Dr. Hans Globke, controversial State Secretary to Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, testified at a Nazi war crimes trial here that Nazi execution squad members had to carry out orders or face severe punishment.
Dr. Globke, whose service as an official of the Nazi Interior Ministry has provoked charges he helped prepare the legal basis for the Nazi regime, was a defense witness for four former SS officers charged with killing thousands of Jews and other victims in Nazi-occupied Russia. Dr. Globke is currently being tried in absentia in East Berlin on charges arising from his Nazi career.
He told the court that as far as he knew, execution squad members had to carry out orders. He said as a Reich Interior Ministry official, he used to meet colleagues from other Nazi Ministries weekly for an interchange of opinions. “At those meetings it was reported that soldiers attached to the execution squads generally were unable to dodge this duty unless they were prepared to be shot themselves or be sent to a concentration camp,” he testified.
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