Dr. Hans Globke, for 14 years the top right-hand man to former Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, told a court here today that it was not his responsibility to take steps, during the Nazi regime, to prevent the execution of Jews.
Dr. Globke had been a senior official of the Ministry of the Interior during the Hitler regime, and was the legal officer who had written the Nazi official “interpretation” of the anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws. He was called by the court as a witness in the trial here of former officers of Hitler’s SS, charged with mass shootings of Jews in Poland.
Asked by the Judge whether he had done anything to halt such murders, Dr. Globke replied: “It was not my responsibility. I was in a different department. In any case, what would have been the sense in publicly opposing it.” Earlier, Dr. Globke had told the court: “I heard from people who were home on leave (from the Nazi army) that shootings were going on in Poland. But I knew nothing of concentration camp victims.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
