whether the last two proclamations refer to the same people and whether those in the Institute for Western Studies, Pozna
, are identical with those of the Main Commission as cited in note 37 (copies of proclamations also in ZS, Polen Film 25, Bl. 257 ff.). Full references also in Bartoszewski,
Der Todesring um Warschau,
195 ff., 357 ff.