English Translation

24a in some cases where mitigating circumstances or particular circumstances would justify such. He allowed himself to ask especially for one of the condemned, namely for the son of the former Czechoslovak Minister of Pinance Dr. Rašin. Rašin was pardoned, so he was certain that this act of grace would have a great impact on large circles of the Czech population. He also considered the pardon to be appropriate because, on the one hand, the mother of the young Rašín had to bear in her life the grave fate of the murder of her husband and should now lose his son, and on the other hand, too. Politically, a pardon could be found in the fact that the old Dr. Rašin had always been an enemy of Dr. Eduard Benesch, as well as the bullet of a Bolshevik assassin. The President asked me to present his request to the Colonel-Gruppenführer as far as possible to the Minister of Justice of the Reich. He would be very happy if it could be fulfilled. I told Mr President-in-Office of the Council to pass on his request and, following an invitation to visit him in Lána Castle, I promised him my visit for Thursday, September 3rd. tham.