Trial of the major war criminals before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremburg, 14 November 1945-1 October 1946, Volume 19 (part 3 of 4)

Trial of the major war criminals before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremburg, 14 November 1945-1 October 1946, Volume 19 (part 3 of 4)

The Nazi movement will be of evil memory in history because of its persecution of the Jews, the most far-flung and terrible racial persecution of all time. Although the Nazi Party neither invented nor monopolized anti-Semitism, its leaders from the very beginning embraced it, incited it, and exploited it. They used it as “the psychological spark that ignites the mob.” After the seizure of power, it became an official state policy. The persecution began in a series of discriminatory laws eliminating the Jews from the civil service, the professions, and economic life. As it became more intense it included segregation of Jews in ghettos, and exile. Riots were organized by Party leaders to loot Jewish business places and to burn synagogues. Jewish property was confiscated and a collective fine of a billion marks was imposed upon German Jewry. The program progressed in fury and irresponsibility to the “final solution.” This consisted of sending all Jews who were fit to work to concentration camps as slave laborers, and all who were not fit, which included children under 12 and people over 50, as well as any others judged unfit by an SS doctor, to concentration camps for extermination (2605-PS).

Adolf Eichmann, the sinister figure who had charge of the extermination program, has estimated that the anti-Jewish activities resulted in the killing of 6 million Jews. Of these, 4 million were killed in extermination institutions, and 2 million were killed by Einsatzgruppen, mobile units of the Security Police and SD which pursued Jews in the ghettos and in their homes and slaughtered them by gas wagons, by mass shooting in antitank ditches and by every device which Nazi ingenuity could conceive. So thorough and uncompromising was this program that the Jews of Europe as a race no longer exist, thus fulfilling the diabolic “prophecy” of Adolf Hitler at the beginning of the war (2738-PS).

Of course, any such program must reckon with the opposition of the Christian Church. This was recognized from the very beginning. Defendant Bormann wrote all Gauleiters in 1941 that “National Socialism and Christian concepts are irreconcilable,” and that the people must be separated from the churches and the influence of the churches totally removed (D-75). Defendant Rosenberg even wrote dreary treatises advocating a new and weird Nazi religion (2349-PS).

The Gestapo appointed “Church specialists” who were instructed that the ultimate aim was “destruction of the confessional churches” (1815-PS). The record is full of specific instances of the persecution of clergymen (1164-PS, 1521-PS, 848-PS, 849-PS), the confiscation of Church property (1481-PS), interference with religious publications (1498-PS), disruption of religious education (121-PS), and suppression of religious organizations (1481-PS, 1482-PS, R-145).

The chief instrumentality for persecution and extermination was the concentration camp, sired by the Defendant Göring and nurtured under the over-all authority of Defendants Frick and Kaltenbrunner.

The horrors of these iniquitous places have been vividly disclosed by documents (2309-PS, 3870-PS) and testified to by witnesses. The Tribunal must be satiated with ghastly verbal and pictorial portrayals. From your records it is clear that the concentration camps were the first and worst weapon of Nazi oppression used by the National Socialist State, and that they were the primary means utilized for the persecution of the Christian Church and the extermination of the Jewish race. This has been admitted to you by some of the defendants from the witness stand. In the words of Defendant Frank: “A thousand years will pass and this guilt of Germany will still not be erased.”

These, then, were the five great substantive crimes of the Nazi regime. Their commission, which cannot be denied, stands admitted. The Defendant Keitel, who is in a position to know the facts, has given the Tribunal what seems to be a fair summation of the case on the facts:

“The defendant has declared that he admits the contents of the general Indictment to be proved from the objective and factual point of view (that is to say, not every individual case) and this in consideration of the law of procedure governing the Trial. It would be senseless, despite the possibility of refuting several documents or individual facts, to attempt to shake the Indictment as a whole.”

I pass now to the inquiry as to whether these groups of criminal acts were integrated in a Common Plan or Conspiracy.

The Prosecution submits that these five categories of premeditated crimes were not separate and independent phenomena but that all were committed pursuant to a Common Plan or Conspiracy. The Defense admits that these classes of crimes were committed but denies that they are connected one with another as parts of a single program.

The central crime in this pattern of crimes, the kingpin which holds them all together, is the plot for aggressive wars. The chief reason for international cognizance of these crimes lies in this fact. Have we established the Plan or Conspiracy to make aggressive war?

Certain admitted or clearly proven facts help answer that question. First is the fact that such war of aggression did take place. Second, it is admitted that from the moment the Nazis came to power, every one of them and every one of the defendants worked like beavers to prepare for some war. The question therefore comes to this: Were they preparing for the war which did occur, or were they preparing for some war which never has happened? It is probably true that in their early days none of them had in mind what month of what year war would begin, the exact dispute which would precipitate it, or whether its first impact would be Austria, Czechoslovakia, or Poland. But I submit that the defendants either knew or were chargeable with knowledge that the war for which they were making ready would be a war of German aggression. This is partly because there was no real expectation that any power or combination of powers would attack Germany. But it is chiefly because the inherent nature of the German plans was such that they were certain sooner or later to meet resistance and that they could then be accomplished only by aggression.

The plans of Adolf Hitler for aggression were just as secret as Mein Kampf, of which over six million copies were published in Germany. He not only openly advocated overthrowing the Treaty of Versailles, but made demands which went far beyond a mere rectification of its alleged injustices (GB-128). He avowed an intention to attack neighboring states and seize their lands, which he said would have to be won with “the power of a triumphant sword.” Here, for every German to hearken to, were the “ancestral voices prophesying war.”

Göring has testified in this courtroom that at his first meeting with Hitler, long before the seizure of power, quoting:

“I noted that Hitler had a definite view of the impotency of protest and, as a second point, that he was of the opinion that Germany should be freed of the peace of Versailles. We did not say we shall have to have a war and defeat our enemies; this was the aim, and the methods had to be adapted to the political situation.”

When asked if this goal were to be accomplished by war if necessary, Göring did not deny that eventuality but evaded a direct answer by saying, “We did not even debate about those things at that time.” He went on to say that the aim to overthrow the Treaty of Versailles was open and notorious and that—I quote again—“every German in my opinion was for its modification, and there was no doubt that this was a strong inducement for joining the Party.” Thus, there can be no possible excuse for any person who aided Hitler to get absolute power over the German people, or who took a part in his regime, to fail to know the nature of the demands he would make on Germany’s neighbors.

Immediately after the seizure of power the Nazis went to work to implement these aggressive intentions by preparing for war. They first enlisted German industrialists in a secret rearmament program. Twenty days after the seizure of power Schacht was host to Hitler, Göring, and some 20 leading industrialists. Among them were Krupp von Bohlen of the great Krupp armament works and representatives of I. G. Farben and other Ruhr heavy industries. Hitler and Göring explained their program to the industrialists, who became so enthusiastic that they set about to raise 3 million Reichsmark to strengthen and confirm the Nazi Party in power (EC-433). Two months later Krupp was working to bring a reorganized association of German industry into agreement with the political aims of the Nazi Government (D-157). Krupp later boasted of the success in keeping the German war industries secretly alive and in readiness despite the disarmament clauses of the Versailles Treaty, and recalled the industrialists’ enthusiastic acceptance of “the great intentions of the Führer in the rearmament period of 1933-39” (D-317).

Some 2 months after Schacht had sponsored his first meeting to gain the support of the industrialists, the Nazis moved to harness industrial labor to their aggressive plans. In April 1933 Hitler ordered Dr. Ley “to take over the trade unions,” numbering some six million members. By Party directive Ley seized the unions, their property and their funds. Union leaders, taken into “protective custody” by the SS and SA, were put into concentration camps (2283-PS, 2271-PS, 2335-PS, 2334-PS, 2928-PS, 2277-PS, 2332-PS, 2333-PS). The free labor unions were then replaced by a Nazi organization known as the German Labor Front, with Dr. Ley at its head. It was expanded until it controlled over 23 million members (2275-PS). Collective bargaining was eliminated, the voice of labor could no longer be heard as to working conditions, and the labor contract was prescribed by “trustees of labor” appointed by Hitler (405-PS). The war purpose of this labor program was clearly acknowledged by Robert Ley 5 days after war broke out, when he declared in a speech that:

“We National Socialists have monopolized all resources and all our energies during the past 7 years so as to be able to be equipped for the supreme effort of battle” (1939-PS).

The Nazis also proceeded at once to adapt the Government to the needs of war. In April 1933 the Cabinet formed a Defense Council, the working committee of which met frequently thereafter. In the meeting of 23 May 1933 at which Defendant Keitel presided, the members were instructed that:

“No document must be lost since otherwise the enemy propaganda would make use of it. Matters communicated orally cannot be proven; they can be denied by us in Geneva” (EC-177).

In January 1934—and, Your Honors, dates in this connection are important—with Defendant Jodl present, the Council planned a mobilization calendar and mobilization order for some 240,000 industrial plants. Again it was agreed that nothing should be in writing so that “the military purpose may not be traceable” (EC-404).

On 21 May 1935, the top secret Reich Defense Law was enacted. Defendant Schacht was appointed Plenipotentiary for War Economy with the task of secretly preparing all economic forces for war and, in the event of mobilization, of financing the war (2261-PS).

Schacht’s secret efforts were supplemented in October 1936 by the appointment of Defendant Göring as commissioner of the Four Year Plan, with the duty of putting the entire economy in a state of readiness for war within 4 years (EC-408).

A secret program for the accumulation of the raw materials and foreign credits necessary for extensive rearmament was also set on foot immediately upon seizure of power. In September of 1934, the Minister of Economics was already complaining that:

“The task of stockpiling is being hampered by the lack of foreign currency; the need for secrecy and camouflage also is a retarding influence” (EC-128).

Foreign currency controls were at once established. Financing was delegated to the wizard Schacht, who conjured up the mefo bill to serve the dual objectives of tapping the short-term money market for rearmament purposes while concealing the amount of these expenditures (EC-436).

The spirit of the whole Nazi administration was summed up by Göring at a meeting of the Council of Ministers, which included Schacht, on 27 May 1936, when he said,

“All measures are to be considered from the standpoint of an assured waging of war” (1301-PS).

The General Staff, of course, also had to be enlisted in the war plan. Most of the generals, attracted by the prospect of rebuilding their armies, became willing accomplices. The hold-over Minister of War Von Blomberg and the Chief of Staff General Von Fritsch, however, were not cordial to the increasingly belligerent policy of the Hitler regime, and by vicious and obscene plotting they were discredited and removed in January 1938. Thereupon, Hitler assumed for himself Supreme Command of the Armed Forces and the positions of Blomberg and of Von Fritsch were filled by others who became, as Blomberg said of Keitel, “a willing tool in Hitler’s hands for every one of his decisions.” The generals did not confine their participation to merely military matters. They participated in all major diplomatic and political maneuvers, such as the Obersalzberg meeting where Hitler, flanked by Keitel and other top generals, issued his virtual ultimatum to Schuschnigg (1780-PS).

As early as 5 November 1937 the plan to attack had begun to take definiteness as to time and victim. In a meeting which included the Defendants Raeder, Göring, and Von Neurath, Hitler stated the cynical objective: “The question for Germany is where the greatest possible conquest could be made at the lowest possible cost.” He discussed various plans for the invasion of Austria and Czechoslovakia, indicating clearly that he was thinking of these territories not as ends in themselves, but as means for further conquest. He pointed out that considerable military and political assistance could be afforded by possession of these lands and discussed the possibility of constituting from them new armies up to a strength of about 12 divisions. The aim he stated boldly and baldly as the acquisition of additional living space in Europe, and recognized that “the German question can be solved only by way of force” (386-PS).

Six months later, emboldened by the bloodless Austrian conquest, Hitler, in a secret directive to Keitel, stated his “unalterable decision to smash Czechoslovakia by military action in the near future” (388-PS).

On the same day, Jodl noted in his diary that the Führer had stated his final decision to destroy Czechoslovakia soon and had initiated military preparations all along the line (1780-PS). By April the plan had been perfected to attack Czechoslovakia “with lightning swift action as the result of an incident” (388-PS).

All along the line preparations became more definite for a war of expansion on the assumption that it would result in a world-wide conflict. In September 1938 Admiral Carls officially commented on a “Draft Study of Naval Warfare against England”:

“There is full agreement with the main theme of the study.

“1. If according to the Führer’s decision Germany is to acquire a position as a world power, she needs not only sufficient colonial possessions but also secure naval communications and secure access to the ocean.

“2. Both requirements can only be fulfilled in opposition to Anglo-French interests and will limit their positions as world powers. It is unlikely that they can be achieved by peaceful means. The decision to make Germany a world power therefore forces upon us the necessity of making the corresponding preparations for war.

“3. War against England means at the same time war against the Empire, against France, probably against Russia as well, and a large number of countries overseas; in fact, against one-half to one-third of the whole world.

“It can only be justified and have a chance of success if it is prepared economically as well as politically and militarily and waged with the aim of conquering for Germany an outlet to the ocean” (C-23).

This Tribunal knows what categorical assurances were given to an alarmed world after the Anschluss, after Munich, after the occupation of Bohemia and Moravia, that German ambitions were realized and that Hitler had “no further territorial demands to make in Europe.” The record of this Trial shows that those promises were calculated deceptions and that those high in the bloody brotherhood of Nazidom knew it.

As early as 15 April 1938 Göring pointed out to Mussolini and Ciano that the possession of those territories would make possible an attack on Poland (1874-PS). Ribbentrop’s Ministry on 26 August 1938 was writing:

“After the settlement of the Czechoslovakian question, it will be generally assumed that Poland will be next in turn” (TC-76).

Hitler, after the Polish invasion, boasted that it was the Austrian and Czechoslovakian triumphs by which “the basis for the action against Poland was laid” (789-PS). Göring suited the act to the purpose and gave immediate instructions to exploit for the further strengthening of the German war potential, first the Sudetenland, and then the whole Protectorate (R-133).

By May of 1939 the Nazi preparations had ripened to the point that Hitler confided to the Defendants Göring, Raeder, Keitel, and others his readiness “to attack Poland at the first suitable opportunity,” even though he recognized that “further successes cannot be attained without the shedding of blood.” The larcenous motives behind this decision he made plain in words that echoed the covetous theme of Mein Kampf:

“Circumstances must be adapted to aims. This is impossible without invasion of foreign states or attacks upon foreign property. Living space in proportion to the magnitude of the state is the basis of all power—further successes cannot be attained without expanding our living space in the East...” (L-79).

While a credulous world slumbered, snugly blanketed with perfidious assurances of peaceful intentions, the Nazis prepared not as before for a war but now for the war. The Defendants Göring, Keitel, Raeder, Frick, and Funk, with others, met as the Reich Defense Council in June of 1939. The minutes, authenticated by Göring, are revealing evidences of the way in which each step of Nazi planning dovetailed with every other. These five key defendants, 3 months before the first Panzer unit had knifed into Poland, were laying plans for “employment of the population in wartime,” and had gone so far as to classify industry for priority in labor supply after “5 million servicemen had been called up.” They decided upon measures to avoid “confusion when mobilization takes place,” and declared a purpose “to gain and maintain the lead in the decisive initial weeks of a war.” They then planned to use in production prisoners of war, criminal prisoners, and concentration camp inmates. They then decided on “compulsory work for women in wartime.” They had already passed on applications from 1,172,000 specialist workmen for classification as indispensable, and had approved 727,000 of them. They boasted that orders to workers to report for duty “are ready and tied up in bundles at the labor offices.” And they resolved to increase the industrial manpower supply by bringing into Germany “hundreds of thousands of workers” from the Protectorate to be “housed together in hutments” (3787-PS).

It is the minutes of this significant conclave of many key defendants which disclose how the plan to start the war was coupled with the plan to wage the war through the use of illegal sources of labor to maintain production. Hitler, in announcing his plan to attack Poland, had already foreshadowed the slave-labor program as one of its corollaries when he cryptically pointed out to the Defendants Göring, Raeder, Keitel, and others that the Polish population “will be available as a source of labor” (L-79). This was part of the plan made good by Frank, who as Governor General notified Göring that he would supply “at least one million male and female agricultural and industrial workers to the Reich” (1374-PS), and by Sauckel, whose impressments throughout occupied territory aggregated numbers equal to the total population of some of the smaller nations of Europe.

Here also comes to the surface the link between war labor and concentration camps, a manpower source that was increasingly used and with increasing cruelty. An agreement between Himmler and the Minister of Justice Thierack in 1942 provided for “the delivery of antisocial elements from the execution of their sentence to the Reichsführer SS to be worked to death” (654-PS). An SS directive provided that bedridden prisoners be drafted for work to be performed in bed (1395-PS). The Gestapo ordered 46,000 Jews arrested to increase the “recruitment of manpower into the concentration camps” (1472-PS). One hundred thousand Jews were brought from Hungary to augment the camps’ manpower (R-124). On the initiative of the Defendant Dönitz, concentration camp labor was used in the construction of submarines (C-195). Concentration camps were thus geared into war production on the one hand, and into the administration of justice and the political aims of the Nazis on the other.

The use of prisoner-of-war labor as then planned in that meeting also grew with German needs. At a time when every German soldier was needed at the front and forces were not available at home, Russian prisoners of war were forced to man anti-aircraft guns against Allied planes. Field Marshal Milch reflected the Nazi merriment at this flagrant violation of international law, saying: “... this is an amusing thing, that the Russians must work the guns” (R-124).

The orders for the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war were so ruthless that Admiral Canaris, pointing out that they would “result in arbitrary mistreatments and killing,” protested to the OKW against them as breaches of international law. The reply of Keitel was unambiguous. He said:

“The objections arise from the military conception of chivalrous warfare! This is the destruction of an ideology! Therefore, I approve and back the measures” (C-338).

The Geneva Convention would have been thrown overboard openly except that Jodl objected because he wanted the benefits of Allied observance of it while it was not being allowed to hamper the Germans in any way.

Other crimes in the conduct of warfare were planned with equal thoroughness as a means of insuring victory of German arms. In October 1938, almost a year before the start of the war, the large-scale violation of the established rules of warfare was contemplated as a policy, and the Supreme Command circulated a “most secret” list of devious explanations to be given by the Propaganda Minister in such cases (C-2). Even before this time commanders of the Armed Forces were instructed to employ any means of warfare so long as it facilitated victory (L-211). After the war was in progress the orders increased in savagery. A typical Keitel order, demanding the use of the “most brutal means,” provided that: “... It is the duty of the troops to use all means without restriction, even against women and children, so long as it insures success.”

The German naval forces were no more immune from the infection than the land forces. Raeder ordered violations of the accepted rules of warfare wherever necessary to gain strategic successes (C-157). Dönitz urged his submarine crews not to rescue survivors of torpedoed enemy ships in order to cripple merchant shipping of the Allied Nations by decimating their crews (D-642).

Thus, the war crimes against Allied forces and the crimes against humanity committed in occupied territories are incontestably part of the program for making the war because, in the German calculations, they were indispensable to its hope of success.

Similarly, the whole group of prewar crimes, including the persecutions within Germany, fall into place around the plan for aggressive war like stones in a finely wrought mosaic. Nowhere is the whole catalog of crimes of Nazi oppression and terrorism within Germany so well integrated with the crime of war as in that strange mixture of wind and wisdom which makes up the testimony of Hermann Göring. In describing the aims of the Nazi program before the seizure of power, Göring said:

“The first question was to achieve and establish a different political structure for Germany which would enable Germany to obtain against the dictate (of Versailles) not only a protest, but an objection of such a nature that it would actually be considered.”

With these purposes, Göring admitted that the plan was made to overthrow the Weimar Republic, to seize power, and to carry out the Nazi program by whatever means were necessary, whether legal or illegal.

From Göring’s cross-examination we learn how necessarily the whole program of crime followed. Because they considered a strong state necessary to get rid of the Versailles Treaty, they adopted the Führerprinzip. Having seized power, the Nazis thought it necessary to protect it by abolishing parliamentary government and suppressing all organized opposition from political parties (L-83). This was reflected in the philosophy of Göring that the opera was more important than the Reichstag. Even the “opposition of each individual was not tolerated unless it was a matter of unimportance.” To insure the suppression of opposition a secret police force was necessary. In order to eliminate incorrigible opponents, it was necessary to establish concentration camps and to resort to the device of protective custody. Protective custody, Göring testified, meant that:

“People were arrested and taken into protective custody who had committed no crime but who one might expect, if they remained in freedom, would do all sorts of things to damage the German State.”

The same war purpose was dominant in the persecution of the Jews. In the beginning, fanaticism and political opportunism placed a principal part, for anti-Semitism and its allied scapegoat, mythology, was a vehicle on which the Nazis rode to power. It was for this reason that the filthy Streicher and the blasphemous Rosenberg were welcomed at Party rallies and made leaders and officials of the State or Party. But the Nazis soon regarded the Jews as foremost among the opposition to the police state with which they planned to put forward their plans of military aggression. Fear of their pacifism and their opposition to strident nationalism was given as the reason that the Jews had to be driven from the political and economic life of Germany. Accordingly, they were transported like cattle to the concentration camps, where they were utilized as a source of forced labor for war purposes.

At a meeting held on 12 November 1938, 2 days after the violent anti-Jewish pogroms instigated by Goebbels and carried out by the Party Leadership Corps and the SA, the program for the elimination of Jews from the German economy was mapped out by Göring, Funk, Heydrich, Goebbels, and the other top Nazis. The measures adopted included confinement of the Jews in ghettos, cutting off their food supply, “Aryanizing” their shops, and restricting their freedom of movement (1816-PS). Here another purpose behind the Jewish persecutions crept in, for it was the wholesale confiscation of their property which helped finance German rearmament. Although Schacht’s plan to have foreign money ransom the entire race within Germany was not adopted, the Jews were stripped to the point where Göring was able to advise the Reich Defense Council that the critical situation of the Reich exchequer, due to rearmament, had been relieved “through the billion Reichsmark fine imposed on Jewry, and through profits accrued to the Reich in the Aryanization of Jewish enterprises” (3575-PS).

A glance over the dock will show that, despite quarrels among themselves, each defendant played a part which fitted in with every other, and that all advanced the common plan. It contradicts experience that men of such diverse backgrounds and talents should so forward each other’s aims by coincidence.

The large and varied role of Göring was half militarist and half gangster. He stuck his pudgy finger in every pie. He used his SA musclemen to help bring the gang into power. In order to entrench that power he contrived to have the Reichstag burned, established the Gestapo, and created the concentration camps. He was equally adept at massacring opponents and at framing scandals to get rid of stubborn generals. He built up the Luftwaffe and hurled it at his defenseless neighbors. He was among the foremost in harrying Jews out of the land. By mobilizing the total economic resources of Germany he made possible the waging of the war which he had taken a large part in planning. He was, next to Hitler, the man who tied the activities of all the defendants together in a common effort.

The parts played by the other defendants, although less comprehensive and less spectacular than that of the Reichsmarshal, were nevertheless integral and necessary contributions to the joint undertaking, without any one of which the success of the common enterprise would have been in jeopardy. There are many specific deeds of which these men have been proven guilty. No purpose would be served—nor indeed is time available—to review all the crimes which the evidence has charged up to their names. Nevertheless, in viewing the conspiracy as a whole and as an operating mechanism, it may be well to recall briefly the outstanding services which each of the men in the dock rendered to the common cause.

THE PRESIDENT: Would that be a convenient time to adjourn?

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Entirely, Your Honor.

[A recess was taken.]

The zealot Hess, before succumbing to wanderlust, was the engineer tending the Party machinery, passing orders and propaganda down to the Leadership Corps, supervising every aspect of Party activities, and maintaining the organization as a loyal and ready instrument of power. When apprehensions abroad threatened the success of the Nazi regime for conquest, it was the duplicitous Ribbentrop, the salesman of deception, who was detailed to pour wine on the troubled waters of suspicion by preaching the gospel of limited and peaceful intentions. Keitel, the weak and willing tool, delivered the Armed Forces, the instrument of aggression, over to the Party and directed them in executing its felonous designs.

Kaltenbrunner, the grand inquisitor, took up the bloody mantle of Heydrich to stifle opposition and terrorize compliance, and buttressed the power of National Socialism on a foundation of guiltless corpses. It was Rosenberg, the intellectual high priest of the “master race,” who provided the doctrine of hatred which gave the impetus for the annihilation of Jewry, and who put his infidel theories into practice against the Eastern Occupied Territories. His woolly philosophy also added boredom to the long list of Nazi atrocities. The fanatical Frank, who solidified Nazi control by establishing the new order of authority without law, so that the will of the Party was the only test of legality, proceeded to export his lawlessness to Poland, which he governed with the lash of Caesar and whose population he reduced to sorrowing remnants. Frick, the ruthless organizer, helped the Party to seize power, supervised the police agencies to insure that it stayed in power, and chained the economy of Bohemia and Moravia to the German war machine.

Streicher, the venomous vulgarian, manufactured and distributed obscene racial libels which incited the populace to accept and assist the progressively savage operations of “race purification.” As Minister of Economics Funk accelerated the pace of rearmament, and as Reichsbank president banked for the SS the gold teeth fillings of concentration camp victims—probably the most ghoulish collateral in banking history. It was Schacht, the façade of starched respectability, who in the early days provided the window dressing, the bait for the hesitant, and whose wizardry later made it possible for Hitler to finance the colossal rearmament program, and to do it secretly.

Dönitz, Hitler’s legatee of defeat, promoted the success of the Nazi aggressions by instructing his pack of submarine killers to conduct warfare at sea with the illegal ferocity of the jungle. Raeder, the political admiral, stealthily built up the German Navy in defiance of the Versailles Treaty, and then put it to use in a series of aggressions which he had taken a leading part in planning. Von Schirach, poisoner of a generation, initiated the German youth in Nazi doctrine, trained them in legions for service in the SS and Wehrmacht, and delivered them up to the Party as fanatic, unquestioning executors of its will.

Sauckel, the greatest and crudest slaver since the Pharaohs of Egypt, produced desperately needed manpower by driving foreign peoples into the land of bondage on a scale unknown even in the ancient days of tyranny in the kingdom of the Nile. Jodl, betrayer of the traditions of his profession, led the Wehrmacht in violating its own code of military honor in order to carry out the barbarous aims of Nazi policy. Von Papen, pious agent of an infidel regime, held the stirrup while Hitler vaulted into the saddle, lubricated the Austrian annexation, and devoted his diplomatic cunning to the service of Nazi objectives abroad.

Seyss-Inquart, spearhead of the Austrian fifth column, took over the government of his own country only to make a present of it to Hitler, and then, moving north, brought terror and oppression to the Netherlands and pillaged its economy for the benefit of the German juggernaut. Von Neurath, the old-school diplomat, who cast the pearls of his experience before Nazis, guided Nazi diplomacy in the early years, soothed the fears of prospective victims, and, as Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, strengthened the German position for the coming attack on Poland. Speer, as Minister of Armaments and Production, joined in planning and executing the program to dragoon prisoners of war and foreign workers into German war industries, which waxed in output while the laborers waned in starvation. Fritzsche, radio propaganda chief, by manipulation of the truth goaded German public opinion into frenzied support of the regime and anesthetized the independent judgment of the population so that they did without question their masters’ bidding. And Bormann, who has not accepted our invitation to this reunion, sat at the throttle of the vast and powerful engine of the Party, guiding it in the ruthless execution of Nazi policies, from the scourging of the Christian Church to the lynching of captive Allied airmen.

The activities of all these defendants, despite their varied backgrounds and talents, were joined with the efforts of other conspirators not now in the dock, who played still other essential roles. They blend together into one consistent and militant pattern animated by a common objective to reshape the map of Europe by force of arms. Some of these defendants were ardent members of the Nazi movement from its birth. Others, less fanatical, joined the common enterprise later, after success had made participation attractive by the promise of rewards. This group of latter-day converts remedied a crucial defect in the ranks of the original true believers, for as Dr. Siemers has pointed out in his summation:

“... There were no specialists among the National Socialists for the particular tasks. Most of the National Socialist collaborators did not previously follow a trade requiring technical education.”

It was the fatal weakness of the early Nazi band that it lacked technical competence. It could not from among its own ranks make up a government capable of carrying out all the projects necessary to realize its aims. Therein lies the special crime and betrayal of men like Schacht and Von Neurath, Speer and Von Papen, Raeder and Dönitz, Keitel and Jodl. It is doubtful whether the Nazi master plan could have succeeded without their specialized intelligence which they so willingly put at its command. They did so with knowledge of its announced aims and methods, and continued their services after practice had confirmed the direction in which they were tending. Their superiority to the average run of Nazi mediocrity is not their excuse. It is their condemnation.

The dominant fact which stands out from all the thousands of pages of the record of this Trial is that the central crime of the whole group of Nazi crimes—the attack on the peace of the world—was clearly and deliberately planned. The beginning of these wars of aggression was not an unprepared and spontaneous springing to arms by a population excited by some current indignation. A week before the invasion of Poland Hitler told his military commanders:

“I shall give a propagandist cause for starting war—never mind whether it be plausible or not. The victor shall not be asked later on whether we told the truth or not. In starting and making a war, it is not the right that matters, but victory” (1014-PS).

The propagandist incident was duly provided by dressing concentration camp inmates in Polish uniforms, in order to create the appearance of a Polish attack on a German frontier radio station (2751-PS). The plan to occupy Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg first appeared as early as August 1938 in connection with the plan for attack on Czechoslovakia (375-PS). The intention to attack became a program in May 1939, when Hitler told his commanders that “the Dutch and Belgian air bases must be occupied by armed forces. Declarations of neutrality must be ignored” (L-79).

Thus, the follow-up wars were planned before the first was launched. These were the most carefully plotted wars in all history. Scarcely a step in their terrifying succession and progress failed to move according to the master blueprint or the subsidiary schedules and timetables until long after the crimes of aggression were consummated.

Nor were the war crimes and the crimes against humanity unplanned, isolated, or spontaneous offenses. Aside from our undeniable evidence of their plotting, it is sufficient to ask whether 6 million people could be separated from the population of several nations on the basis of their blood and birth, could be destroyed and their bodies disposed of, except that the operation fitted into the general scheme of government. Could the enslavement of 5 millions of laborers, their impressment into service, their transportation to Germany, their allocation to work where they would be most useful, their maintenance, if slow starvation can be called maintenance, and their guarding have been accomplished if it did not fit into the common plan? Could hundreds of concentration camps located throughout Germany, built to accommodate hundreds of thousands of victims, and each requiring labor and materials for construction, manpower to operate and supervise, and close gearing into the economy—could such efforts have been expended under German autocracy if they had not suited the plan? Has the Teutonic passion for organization suddenly become famous for its toleration of nonconforming activity? Each part of the plan fitted into every other. The slave-labor program meshed with the needs of industry and agriculture, and these in turn synchronized with the military machine. The elaborate propaganda apparatus geared with the program to dominate the people and incite them to a war their sons would have to fight. The armament industries were fed by the concentration camps. The concentration camps were fed by the Gestapo. The Gestapo was fed by the spy system of the Nazi Party. Nothing was permitted under the Nazi iron rule that was not in accordance with the program. Everything of consequence that took place in this regimented society was but a manifestation of a premeditated and unfolding purpose to secure the Nazi State a place in the sun by casting all others into darkness.

The defendants meet this overwhelming case, some by admitting a limited responsibility, some by putting the blame on others, and some by taking the position in effect that while there have been enormous crimes there are no criminals. Time will not permit me to examine each individual and particular defense, but there are certain lines of defense common to so many cases that they deserve some consideration.

Counsel for many of the defendants seek to dismiss the conspiracy or common planning charge on the ground that the pattern of the Nazi plan does not fit into the concept of conspiracy applicable in German law to the plotting of a highway robbery or a burglary. Their concept of conspiracy is in the terms of a stealthy meeting in the dead of night, in a secluded hideout, in which a small group of felons plot every detail of a specific crime. The Charter forestalls resort to such parochial and narrow concepts of conspiracy taken from local law by using the additional and nontechnical term, “common plan.” Omitting entirely the alternative term of “conspiracy,” the Charter reads that “leaders, organizers, instigators, and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan to commit any of the described crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan.”

The Charter concept of a common plan really represents the conspiracy principle in an international context. A common plan or conspiracy to seize the machinery of a state, to commit crimes against the peace of the world, to blot a race out of existence, to enslave millions, and to subjugate and loot whole nations cannot be thought of in the same terms as the plotting of petty crimes, although the same underlying principles are applicable. Little gangsters may plan which will carry a pistol and which a stiletto, who will approach a victim from the front and who from behind, and where they will waylay him. But in planning a war, the pistol becomes a Wehrmacht, the stiletto, a Luftwaffe. Where to strike is not a choice of dark alleys, but a matter of world geography. The operation involves the manipulation of public opinion, the law of the state, the police power, industry, and finance. The baits and bluffs must be translated into a nation’s foreign policy. Likewise, the degree of stealth which points to a guilty purpose in a conspiracy will depend upon its object. The clandestine preparations of a state against international society, although camouflaged to those abroad, might be quite open and notorious among its own people. But stealth is not an essential ingredient of such planning. Parts of the common plan may be proclaimed from the housetops, as anti-Semitism was, and parts of it kept under cover as rearmament for a long time was. It is a matter of strategy how much of the preparation shall be made public, as was Göring’s announcement in 1935 of the creation of an air force, and how much shall be kept covert, as in the case of the Nazis’ use of shovels to teach “labor corps” the manual of arms (3054-PS). The forms of this grand type of conspiracy are amorphous, the means are opportunistic, and neither can divert the law from getting at the substance of things.

The defendants contend, however, that there could be no conspiracy involving aggressive war because: (1) None of the Nazis wanted war; (2) rearmament was only intended to provide the strength to make Germany’s voice heard in the family of nations; and (3) the wars were not in fact aggressive wars but were defensive against a “Bolshevik menace.”

When we analyze the argument that the Nazis did not want war it comes down, in substance, to this: “The record looks bad indeed—objectively—but when you consider the state of my mind—subjectively I hated war. I knew the horrors of war. I wanted peace.” I am not so sure of this. I am even less willing to accept Göring’s description of the General Staff as pacifist. However, it will not injure our case to admit that as an abstract proposition none of these defendants liked war. But they wanted things which they knew they could not get without war. They wanted their neighbors’ lands and goods. Their philosophy seems to be that if the neighbors would not acquiesce, then they are the aggressors and are to blame for the war. The fact is, however, that war never became terrible to the Nazis until it came home to them, until it exposed their deceptive assurances to the German people that German cities, like the ruined one in which we meet, would be invulnerable. From then on, war was terrible.

But again the defendants claim, “To be sure, we were building guns. But not to shoot. They were only to give us weight in negotiating.” At its best this argument amounts to a contention that the military forces were intended for blackmail, not for battle. The threat of military invasion which forced the Austrian Anschluss, the threats which preceded Munich, and Göring’s threat to bomb the beautiful city of Prague if the President of Czechoslovakia did not consent to a Protectorate, are examples of what the defendants have in mind when they talk of arming to back negotiation.

But from the very nature of German demands, the day was bound to come when some country would refuse to buy its peace, would refuse to pay danegelt, “for the end of that game is oppression and shame, and the nation that plays it is lost.”

Did these defendants then intend to withdraw German demands, or was Germany to enforce them and manipulate propaganda so as to place the blame for the war on the nation so unreasonable as to resist? Events have answered that question, and documents such as Admiral Carls’ memorandum, earlier quoted, leave no doubt that the events occurred as anticipated.

But some of the defendants argue that the wars were not aggressive and were only intended to protect Germany against some eventual danger from the “menace of Communism,” which was something of an obsession with many Nazis.

At the outset this argument of self-defense falls because it completely ignores this damning combination of facts clearly established in the record: First, the enormous and rapid German preparations for war; second, the repeatedly avowed intentions of the German leaders to attack, which I have previously cited; and third, the fact that a series of wars occurred in which German forces struck the first blows, without warning, across the borders of other nations.

Even if it could be shown—which it cannot—that the Russian war was really defensive, such is demonstrably not the case with those wars which preceded it. It may also be pointed out that even those who would have you believe that Germany was menaced by Communism also compete with each other in describing their opposition to the disastrous Russian venture. Is it reasonable that they would have opposed that war if it were undertaken in good-faith self-defense?

The frivolous character of the self-defense theory on the facts it is sought to compensate, as advocates often do, by resort to a theory of law. Dr. Jahrreiss, in his scholarly argument for the Defense, rightly points out that no treaty provision and no principle of law denied Germany, as a sovereign nation, the right of self-defense. He follows with the assertion for which there is authority in classic international law, that “... every state is alone judge of whether in a given case it is waging a war of self-defense.”

It is not necessary to examine the validity of an abstract principle which does not apply to the facts of our case. I do not doubt that if a nation arrived at a judgment that it must resort to war in self-defense, because of conditions affording reasonable grounds for such an honest judgment, any tribunal would accord it great and perhaps conclusive weight, even if later events proved that judgment mistaken. But the facts in this case call for no such deference to honest judgment because no such judgment was ever pretended, much less honestly made.

In all the documents which disclose the planning and rationalization of these attacks, not one sentence has been or can be cited to show a good-faith fear of attack. It may be that statesmen of other nations lacked the courage forthrightly and fully to disarm. Perhaps they suspected the secret rearmament of Germany. But if they hesitated to abandon arms, they did not hesitate to neglect them. Germany well knew that her former enemies had allowed their armaments to fall into decay, so little did they contemplate another war. Germany faced a Europe that not only was unwilling to attack, but was too weak and pacifist even adequately to defend, and went to the very verge of dishonor, if not beyond, to buy its peace. The minutes we have shown you of the Nazis’ secret conclaves identify no potential attacker. They bristle with the spirit of aggression and not of defense. They contemplate always territorial expansion, not the maintenance of territorial integrity.

Minister of War Von Blomberg, in his 1937 directive prescribing general principles for the preparation for war of the Armed Forces, has given the lie to these feeble claims of self-defense. He stated at that time:

“The general political situation justifies the supposition that Germany need not consider an attack on any side. Grounds for this are, in addition to the lack of desire for war in almost all nations, particularly the Western Powers, the deficiencies in the preparedness for war in a number of states and of Russia in particular.”

Nevertheless, he recommended:

“... a continuous preparation for war in order to (a) counterattack at any time, and (b) to enable the military exploitation of politically favorable opportunities should they occur” (C-175).

If these defendants may now cynically plead self-defense, although no good-faith need of self-defense was asserted or contemplated by any responsible leader at that time, it reduces nonaggression treaties to a legal absurdity. They become additional instruments of deception in the hands of the aggressor, and traps for well-meaning nations. If there be in nonaggression pacts an implied condition that each nation may make a bona fide judgment as to the necessity for self-defense against imminent threatened attack, it certainly cannot be invoked to shelter those who never made any such judgment at all.

In opening this case I ventured to predict that there would be no serious denial that the crimes charged were committed, and that the issue would concern the responsibility of particular defendants. The defendants have fulfilled that prophecy. Generally, they do not deny that these things happened, but it is contended that they “just happened,” and that they were not the result of a common plan or conspiracy.

One of the chief reasons the defendants say there was no conspiracy is the argument that conspiracy was impossible with a dictator. The argument runs that they all had to obey Hitler’s orders, which had the force of law in the German State, and hence obedience could not be made the basis of an original charge. In this way it is explained that while there have been wholesale killings, there have been no murderers.

This argument is an effort to evade Article 8 of the Charter, which provides that the order of the Government or of a superior shall not free a defendant from responsibility but can only be considered in mitigation. This provision of the Charter corresponds with the justice and with the realities of the situation, as indicated in Defendant Speer’s description of what he considered to be the common responsibility of the leaders of the German nation:

“... with reference to utterly decisive matters, there is total responsibility. There must be total responsibility insofar as a person is one of the leaders, because who else could assume responsibility for the development of events, if not the immediate associates who work with and around the head of the State?”

Again he told the Tribunal:

“... it is impossible after the catastrophe to evade this total responsibility. If the war had been won, the leaders would also have assumed total responsibility.”

Like much of Defense Counsel’s abstract arguments, the contention that the absolute power of Hitler precluded a conspiracy crumbles in the face of the facts of record. The Führerprinzip of absolutism was itself a part of the common plan, as Göring has pointed out. The defendants may have become the slaves of a dictator, but he was their dictator. To make him such was, as Göring has testified, the object of the Nazi movement from the beginning. Every Nazi took this oath:

“I pledge eternal allegiance to Adolf Hitler. I pledge unconditional obedience to him and the Führers appointed by him (1893-PS).”

Moreover; they forced everybody else in their power to take it. This oath was illegal under German law, which made it criminal to become a member of an organization in which obedience to “unknown superiors or unconditional obedience to known superiors is pledged.” These men destroyed free government in Germany and now plead to be excused from responsibility because they became slaves. They are in the position of the fictional boy who murdered his father and mother and then pleaded for leniency because he was an orphan.

What these men have overlooked is that Adolf Hitler’s acts are their acts. It was these men among millions of others, and it was these men leading millions of others, who built up Adolf Hitler and vested in his psychopathic personality not only innumerable lesser decisions but the supreme issue of war or peace. They intoxicated him with power and adulation. They fed his hates and aroused his fears. They put a loaded gun in his eager hands. It was left to Hitler to pull the trigger, and when he did they all at that time approved. His guilt stands admitted, by some defendants reluctantly, by some vindictively. But his guilt is the guilt of the whole dock, and of every man in it.

But it is urged that these defendants could not be in agreement on a common plan or in a conspiracy because they were fighting among themselves or belonged to different factions or cliques. Of course, it is not necessary that men should agree on everything in order to agree on enough things to make them liable for a criminal conspiracy. Unquestionably there were conspiracies within the conspiracy, and intrigues and rivalries and battles for power. Schacht and Göring disagreed, but over which of them should control the economy, not over whether the economy should be regimented for war. Göring claims to have departed from the plan because through Dahlerus he conducted some negotiations with men of influence in England just before the Polish war. But it is perfectly clear that this was not an effort to prevent aggression against Poland but to make that aggression successful and safe by obtaining English neutrality (TC-90). Rosenberg and Göring may have had some differences as to how stolen art should be distributed but they had none about how it should be stolen. Jodl and Göring may have disagreed about whether to denounce the Geneva Convention, but they have never disagreed about violating it. And so it goes through the whole long and sordid story. Nowhere do we find a single instance where any one of the defendants stood up against the rest and said: “This thing is wrong and I will not go along with it.” Wherever they differed, their differences were as to method or disputes over jurisdiction, but always within the framework of the common plan.

Some of the defendants also contend that in any event there was no conspiracy to commit war crimes or crimes against humanity because cabinet members never met with the military to plan these acts. But these crimes were only the inevitable and incidental results of the plan to commit the aggression for Lebensraum purposes. Hitler stated, at a conference with his commanders, that:

“The main objective in Poland is the destruction of the enemy and not the reaching of a certain geographical line” (1014-PS).

Frank picked up the tune and suggested that when their usefulness was exhausted,

“... then, for all I care, mincemeat can be made of the Poles and Ukrainians and all the others who run around here—it does not matter what happens” (2233-PS).

Reichskommissar Koch in the Ukraine echoed the refrain: “I will draw the very last out of this country. I did not come to spread bliss...” (1130-PS).

This was Lebensraum on its seamy side. Could men of their practical intelligence expect to get neighboring lands free from the claims of their tenants without committing crimes against humanity?

The last stand of each defendant is that even if there was a conspiracy, he was not in it. It is therefore important in examining their attempts at avoidance of responsibility to know, first of all, just what it is that a conspiracy charge comprehends and punishes.

In conspiracy we do not punish one man for another man’s crime. We seek to punish each for his own crime of joining a common criminal plan in which others also participated. The measure of the criminality of the plan and therefore of the guilt of each participant is, of course, the sum total of crimes committed by all in executing the plan. But the gist of the offense is participation in the formulation or execution of the plan. These are rules which every society has found necessary in order to reach men, like these defendants, who never get blood on their own hands but who lay plans that result in the shedding of blood. All over Germany today, in every zone of occupation, little men who carried out these criminal policies under orders are being convicted and punished. It would present a vast and unforgivable caricature of justice if the men who planned these policies and directed these little men should escape all penalty.

These men in this dock, on the face of this record, were not strangers to this program of crime, nor was their connection with it remote or obscure. We find them in the very heart of it. The positions they held show that we have chosen defendants of self-evident responsibility. They are the very top surviving authorities in their respective fields and in the Nazi State. No one lives who, at least until the very last moments of the war, outranked Göring in position, power, and influence. No soldier stood above Keitel and Jodl, and no sailor above Raeder and Dönitz. Who can be responsible for the diplomacy of duplicity if not the Foreign Ministers, Von Neurath and Ribbentrop, and the diplomatic handy man, Von Papen? Who should be answerable for the oppressive administration of occupied countries if Gauleiters, protectors, governors, and Kommissars such as Frank, Seyss-Inquart, Frick, Von Schirach, Von Neurath, and Rosenberg are not? Where shall we look for those who mobilized the economy for total war if we overlook Schacht and Speer and Funk? Who was the master of the great slaving enterprise if it was not Sauckel? Where shall we find the hand that ran the concentration camps if it was not the hand of Kaltenbrunner? And who whipped up the hates and fears of the public, and manipulated the Party organizations to incite these crimes, if not Hess, Von Schirach, Fritzsche, Bormann, and the unspeakable Julius Streicher? The list of defendants is made up of men who played indispensable and reciprocal parts in this tragedy. The photographs and the films show them again and again together on important occasions. The documents show them agreed on policies and on methods, and all working aggressively for the expansion of Germany by force of arms.

Each of these men made a real contribution to the Nazi plan. Each man had a key part. Deprive the Nazi regime of the functions performed by a Schacht, a Sauckel, a Von Papen, or a Göring, and you have a different regime. Look down the rows of fallen men and picture them as the photographic and documentary evidence shows them to have been in their days of power. Is there one who did not substantially advance the conspiracy along its bloody path toward its bloody goal? Can we assume that the great effort of these men’s lives was directed toward ends they never suspected?

To escape the implications of their positions and the inference of guilt from their activities, the defendants are almost unanimous in one defense. The refrain is heard time and again: These men were without authority, without knowledge, without influence, without importance. Funk summed up the general self-abasement of the dock in his plaintive lament that: “I always, so to speak, came up to the door, but I was not permitted to enter.”

In the testimony of each defendant, at some point there was reached the familiar blank wall: Nobody knew anything about what was going on. Time after time we have heard the chorus from the dock: “I only heard about these things here for the first time.”

These men saw no evil, spoke none, and none was uttered in their presence. This claim might sound very plausible if made by one defendant. But when we put all their stories together, the impression which emerges of the Third Reich, which was to last a thousand years, is ludicrous. If we combine only the stories of the front bench, this is the ridiculous composite picture of Hitler’s Government that emerges. It was composed of:

A Number 2 man who knew nothing of the excesses of the Gestapo which he created, and never suspected the Jewish extermination program although he was the signer of over a score of decrees which instituted the persecutions of that race;

A Number 3 man who was merely an innocent middleman transmitting Hitler’s orders without even reading them, like a postman or delivery boy;

A foreign minister who knew little of foreign affairs and nothing of foreign policy;

A field marshal who issued orders to the Armed Forces but had no idea of the results they would have in practice;

A security chief who was of the impression that the policing functions of his Gestapo and SD were somewhat on the order of directing traffic;

A Party philosopher who was interested in historical research and had no idea of the violence which his philosophy was inciting in the twentieth century;

A governor general of Poland who reigned but did not rule;

A Gauleiter of Franconia whose occupation was to pour forth filthy writings about the Jews, but who had no idea that anybody would read them;

A minister of interior who knew not even what went on in the interior of his own office, much less the interior of his own department, and nothing at all about the interior of Germany;

A Reichsbank president who was totally ignorant of what went in and out of the vaults of his bank;

And a plenipotentiary for the war economy who secretly marshaled the entire economy for armament, but had no idea it had anything to do with war.

This may seem like a fantastic exaggeration, but this is what you would actually be obliged to conclude if you were to acquit these defendants.

They do protest too much. They deny knowing what was common knowledge. They deny knowing plans and programs that were as public as Mein Kampf and the Party program. They deny even knowing the contents of documents they received and acted upon.

Nearly all the defendants take two or more conflicting positions. Let us illustrate the inconsistencies of their positions by the record of one defendant—who, if pressed, would himself concede that he is the most intelligent, honorable, and innocent man in the dock. That is Schacht. And this is the effect of his own testimony—but let us not forget that I recite it not against him alone, but because most of its self-contradictions are found in the testimony of several defendants:

Schacht did not openly join the Nazi movement until it had won, nor openly desert it until it had lost. He admits that he never gave it public opposition, but asserts that he never gave it private loyalty. When we demand of him why he did not stop the criminal course of the regime in which he was a minister, he says he had not a bit of influence. When we ask why he remained a member of the criminal regime, he tells us that by sticking on he expected to moderate its program. Like a Brahmin among untouchables, he could not bear to mingle with the Nazi socially, but never could he afford to separate from them politically. Of all the Nazi aggressions by which he now claims to have been shocked there is not one that he did not support before the world with the weight of his name and prestige. Having armed Hitler to blackmail a continent, his answer now is to blame England and France for yielding.

Schacht always fought for his position in a regime he now affects to despise. He sometimes disagreed with his Nazi confederates about what was expedient in reaching their goal, but he never dissented from the goal itself. When he did break with them in the twilight of the regime, it was over tactics, not principles. From then on he never ceased to urge others to risk their positions and their necks to forward his plots, but never on any occasion did he hazard either of his own. He now boasts that he personally would have shot Hitler if he had had the opportunity, but the German newsreel shows that even after the fall of France, when he faced the living Hitler, he stepped out of line to grasp the hand he now claims to loathe and hung upon the words of the man he now says he thought unworthy of belief. Schacht says he steadily “sabotaged” the Hitler Government. Yet the most relentless secret service in the world never detected him doing the regime any harm until long after he knew the war to be lost and the Nazis doomed. Schacht, who dealt in hedges all his life, always kept himself in a position to claim that he was in either camp. The plea for him is as specious on analysis as it is persuasive on first sight. Schacht represents the most dangerous and reprehensible type of opportunism—that of the man of influential position who is ready to join a movement that he knows to be wrong because he thinks it is winning.

These defendants, unable to deny that they were the men in the very top ranks of power, and unable to deny that the crimes I have outlined actually happened, know that their own denials are incredible unless they can suggest someone who is guilty.

The defendants have been unanimous, when pressed, in shifting the blame on other men, sometimes on one and sometimes on another. But the names they have repeatedly picked are Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich, Goebbels, and Bormann. All of these are dead or missing. No matter how hard we have pressed the defendants on the stand, they have never pointed the finger at a living man as guilty. It is a temptation to ponder the wondrous workings of a fate which has left only the guilty dead and only the innocent alive. It is almost too remarkable.

The chief villain on whom blame is placed—some of the defendants vie with each other in producing appropriate epithets—is Hitler. He is the man at whom nearly every defendant has pointed an accusing finger.

I shall not dissent from this consensus, nor do I deny that all these dead and missing men shared the guilt. In crimes so reprehensible that degrees of guilt have lost their significance they may have played the most evil parts. But their guilt cannot exculpate the defendants. Hitler did not carry all responsibility to the grave with him. All the guilt is not wrapped in Himmler’s shroud. It was these dead men whom these living chose to be their partners in this great conspiratorial brotherhood, and the crimes that they did together they must pay for one by one.

It may well be said that Hitler’s final crime was against the land he had ruled. He was a mad messiah who started the war without cause and prolonged it without reason. If he could not rule he cared not what happened to Germany. As Fritzsche has told us from the stand, Hitler tried to use the defeat of Germany for the self-destruction of the German people. He continued to fight when he knew it could not be won, and continuance meant only ruin. Speer, in this courtroom, has described it as follows:

“...The sacrifices which were made on both sides after January 1945 were without sense. The dead of this period will be the accusers of the man responsible for the continuation of that fight, Adolf Hitler, just as much as the destroyed cities, destroyed in that last phase, who had lost tremendous cultural values and tremendous numbers of dwellings.... The German people”—he said—“remained faithful to Adolf Hitler until the end. He has betrayed them knowingly. He has tried to throw them into the abyss...”

Hitler ordered everyone else to fight to the last and then retreated into death by his own hand. But he left life as he lived it, a deceiver; he left the official report that he had died in battle. This was the man whom these defendants exalted to a Führer. It was they who conspired to get him absolute authority over all of Germany. And in the end he and the system they created for him brought the ruin of them all. As stated by Speer on cross-examination:

“...the tremendous danger, however, contained in this totalitarian system only became abundantly clear at the moment when we were approaching the end. It was then that one could see what the meaning of the principle was, namely, that every order should be carried out without any criticism. Everything ... you have seen in the way of orders which were carried out without any consideration, did after all turn out to be mistakes... This system—let me put it like this—to the end of the system it had become clear what tremendous dangers are contained in any such system, as such, quite apart from Hitler’s principle. The combination of Hitler and this system, then, brought about this tremendous catastrophe to this world.”

But let me for a moment turn devil’s advocate. I admit that Hitler was the chief villain. But for the defendants to put all blame on him is neither manly nor true. We know that even the head of the state has the same limits to his senses and to the hours of his days as do lesser men. He must rely on others to be his eyes and ears as to most that goes on in a great empire. Other legs must run his errands; other hands must execute his plans. On whom did Hitler rely for such things more than upon these men in the dock? Who led him to believe he had an invincible air armada if not Göring? Who kept disagreeable facts from him? Did not Göring forbid Field Marshal Milch to warn Hitler that in his opinion Germany was not equal to the war upon Russia? Did not Göring, according to Speer, relieve General Galland of his air force command for speaking of the weaknesses and bungling of the air forces? Who led Hitler, utterly untraveled himself, to believe in the indecision and timidity of democratic peoples if not Ribbentrop, Von Neurath, and Von Papen? Who fed his illusion of German invincibility if not Keitel, Jodl, Raeder, and Dönitz? Who kept his hatred of the Jews inflamed more than Streicher and Rosenberg? Who would Hitler say deceived him about conditions in concentration camps if not Kaltenbrunner, even as he would deceive us? These men had access to Hitler and often could control the information that reached him and on which he must base his policy and his orders. They were the Praetorian Guard, and while they were under Caesar’s orders, Caesar was always in their hands.

If these dead men could take the witness stand and answer what has been said against them, we might have a less distorted picture of the parts played by these defendants. Imagine the stir that would occur in the dock if it should behold Adolf Hitler advancing to the witness box, or Himmler with an armful of dossiers, or Goebbels, or Bormann with the reports of his Party spies, or the murdered Röhm or Canaris. The ghoulish defense that the world is entitled to retribution only from the cadavers is an argument worthy of the crimes at which it is directed.

We have presented to this Tribunal an affirmative case based on incriminating documents which are sufficient, if unexplained, to require a finding of guilt on Count One against each defendant. In the final analysis, the only question is whether the defendant’s own testimony is to be credited as against the documents and other evidence of their guilt. What, then, is their testimony worth?

The fact is that the Nazi habit of economizing in the use of truth pulls the foundations out from under their own defenses. Lying has always been a highly approved Nazi technique. Hitler, in Mein Kampf, advocated mendacity as a policy. Von Ribbentrop admits the use of the “diplomatic lie.” Keitel advised that the facts of rearmament be kept secret so that they could be denied at Geneva (EC-177). Raeder deceived about rebuilding the German Navy in violation of Versailles. Göring urged Ribbentrop to tell a “legal lie” to the British Foreign Office about the Anschluss, and in so doing only marshaled him the way he was going (2947-PS). Göring gave his word of honor to the Czechs and proceeded to break it (TC-27). Even Speer proposed to deceive the French into revealing the specially trained among their prisoners (R-124).

Nor is the lie direct the only means of falsehood. They all speak with a Nazi double talk with which to deceive the unwary. In the Nazi dictionary of sardonic euphemisms “final solution” of the Jewish problem was a phrase which meant extermination; “special treatment” of prisoners of war meant killing; “protective custody” meant concentration camp; “duty labor” meant slave labor; and an order to “take a firm attitude” or “take positive measures” meant to act with unrestrained savagery. Before we accept their word at what seems to be its face, we must always look for hidden meanings. Göring assured us, on his oath, that the Reich Defense Council never met “as such.” When we produced the stenographic minutes of a meeting at which he presided and did most of the talking, he reminded us of the “as such” and explained this was not a meeting of the Council “as such” because other persons were present. Göring denies “threatening” Czechoslovakia; he only told President Hacha that he would “hate to bomb the beautiful city of Prague.”

Besides outright false statements and double talk, there are also other circumventions of truth in the nature of fantastic explanations and absurd professions. Streicher has solemnly maintained that his only thought with respect to the Jews was to resettle them on the island of Madagascar. His reason for destroying synagogues, he blandly said, was only because they were architecturally offensive. Rosenberg was stated by his counsel to have always had in mind a “chivalrous solution” to the Jewish problem. When it was necessary to remove Schuschnigg after the Anschluss, Ribbentrop would have had us believe that the Austrian Chancellor was resting at a “villa.” It was left to cross-examination to reveal that the “villa” was Buchenwald Concentration Camp. The record is full of other examples of dissimulations and evasions. Even Schacht showed that he, too, had adopted the Nazi attitude that truth is any story which succeeds. Confronted on cross-examination with a long record of broken vows and false words, he declared in justification—and I quote from the record:

“I think you can score many more successes when you want to lead someone if you don’t tell them the truth than if you tell them the truth.”

This was the philosophy of the National Socialists. When for years they have deceived the world, and masked falsehood with plausibilities, can anyone be surprised that they continue their habits of a lifetime in this dock? Credibility is one of the main issues of this Trial. Only those who have failed to learn the bitter lessons of the last decade can doubt that men who have always played on the unsuspecting credulity of generous opponents would not hesitate to do the same, now.

It is against such a background that these defendants now ask this Tribunal to say that they are not guilty of planning, executing, or conspiring to commit this long list of crimes and wrongs. They stand before the record of this Trial as bloodstained Gloucester stood by the body of his slain king. He begged of the widow, as they beg of you: “Say I slew them not.” And the Queen replied, “Then say they were not slain. But dead they are...” If you were to say of these men that they are not guilty, it would be as true to say that there has been no war, there are no slain, there has been no crime.

THE PRESIDENT: I call upon the chief prosecutor for the United Kingdom of Great Britain.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Would it be agreeable, Your Honors, if Sir Hartley Shawcross should start his address after the recess?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Then we will sit again at a quarter to 2.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And may I add this for the purpose of the record. I have filed with the Tribunal and furnished to counsel copies of the summation with footnotes to the record. These footnotes are designed, of course, to direct the attention of adversaries and of the Tribunal to the supporting data in the record. I thought they might be helpful in reading it.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. The Tribunal will adjourn.

[The Tribunal recessed until 1345 hours.]

Afternoon Session

THE PRESIDENT: I call on the Chief Prosecutor of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

SIR HARTLEY SHAWCROSS (Chief Prosecutor for the United Kingdom): May it please the Tribunal; like my distinguished colleague, whose succinct, able, and eloquent speech I cannot hope to emulate, I desire on behalf of the British prosecutors at this Trial to lay before the Tribunal some comment. I am afraid it is of some length on those salient and outstanding features of the evidence which, in our submission, make clear the guilt of these defendants. Although throughout these proceedings the representatives of the prosecuting powers have worked in the closest co-operation and agreement and although there are certain matters which I shall be laying before the Tribunal on behalf of all of us, we all thought it right at this final stage, even at the cost of some inevitable repetition and overlapping, that we should prepare our final submissions quite independently so that the Tribunal and our own countries might know exactly the grounds on which we seek the condemnation of these men; and if it turns out that several of us point to the same evidence or reach similar conclusions, as no doubt it will, that very coincidence reached independently may perhaps add force to our submissions that each of these defendants is legally guilty.

I say legally guilty. That these defendants participated in and are morally guilty of crimes so frightful that the imagination staggers and reels back at their very contemplation is not in doubt. Let the words of the Defendant Frank, which were repeated to you this morning, be well remembered: “Thousands of years will pass and this guilt of Germany will not be erased.” Total and totalitarian war, waged in defiance of solemn undertakings and in breach of treaties; great cities, from Coventry to Stalingrad, reduced to rubble, the countryside laid waste, and now the inevitable aftermath of war so fought—hunger and disease stalking through the world; millions of people homeless, maimed, bereaved. And in their graves, crying out, not for vengeance but that this shall not happen again: 10 million who might be living in peace and happiness at this hour, soldiers, sailors, airmen, and civilians killed in battles that ought never to have been.

Nor was that the only or the greatest crime. In all our countries when perhaps in the heat of passion or for other motives which impair restraint some individual is killed, the murder becomes a sensation, our compassion is aroused, nor do we rest until the criminal is punished and the rule of law is vindicated. Shall we do less when not one but on the lowest computation 12 million men, women, and children, are done to death? Not in battle, not in passion, but in the cold, calculated, deliberate attempt to destroy nations and races, to disintegrate the traditions, the institutions, and the very existence of free and ancient states. Twelve million murders! Two-thirds of the Jews in Europe exterminated, more than 6 million of them on the killers’ own figures. Murder conducted like some mass production industry in the gas chambers and the ovens of Auschwitz, Dachau, Treblinka, Buchenwald, Mauthausen, Maidanek, and Oranienburg.

And is the world to overlook the revival of slavery in Europe, slavery on a scale which involved 7 million men, women, and children taken from their homes, treated as beasts, starved, beaten, and murdered?

It may be that the guilt of Germany will not be erased, for the people of Germany share it in large measure, but it was these men who, with a handful of others, brought that guilt upon Germany and perverted the German people. “It is my guilt”—confessed the Defendant Schirach—“that I educated the German youth for a man who committed murders a millionfold.”

For such crimes these men might well have been proceeded against by summary executive action and had the treatment, which they had been parties to meting out against so many millions of innocent people, been meted out to them, they could hardly have complained. But this Tribunal is to adjudge their guilt not on any moral or ethical basis alone, but according to law—that natural justice which demands that these crimes should not go unpunished, at the same time insists that no individual should be punished unless patient and careful examination of the facts shows that he shared the guilt for what has been done. And so, during these many months, this Tribunal has been investigating the facts and has now to apply the law in order both that justice may be done to these individuals as to their countless victims, and also that the world may know that in the end the predominance of power will be driven out and law and justice shall govern the relations between states.

For the effects of this Trial will reach out far beyond the punishment of a score or so of guilty men. Issues are at stake far greater than their fate, although upon their fate those issues, in some measure, depend. In the pages of history it will count for nothing whether this Trial lasted for 2 months or for 10. But it will count for much that by just and patient examination the truth has been established about deeds so terrible that their mark may never be erased, and it will count for much that law and justice have been vindicated in the end.

Within the space of a year evidence far exceeding that previously presented to any tribunal in history has been collected, sifted, and placed before you. Almost all of that evidence consists of the captured records and documents of the government to which these men belonged, and much of it directly implicates each one of them with knowledge of, and participation in one or other aspect of the crimes committed by the Nazi State. This evidence has not been refuted and it will remain forever to confront those who may hereafter seek to excuse or mitigate that which has been done. Yet now that this mass of evidence has been presented to you, I shall invite you for a little to detach your minds from its detail to consider the cumulative effect and to review this overwhelming case as a whole. It is only by chance that their own captured papers have enabled us to establish these crimes out of the very mouths of the criminals. But the case against these men can be established on a broader basis than that, and must be looked at in the light of its historical background.

When one considers the nature and the immensity of the crimes committed, the responsibility of those who held the highest positions of influence and authority in the Nazi State is manifest beyond doubt. For years, in a world where war had itself been declared a crime, the German State was organized for war; in a world where we proclaim the equality of men, for years the Jews were boycotted, deprived of their elementary rights of property, liberty, life itself; for years honest citizens lived in fear of denunciation and arrest by one or other of the organizations, criminal as we allege them to be, through which these men ruled Germany; for years throughout the German Reich millions of foreign slaves worked in farm and factory, were moved like cattle on every road, on every railway line.

These men, with Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels, and a few other confederates, were at once the leaders and the drivers of the German people; it was when they held the highest positions of authority and of influence that these crimes were planned and perpetrated. If these men are not responsible, who are? If minions who did no more than obey their orders, Dostler, Eck, Kramer, and a hundred others, have already paid the supreme penalty, are these men less responsible? How can it be said that they and the offices of state which they directed took no part? Lammers, their own witness, head of the Reich Chancellery, said in 1938 (Document Number 3863-PS):

“Despite the total concentration of power of authority in the person of the Führer as a matter of principle, no excessively strong and unnecessary centralization of administration in the hands of the Führer results in the governmental administration....

“The authority of the subordinate leaders”—the Unterführer—“directed downwards, forbids interference with every individual order he may issue. This principle is applied by the Führer in his governmental leadership in such a way that, for example, the position of Reich ministers is actually much more independent today than formerly, even though today the Reich ministers are subordinated to the Führer’s unlimited power of command.... Willingness to bear responsibility, ability to make decisions, aggressive energy, and real authority—these are the qualities which the Führer demands primarily of his subordinate leaders. Therefore he allows them the greatest freedom in the direction of their affairs and in the manner in which they fulfill their tasks.”

Let them now, accused murderers as they are, attempt to belittle the power and influence they exercised how they will, we have only to recall their ranting as they strutted across the stage of Europe dressed in their brief authority, to see the part they played. They did not then tell the German people or the world that they were merely the ignorant, powerless puppets of their Führer. The Defendant Speer has said (Session of 21 June 1946):

“... even in a totalitarian system there must be total responsibility... it is impossible after the catastrophe to evade this total responsibility. If the war had been won, the leaders would also have assumed total responsibility.”

Had the war been won is it to be supposed that these men would have retired to the obscurity and comparative innocence of private citizenship? That opportunity was not denied to them before the war had they wished to disassociate themselves from what was taking place. They chose a different path. From small beginnings, at a time when resistance instead of participation could have destroyed this thing, they fostered the Hitler legend, they helped to build up the Nazi power and ideology and to direct its activities until, like some foul octopus, it spread its slime over Europe and extended its tentacles throughout the world. Were these men ignorant of the ends sought to be achieved during that period of the rise to power? Paul Schmidt, Hitler’s interpreter, a witness of great knowledge, has testified (Document Number 3308-PS):

“The general objectives of the Nazi leadership were apparent from the start—namely, the domination of the European continent, to be achieved first by the incorporation of all German-speaking groups in the Reich, and secondly, by territorial expansion under the slogan of ‘Lebensraum.’”

That slogan “Lebensraum”—that entirely false idea that the very existence of the German people depended upon territorial expansion under the Nazi flag—was from the earliest days an openly avowed part of the Nazi doctrine—yet any thinking person must have known that it would lead inevitably to war.

It was the justification Hitler offered to his fellow conspirators at those secret meetings on the 5th of November 1937 (Document Number 386-PS), 23d of May (Document Number L-79), and 23d of November 1939 (Document Number 789-PS), at which the fate of so many countries was sealed.

Although less concrete it was no less false than the demand for a revision of the Treaty of Versailles. The so-called injustice of Versailles, so cunningly exploited to provide a popular rallying point under the Nazi banner, had succeeded in uniting behind the Nazis many Germans who would not otherwise have supported some of the rest of the Nazi program.

And the effect of that propaganda can be judged from the repeated efforts here made by the Defense to develop the alleged injustice of the treaty. Unjust or not, it was a treaty and no government content to live at peace need have complained of its provisions. Even if the complaints were justified, there was comparatively soon no ground left for them. The provisions of the treaty could have been—in some respects they were—revised by peaceful negotiations. By 1935, 4 years before the world was plunged into war, these men had publicly renounced the treaty. What miserable rubbish is the long tirade on behalf of the treaty, when one realizes that by 1939 not only were they free of nearly all the restrictions of which they had complained, but they had seized territory which had never belonged to Germany in the whole of European history. The cry of Versailles was a device for rallying men to wicked and aggressive purposes. But it was a device no less diabolical than the cry of anti-Semitism and racial purity, by which these men sought both to rally and cement the various forms of public opinion in their own country and to sow discord and antagonism amongst the people of foreign lands. Rauschning reports Hitler’s statement (Document Number USSR-378):

“Anti-Semitism is a useful revolutionary expedient. Anti-Semitic propaganda in all countries is an almost indispensable medium in the extension of our political campaign. You will see how little time we shall need in order to upset the ideas and criteria of the whole world simply and solely by attacking Judaism. It is beyond question the most important weapon in our propaganda arsenal.”

And as a result of this wicked propaganda, I would remind you of the words of Bach-Zelewski who, when he was asked how Ohlendorf could admit that the men under his command had murdered 90,000 people, replied:

“As to this I am of a different opinion. When, for years, for decades, the doctrine is preached that the Slav race is an inferior race and Jews are not even human beings, then such outburst is inevitable.” (Session of 7 January 1946.)

And so, from the earliest day, the aims of the Nazi movement were clear and beyond doubt: Expansion, European domination, elimination of the Jews, ultimate aggression, ruthless disregard of the rights of any people but themselves.

Such were the beginnings. I shall not pause to trace the Nazi Party’s growth to power; how, as the writer of the history of the SA has said, they found that (Document Number 2168-PS) “... possession of the streets is the key to power in the state,” or how, by the organized terror which the witness Severing has described the storm troops of Brown Shirts terrified the people whilst the Nazi propaganda, headed by Der Stürmer, vilified all opponents and incited people against the Jews.

I shall not examine that period, grave as are the lessons which democratic peoples ought to learn from it, for it may not be easy to say exactly at what date each of these defendants must have realized, if, indeed, he had not known and gloried in it all from the beginning, that Hitler’s apparently hysterical outpourings in Mein Kampf were intended in all seriousness and that they formed the very basis of the German plan. Some, no doubt, such as Göring, Hess, Ribbentrop, Rosenberg, Streicher, Frick, Frank, Schacht, Schirach, and Fritzsche, realized it, very early. In the case of one or two, such as Dönitz and Speer, it may have been comparatively late. Few can have been ignorant after 1933; all must have been active participants by 1937. When one remembers the apprehension caused abroad during that period there can be no doubt, in our submission, that these men, almost all of whom were the rulers of Germany from 1933 onward, Hitler’s intimate associates, admitted to his secret meetings, with full knowledge of plans and events, not only acquiesced in what was taking place, but were active and willing participants.

May I then examine in a little more detail the period of the “build-up”—the position of domestic government in Germany between 1933 and 1939, because what happened then makes clear the criminal involvement of these men in what was done later. What I say now has some special reference to the first Count in the Indictment, for it is against this general background that we must consider the allegation that these men were common conspirators to commit the crimes (such as Crimes Against Peace, and the Crime Against Humanity), which are more specifically charged in the later Counts.

Totalitarian government brooks no opposition. Any means justifies the end and the immediate end was ruthlessly to gain complete control of the German State and to brutalize and train its people for war. What stood in the way in January 1933? First, the members of the other political parties; secondly, the democratic system of election and of public assembly, the organization of trade unions; thirdly, the moral standards of the German people, and the churches which fostered them.

Accordingly the Nazis set out, quite deliberately, to eliminate this opposition: first, by imprisoning or terrorizing their opponents; second, by declaring illegal all elements of tolerance and liberalism, outlawing trade unions and opposition parties, reducing the democratic assembly to a farce and controlling elections; third, by systematic discouragement and persecution of religion, by replacing the ethics of Christianity with the idolatry of the Führer and the cult of the blood and by rigidly controlling education and youth. Youth was systematically prepared for war and taught to hate and persecute the Jews; the plans for aggression required a nation trained in brutality and taught that it was both necessary and heroic to invade the peoples of other countries.

It is a measure of the wickedness and effectiveness of this domestic policy that, after 6 years of rule, the Nazis found little difficulty in leading a perverted nation into the greatest criminal enterprise in history. It is perhaps worth considering from the evidence a few examples of how this policy developed during these 6 years. They are examples of what was happening in every German town and village. It must be remembered here that in the need to avoid cumulative evidence you have, in the result, been deprived of its cumulative effect (Document Number D-911).

First then, the elimination of political opponents. Within 6 weeks of the Nazis coming to power in January 1933, the German newspapers were quoting official sources for the statement that 18,000 Communists had been imprisoned whilst the 10,000 prisoners in the jails of Prussia included many Socialists and intellectuals. The fate of many of these men was described by Severing, who estimated that at least 1,500 Social Democrats and a similar number of Communists were murdered in concentration camps recently established by Göring as Chief of the Gestapo.

These camps, controlled by the Party organizations, were deliberately so run as to strike terror throughout the country. In the words of the witness Severing, the concentration camps represented for the people “the incarnation of all that was terrible.”

Göring has said: “We found it necessary that we should permit no opposition,” and he admitted that there were arrested and taken into protective custody people who had committed no crime.

It might have been well if at that time they had read the maxim of which they spoke yesterday, nulla poena sine lege.

Göring added: “... if everyone knows that if he acts against the State he will end up in a concentration camp that is our advantage.”

The camps were at first run indiscriminately by the SA and the SS, and according to Göring were created “... as an instrument which at all times was the instrument of power for home politics.”

Gisevius, who at that time had recently joined the Gestapo, you remember, gave the following description:

“I was hardly more than 2 days in that new police office when I had discovered already that incredible conditions existed there. There was no police which interfered against crimes, against murder, against arrests, against burglary. There was a police organization which protected just those who committed such crimes. Those arrested were not those who were guilty of such crimes; they arrested those who sent their cries for help to the police. It was not a police which interfered for protection, but a police whose task, it seemed, was in fact to hide, to cover up, and to sponsor crimes; those commandos of the SA and SS who played police were encouraged by that so-called Secret State Police and all possible aid was given to them....

“Special concentration camps for the Gestapo were installed, and their names will remain as a terrible shame in history. They were Oranienburg and the private prison of the Gestapo, in the Papestrasse, the Columbia House, or, as it was called cynically, the ‘Columbia Diele’.... I asked one of my colleagues, who was also a professional civil servant.... ‘Tell me, please, am I here in a police office or in a robber’s cave?’ The answer that I received was: ‘You are in a robber’s cave and you can expect that you will see much more yet.’”

Gisevius went on to describe Göring’s order to murder the National Socialist Strasser and how he gave “blank authority” for murder to the political police by signing a form granting amnesty to the policeman, leaving a blank space for the name of the murdered person in respect of whom the amnesty had been granted.

If confirmation of the evidence of these defense witnesses were required, it is to be found in the series of reports dated in May and June 1933, from the Munich Public Prosecutor to the Minister of Justice, which are in evidence recording a succession of murders by SS officials in the concentration camp at Dachau (Documents 641, 642, 644, 645-PS).

In 1935 the Reich Minister of Justice is writing to Frick (Document Number 3751-PS). He is protesting against numerous instances of ill-treatment in concentration camps, including:

“Beating as a disciplinary punishment...

“Ill-treatment—mostly of political internees—in order to make them talk.”—and—“Ill-treatment of internees arising out of wantonness or sadistic motives.”

He went on to complain that:

“The beating of the Communists held in custody is regarded as an indispensable police measure for a more effective suppression of Communist activities.”

And after citing instances of torture, he concludes: “These few examples show a degree of cruelty which is an insult to German sensibility....”

Frick’s sensibility was apparently not so tender. The very next year he received a similar protest from one of his own subordinates and shortly afterward he issued a decree making all police forces subordinate to Himmler, the very man whom he knew to be responsible for these atrocities (Document Number 775-PS).

These brutalities, well known to ministers, as we suggest they were, were not confined to the privacy of concentration camps. It is perhaps worth quoting one instance from the thousands who suffered from the policy which was being pursued.

The Tribunal will remember the account by Sollman, a Social Democrat, and member of the Reichstag from 1919 to 1933. He spoke of the incident on 9 March 1933 when, to quote his own words (Document Number 3231-PS):

“... members of the SS and SA came to my home in Cologne and destroyed the furniture and my personal records. At that time I was taken to the Brown House in Cologne, where I was tortured, being beaten and kicked for several hours. I was then taken to the regular Government prison in Cologne where I was treated by two medical doctors and released the next day. On 11 March 1933 I left Germany....”

The second object, the suppression of all democratic institutions, was comparatively simple. The necessary laws were passed to outlaw trade unions. The Reichstag became a farce directly the opposition parties had been dissolved and their members had been put in concentration camps. The witness Severing has spoken of the treatment of the Reichstag members. In 1932, on Von Papen’s order he, who was chief of the Prussian Ministry of the Interior, was forcibly removed from his office. It was not long after the 30th of January 1933 that the Communist and Social Democratic parties were decreed illegal and all form of public expression, other than by the Nazis, was prevented. This action resulted from deliberate planning. Frick has said as far back as 1927 (Document Number 2513-PS):

“The National Socialists longed for the day when ...”—they—“... could put an inglorious but well-deserved end to this infernal sham (the Reichstag) and open the way for a national dictatorship.”

At this time when democratic government is seeking to re-establish itself throughout the world, the Nazi attitude to elections is not to be forgotten. Free elections could not, of course, be permitted. Göring had told Schacht in February 1933 when seeking money for the Party from industry, and I quote (Document Number D-203):

“The sacrifice asked for will surely be so much easier for industry to bear if it is realized that the election of 5 March will be the last one for the next 10 years, probably for the next 100 years.”

In these circumstances it is not surprising to find that thereafter, as the evidence such as the SD report on the conduct of the plebiscite at Kappel makes clear, the occasional votes of the people, always announced as triumphs for the Nazis, were conducted dishonestly (Document Number R-142).

I turn to the third class of opposition, the churches—Bormann’s memorandum sent in December 1941 to all Gauleiter and distributed to the SS sums up the Nazi attitude to Christianity (Document Number D-75):

“National Socialist and Christian, concepts are irreconcilable. ... If therefore in the future our youth knows nothing more of this Christianity whose doctrines are far below ours, Christianity will disappear by itself.... All influences which might impair or damage the leadership of the people exercised by the Führer with the aid of NSDAP must be eliminated. More and more the people must be separated from the churches and their organs, the pastors....”

The persecution of the churches makes a melancholy story. From the abundance of evidence which has been submitted to the Tribunal it is perhaps permissible to quote from a complaint to Frick made early in 1936 (Document Number 775-PS):

“... lately half the political police reports concern clerical matters. We have untold petitions from all kinds of cardinals, bishops, and dignitaries of the Church. Most of these complaints concern matters under the jurisdiction of the Reich Ministry of the Interior, although the respective rules were not decreed by it....”

And then after referring to the chaos resulting from the division of authority between the various police forces, the report goes on to refer to the results of the religious struggle:

“Instances of disturbances of congregations are mounting terribly fast lately, often necessitating the intervention of the emergency squad.... After discarding the rubber truncheon, the idea of exposing executive officials to situations in which, during interruptions of meetings, they may be forced to use cold steel, is unbearable.”

The diary of the Minister of Justice for 1935 provides ample instances of the sort of behavior which was being encouraged by the Hitler Youth under the Defendant Schirach and the Defendant Rosenberg. The Hitler Jugend, whose membership increased from just under 108,000 in 1932 to nearly 8 million in 1939, was organized on a military basis (Document Number 2435-PS). The close collaboration between Keitel and Schirach in their military education has been described; the special arrangement between Schirach and Himmler by which the Hitler Jugend became the recruiting organization for the SS is in evidence (Document Number 2396-PS). You will not have forgotten the words of Schirach’s deputy (Document Number 1992-PS): “In the course of years we want to insure that a gun feels just as natural in the hands of a German boy as a pen.”

What a horrible doctrine!

The terrorization, murder, and persecution of political opponents, the dissolution of all organizations affording opportunity for opposition, criticism, or even free speech, the systematic perversion of youth and training for war would not, however, have sufficed without persecution of the Jews.

Let no one be misled by the metaphysical explanations which are put forward for this most frightful crime. What Hitler himself in this very town described as the fanatical combat against the Jews was part and parcel of the policy of establishing “ein Volk”—“ein Herrenvolk,” which would dominate Europe and the world. And so the persecution of the Jews was popularized throughout the country. It provided the cement which bound the people to the regime. It gave the youths a butt to bully and so to acquire practical schooling in brutality.

With the accession to power the persecution of the Jews increased in violence. The final solution of mass murder had then been conceived. In Mein Kampf of Hitler, the bible of the Nazis, Hitler had regretted that poison gas had not been employed to exterminate the German Jews during the last war, and as early as 1925 Streicher said (Document Number M-13): “Let us make a new beginning today, so that we can annihilate the Jew.” It may be that he, even before Hitler, Himmler, or the others, had visualized the annihilation of the Jews, but the Nazis were not at first ready completely to defy world opinion and they confined themselves to persecution and to making life in Germany unbearable for Jews. To the never-ceasing accompaniment of the Stürmer and the official Nazi press the campaign of Jew-baiting was fostered and encouraged. Rosenberg, Von Schirach, Göring, Hess, Funk, Bormann, Frick joined hands with Streicher and Goebbels. The boycott in April 1933 celebrated the Nazi accession to power and provided only a taste of what was to follow. It was accompanied by demonstrations and window-smashing—“Action Mirror” as it has been referred to in this Court. Accounts of typical incidents are given in the affidavit of the witness Geist who describes the events in Berlin on 6 March 1933 (Document Number 1759-PS):

“Wholesale attacks on the Communists, Jews, and those who were suspected of being either; mobs of SA men roamed the streets, beating up, looting, and even killing persons.”

In 1935 followed the infamous Nuremberg Decrees. In 1938 the so-called spontaneous demonstrations ordered throughout Germany resulted in the burning of the synagogues, the throwing of 20,000 Jews into concentration camps with the accompaniment of penalties, of Aryanization of property, and the wearing of a yellow star.

The cynicism of these men and the merciless character of their policy towards the Jews appeared at Göring’s meeting of 12 November 1938, when they vied with each other in suggesting methods of degrading and persecuting their helpless victims. Neither Hitler nor Himmler, whom today they seek to blame, was present, but who, reading the record of that meeting, can doubt the end in store for the Jews of Europe? At that meeting Heydrich reported on the events which occurred on the night of 9 November: 101 synagogues destroyed by fire, 76 demolished and 7,500 stores ruined throughout the Reich. The Reichsmark approximate cost of replacing broken glass alone was estimated at 6 million and the damage to one store alone in Berlin at 1.7 million Reichsmark. Heydrich also reported 800 cases of looting, the killing of 35 Jews, and estimated the total damage of property, furniture, and goods at several hundred million Reichsmark.

You will recall Heydrich’s order for the riot, including the arrests of the Jews and their removal to concentration camps. After referring to the fact that demonstrations were to be expected in view of the killing of a German legation official in Paris that night, he instructs the Police on the prospective burning of synagogues, destruction of business, and private apartments of Jews, and in their duty to refrain from hindering the demonstrators: “... the Police has only to supervise compliance with the instructions.” And finally (Document Number 3051-PS):

“In all districts as many Jews—especially rich ones—are to be arrested as can be accommodated in the existing prisons. For the time being only healthy men, not too old, are to be arrested. Upon their arrest, the appropriate concentration camps should be contacted immediately in order to confine them in these camps as fast as possible.”

We now know from the evidence with regard to the seizure of the houses of Jews by Neurath and Rosenberg why the orders were to concentrate upon the richest (Document Number 1759-PS).

These events are neither secret nor hidden. Ministers were writing to each other and discussing them. Long before 1939 they were common knowledge not only to Germany but to the whole world. Every one of these defendants must have heard again and again stories similar to that of Sollman. Almost all of them have sought to gain credit from helping one or two Jews; and you will remember the evidence of a special office in Göring’s Ministry to deal with protests, and his witness Körner who stated with pride that Göring had always intervened on behalf of individuals (Session of 12 March 1946 a. m.). Perhaps it afforded them some gratification or eased their conscience in some way occasionally to demonstrate their influence by exempting some unhappy individual who sought their favor from the general horror of the regime which they continued to uphold. But these men participated in a Government which was conducted without any regard for human decency or established law. There is not one of them who, being a member of the Government during that period, has not got the blood of hundreds of his own countrymen on his hands.

Göring and Frick established the concentration camps; the witness Severing and the documents quoted testify to the murders which took place in them at a time when these two were directly responsible. Even Göring could not defend all the murders of 30 June 1934. He shares with Hess and Frick the responsibility for the Nuremberg Laws. The record of the meeting of 12 November 1938 (Document Number 1816-PS) and Göring’s initials on Heydrich’s order of the 9 November (Document Number 3051-PS) require no comment.

As Ambassador in England, Ribbentrop must have been well aware of the facts, if only from the English papers, whilst his delegate Woermann assented to the atrocities reported to the meeting of 12 November 1938. The previous owner of his country house, Herr Von Remitz, was placed in a concentration camp, and he expressed his sentiments toward the Jews to M. Bonnet, on 8 December 1938 in the following terms (Document Number L-205):

“The German Government had therefore decided to assimilate them”—the Jews—“with the criminal elements of the population. The property which they acquired illegally would be taken from them. They would be forced to live in districts inhabited by the criminal classes.”

Hess, who set up an office for racial policy in 1933, shares responsibility for the Nuremberg Decrees (Document Number 1814-PS).

At the meeting of 12 November 1938 a full report was given of similar measures against the Jews in Austria (Document Number 1816-PS) and it seems certain that the Defendant Kaltenbrunner as a faithful member of the Party was giving full support to the necessary measures. The evidence that Seyss-Inquart was playing his part is before the Tribunal. Rosenberg was writing The Myth of the 20th Century and taking his full share in the struggle against the Church and in the anti-Semitic policy of the Government; whilst even Raeder on Heroes’ Day 1939 was speaking of “the clear and inspiring summons to fight Bolshevism and international Jewry whose race-destroying activities we have sufficiently experienced on our own people.”

Frick, as Minister of the Interior, bears a responsibility second to none for the horrors of the concentration camps and for the Gestapo, whilst Frank, as Minister of Justice for Bavaria, was presumably receiving the reports on the murders in Dachau. He was the leading jurist of the Party, a member of the Central Committee which carried out the boycott of the Jews in March 1933 and he spoke on the wireless in March 1934 justifying racial legislation and the elimination of hostile political organizations. He also was present at Göring’s meeting.

The Tribunal will not require to be reminded of the part played by Streicher. It was in March 1938 that the Stürmer began consistently to advocate extermination, the first article of a series which was to continue throughout the next 7 years, beginning with an article signed by Streicher ending with the words: “We are approaching wonderful times—a Greater Germany without Jews.”

Funk, as Vice President of the Reich Chamber for Culture from 1933, had participated in the policy for the elimination of the Jews (Document 3505-PS); he was present and assented to the recommendations at Göring’s November meeting in 1938 at which it will be remembered Göring suggested that it would have been better to kill 200 Jews, whereupon Heydrich mentioned that in fact the number was a mere 35 (Document 1816-PS).

Schacht himself admitted that as early as the second half of 1934 and the first half of 1935 he found that he was wrong in thinking that Hitler would bring the “revolutionary” force of the Nazis into a regulated atmosphere, and that he discovered that Hitler, having done nothing to stop the excesses of individual Party members or Party groups, was in fact pursuing a “policy of terror.” Nevertheless he remained in office and Schacht accepted the Golden Party Badge in January 1937 when Von Eltz refused it.

Schirach has confirmed his part in insuring that the younger generation of Germany grew up rabid anti-Semites under his teaching. He cannot escape responsibility for training the youth to bully Jews, to persecute the Church, to prepare for war. This perversion of children is perhaps the basest crime of all.

Sauckel, who had joined the Party in 1921, filled the post of Gauleiter of Thuringia (Document Number 2974-PS). He cannot have been ignorant of the persecution of the churches, of the trade unions, of other political parties and of the Jews, taking place throughout this important Gau, and there is every reason to suppose that he gave the fullest support to these policies and thus enhanced his reputation with the Nazis. Papen and Neurath were in a better position to judge these matters than any of the other defendants, since it was their political associates who were being persecuted; whilst, in the case of Papen, some of his own staff were killed and he himself arrested and was lucky to escape with his life.

Neurath’s attitude to the Jews is shown by his speech in September 1933:

“The stupid talk about purely internal affairs, as for example the Jewish question, will quickly be silenced if one realizes that the necessary cleaning up of public life must temporarily entail individual cases of personal hardship but that nevertheless it only serves to establish all the more firmly the authority of justice and law in Germany.”

What prostitution of these great words!

Of the remainder, all were men of intelligence and already held positions of considerable authority. None of them can have been ignorant of what the whole world knew, yet not one of them has suggested that he made any effective protest against this regime of brutality and terror. All of these men continued in their spheres of government and in the highest positions of responsibility. Each in his part—and such a vital part—these men built up the evil thing, the ultimate purpose of which was so well known to them, and instilled the evil doctrines which were essential to the achievement of that purpose. It was Lord Acton—that great European—who, 80 years ago, in expressing his conviction of the sanctity of human life, said: “The greatest crime is homicide. The accomplice is no better than the assassin; the theorist is the worst.”

I shall return if I may, later, to the question of conspiracy and to the part these men played in it, but no conclusion upon the conspiracy charge in the first Count of the Indictment is really possible until the specific crimes set out in the subsequent counts have been considered. And first of these is the Crime against Peace, set out in Count Two. I say first, first in its place in the Indictment. Moralists may argue which is greatest in moral guilt. But this perhaps should be said at the very outset. It is said that there is no such crime as a crime against peace, and those superficial thinkers who, whether in this Court or in armchairs elsewhere, have questioned the validity of these proceedings, have made much of this argument. Of its merits I shall have something to say presently. But let it be said plainly now that these defendants are charged also as common murderers. That charge alone merits the imposition of the supreme penalty and the joinder in the Indictment of this Crime against Peace can add nothing to the penalty which may be imposed on these individuals. Is it, then, a mere work of supererogation to have included this matter in the Indictment at all? We think not, for the very reason that more is at stake here than the fate of these individuals. It is the crime of war which is at once the object and the parent of the other crimes; the Crimes against Humanity, the War Crimes, the common murders. These things occur when men embark on total war as an instrument of policy for aggressive ends.

Moreover, taking this crime, the Crime against Peace, in isolation, it was responsible for the deaths in battle of 10 million men, and for bringing to the very edge of ruin the whole moral and material structure of our civilization. Although it may be that it may add nothing to the penalty which may be imposed upon these men, it is a fundamental part of these proceedings to establish for all time that international law has the power, inherent in its very nature, both to declare that a war is criminal and to deal with those who aid and abet their states in its commission. I shall come back to the law. Let me first refer to the facts.

You have had from Defense Counsel an elaborate, but a partial and a highly controversial account of foreign relations leading up to 1939. I do not propose to follow them in that examination, nor am I concerned to say that as events have turned out, the policies pursued by the democratic powers may not sometimes have been weak, vacillating, and open to criticism. Defense Counsel have sought to base some argument on the protocol attached to the German-Soviet Pact. They argue that it was wrong. I am not concerned with that, and, of course, I do not concede it. But let them argue that it was wrong. Do two wrongs make a right? Not in that international law which this Tribunal will administer.

The review which Defense Counsel have made entirely overlooks the two basic facts in this case, that from the time of Mein Kampf on, the whole aim of Nazi policy was expansion, aggression, domination, and that the democratic powers had to deal with a Germany of which that was, in spite of occasional lip service to peace, the fundamental aim. If peace was contemplated at all, it was peace only at Germany’s price. And knowing that that price would not be and could not be paid voluntarily, the Germans were determined to secure it by force.

Whilst the German people were being psychologically prepared for war, the necessary measures of rearmament were taken simultaneously. At his conference on the 23d of November 1939, Hitler summed up this period of preparation in these words (Document Number 789-PS):

“I had to reorganize everything beginning with the mass of the people extending it to the Armed Forces. First internal reorganization, eradication of appearances of decay and of defeatist ideas, education for heroism. While reorganizing internally, I undertook the second task to release Germany from its international ties ... secession from the League of Nations and denunciation of the Disarmament Conference ... After that the order for rearmament... In 1935 the introduction of compulsory armed service. After that militarization of the Rhineland...”

The conspirators set out first to get rid of the political restraints which prevented rearmament. In October 1933 Germany left the League of Nations and in March 1935 renounced the armament clauses of Versailles and informed the world of the establishment of an air force, of a large standing army, and of conscription. Already the Reich Defense Council had been set up and its Working Committee had had its second meeting as early as 26 April 1933 with representatives from every department. It is difficult, is it not, to believe that reading the minutes of these meetings, as they must have done, Neurath, Frick, Schacht, Göring, Raeder, Keitel, and Jodl, the last two being generally present, can have supposed that the regime did not intend war.

On the economic side Schacht, already President of the Reichsbank and Minister of Economics, was made General Plenipotentiary for War Economy in May 1935. The appointment was to be a complete secret (Document Number 2261-PS). His contribution is best expressed in his own words (Document Number EC-611):

“It is possible that no bank of issue in peacetime carried on such a daring credit policy as the Reichsbank since the seizure of power by National Socialism. With the aid of this credit policy, however, Germany created an armament second to none and this armament in turn made possible the results of our policy.”

Schacht’s speech on 29 November 1938 is seen to be no boast when the report of his deputy, which has been put in evidence, is considered. That report shows that under Schacht’s guidance, 180,000 industrial plants had been surveyed as to usefulness for war purposes (Document Number EC-258). Economic plans for the production of 200 basic materials had been worked out. A system for the letting of war contracts had been revised, allocations of coal, motor fuel and power had been determined, 248 million Reichsmark had been spent on storage facilities alone, evacuation plans for skilled workers and war materials and military zones had been worked out; 80 million wartime ration cards had already been printed and distributed to local areas and a card index on the skill of some 20 million workers had been prepared.

The most detailed and thorough preparations which that report sets out were not made without the knowledge of every member of the Government and no more graphic illustration of the common purpose and awareness of the aim which permeated all departments of the State is to be found than the second meeting of the Reich Defense Council itself held on 25 June 1939, under the presidency of the Defendant Göring, the head of the Four Year Plan. The Defendants Frick, Funk, Keitel, and Raeder were present and Hess and Ribbentrop were represented. The methodical detail in the plans which were being worked out—the preparation in respect of manpower involving the use of concentration camp workers and the unfortunate slaves of the protectorate are eloquent testimonies to the size of the struggle upon which these men knew that Germany was about to embark.

The major share in rearmament must be attributed to the Defendants Göring, Schacht, Raeder, Keitel, and Jodl, but the others, too, each in his sphere, played their parts: Rosenberg, Schirach, and Streicher in education, Dönitz in the preparation of the U-boat fleet, Neurath and Ribbentrop in the field of foreign affairs.

Funk and Fritzsche were reorganizing propaganda and news systems until the former succeeded Schacht and became Minister of Economics and in September 1938 General Plenipotentiary for Economics. As Plenipotentiary Funk was charged with insuring the economic conditions for the production of the armament industry, according to the requirements of the High Command. Frick as Plenipotentiary for the Reich Administration (Document Number 2978-PS), with Funk and Keitel, formed the Three Man College planning the necessary steps and decrees in case of war.

It is unnecessary in assessing this work of rearmament to do more by way of summary than to quote the words of Hitler himself in the memorandum which Jodl described as written during two nights of work by the Führer personally and which he sent to the Defendants Raeder, Göring, and Keitel. In that memorandum of 9 October 1939, Hitler finally disposes of the evidence of these defendants that Germany was never adequately prepared for war (Document Number L-52):

“The military application of our people’s strength has been carried through to such an extent that within a short time at any rate it cannot be markedly improved upon by any manner of effort.”

And again:

“The warlike equipment of the German people is at present larger in quantity and better in quality for a great number of German divisions, than in the year 1914. The weapons themselves, taking a substantial cross section, are more modern than is the case with any other country in the world at this time. They have just proved their supreme warworthiness in a victorious campaign. In the case of the armaments of other countries this has yet to be demonstrated. In some arms Germany today possesses clear indisputable superiority of weapons.”

And then, speaking of the ammunition available after the conclusion of the Polish campaign:

“There is no evidence available to show that any country in the world disposes of a better total ammunition stock than the German Reich.... The Air Force at present is numerically the strongest in the world.... The anti-aircraft artillery is not equalled by any country in the world.”

That, then, was the practical result of 6 years of intensive rearmament carried out at the expense and with the knowledge of the whole of the German people.

Meanwhile the youth of Germany was educated and drilled in semimilitary formations for war and then, on reaching the age for conscription, was called up for more intensive training. This was going on throughout the Reich, together with the enormous work of economic preparation. Is it to be believed that any one of these men did not guess—did not, indeed, know—the purpose of this terrific effort?

If, indeed, any of them was in doubt, the successful actions in which—to use the words of one of Neurath’s witnesses—“the Nazis were able to reap cheap laurels without war through the successfully practiced tactics of bluff and sudden surprise,”—must have opened their eyes.

The first step was the Rhineland and the technique became the model for each subsequent move. On 21 May 1935, Hitler gave a solemn assurance that the stipulations of Versailles and Locarno were being observed. Yet 3 weeks earlier on the very day of the conclusion of the Franco-Soviet Pact, later to become the official excuse for the reoccupation of the Rhineland, and the defense for it, before this Tribunal, the first directive for reoccupation had been issued to the service chiefs. The Defendant Jodl, having perhaps noted the significance of the date, has sought to persuade the Tribunal that his first admission, that “Operation Schulung” referred to the reoccupation of the Rhineland, was wrong, and that it applied to some military excursion in the Tyrol. Yet on the 26th of June he himself was addressing the Working Committee of the Reich Defense Council on the plans for reoccupation and revealing that weapons, equipment, insignia, and field grey uniforms were being stored in the zone under conditions of the greatest secrecy (Document Number EC-405). Can anyone who reads his words doubt that this process had been going on at least for 7 weeks?

Any representative of the innumerable departments who attended that meeting and heard Jodl’s remarks on the 26th of June 1935 or who subsequently read the minutes knew what to expect. On the 2d of March 1936 the final orders were given and passed to the Navy 4 days later (Document Number C-194). The Defendants Keitel, Jodl, Raeder, Frick, Schacht, and Göring were all involved in the necessary executive action and, if his U-boats complied with the instruction of the 6th of March, the Defendant Dönitz, as well.

From the beginning, at every stage you see the common plan worked out—and worked out as it could only be if each of those men played his allotted part. First the period of apparent quiet, during which treaties are concluded, assurances given, and protestations of friendship made while beneath the surface the Auslands-Organisation under Hess and Rosenberg begins to undermine and disrupt. The victim is deceived by open promises and weakened by underhand methods. Next, the decision to attack is taken and military preparations are hastened. If the victim shows signs of suspicion, the assurances of friendship are redoubled.

Meanwhile, the finishing touches are put to the work accomplished by the fifth column. Then when all is prepared, what Hitler called “the propagandist cause for starting the war” is chosen, frontier incidents are faked, abuse and threats take place of fair words and everything is done to terrify the victim into submission. Finally, the blow is struck without warning. The plan varies in detail from case to case, but essentially, it is the same, the perfect example repeated again and again, of treachery, intimidation, and murder.

The next step was Austria. First, the Nazis arranged the murder of Dollfuss in 1934. After the evidence in the case of the Defendant Neurath, there can be little doubt as to his assassination being plotted in Berlin and arranged by Habicht and Hitler some six weeks before. The failure of that Putsch made it necessary to temporize, and accordingly in May 1935 Hitler gave a complete assurance to Austria (Document Number TC-26). At the same time the Defendant Papen was sent to undermine the Austrian Government. With the occupation of the Rhineland, Austria was next on the program but Hitler was still not yet ready, hence the solemn agreement of July 1936 (Document Number T-22). By the autumn of 1937 Papen’s reports showed progress and accordingly the plot was divulged at the Hossbach meeting (Document Number 386-PS). A slight delay was necessary for the removal of the refractory Army leaders, but in February 1938, Papen having completed his plotting with Seyss-Inquart, Schuschnigg was lured to Berchtesgaden and bullied by Hitler, Ribbentrop, and Keitel. Shortly afterward, the final scene took place; Göring played his part in Berlin. The defendants, Göring, Hess, Keitel, Jodl, Raeder, Frick, Schacht, Papen, and Neurath, were all aware of this Austrian plot, Neurath and Papen from the very beginning of it.

With the exception of Göring, each one of them has attempted to put forward a defense of ignorance which cannot be regarded as other than ludicrous in the light of the documents. Not one of them has suggested that he protested, each one of them remained in office thereafter.

Already the plan for Czechoslovakia was ready; it had been discussed at the Hossbach meeting in November 1937, within 3 weeks of the Munich Agreement the directive to prepare to march in had been given and on the 15th of March 1939, President Hacha having been duly bullied by Hitler, Ribbentrop, Göring, and Keitel, Prague was occupied and the Protectorate established by Frick and Neurath. You will remember the astonishing admission of Göring that although he certainly threatened to bomb Prague he never really intended to do it. Ribbentrop also seems to have considered that in diplomacy any lie is permissible.

The stage was now set for Poland.

As Jodl explained (Document Number L-172):

“The peaceful solution of the Czech conflict in the autumn of 1938 and the annexation of Czechoslovakia rounded off the territory of greater Germany so that it was possible to consider the Polish problem on a basis of more or less favorable strategic premises.”

And now the time has come when, to use Hitler’s words (Document Number 386-PS): “German policy must reckon with its two hateful enemies, England and France.” And accordingly followed the policy laid down by Ribbentrop in January 1938 (Document Number TC-75): “The formation in great secrecy but with whole-hearted tenacity of a coalition against England.”

In the case of Poland, however, the German Foreign Office had already advised Ribbentrop as long ago as a month before Munich in the following terms (Document Number TC-76):

“It is unavoidable that the German departure from the border problems in the southeast and their direction to the east and northeast must make the Poles sit up. The fact is that after the solution of the Czech problem it will be generally assumed that Poland will be the next in turn. But the later this assumption sinks in in international politics as a firm factor the better. In this sense, however, it is important for the time being to carry on German policy under the well-known and proved slogans of the right to autonomy and racial unity. Anything else might be interpreted as pure imperialism on our part and create resistance to our plan by the Entente at an earlier date and more energetically than our forces could stand up to.”

In this case, therefore, the usual assurances were reiterated and again and again Hitler and Ribbentrop made the most explicit statements. Meanwhile the usual steps were taken, and following the meeting of the 23d of May 1939 (Document L-79), which Raeder described as an academic lecture on war, the final military economic and political preparations for war against Poland were taken and in due time war was commenced; and you get that quotation that you have heard so often, and it ought to be remembered for all times (Document Number 1014-PS):

“The victor shall not be asked later on whether we were telling the truth or not. In starting and making a war, not the right is what matters, but victory.”

These were Hitler’s words, but those men echoed and implemented them at every stage. That was the doctrine underlying Nazi policy. Step by step the conspirators had reached the crucial stage and had launched Germany upon an attempt to dominate Europe and involve the world in untold horror. Not one of these men had turned against the regime. Not one of them except Schacht—to whose vital contribution to the creation of the Nazi monster I shall return later—had resigned and even he continued to lend his name to the Nazi Government.

Would that be a convenient place to adjourn?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, we will adjourn now.

[A recess was taken.]

SIR HARTLEY SHAWCROSS: If it please the Tribunal: Holland having been overrun, the course of the war soon showed that Germany’s military aims and the interests of her strategy would be improved by further aggression. I do not propose to take time now by tracing again the various steps. As Hitler said at the meeting in November 1939 (Document 739-PS):

“Breach of the neutrality of Belgium and Holland is meaningless. No one will question that when we have won. We shall not bring forth as silly a reason for the breach of neutrality as in 1914.”

Norway and Denmark were invaded. No kind of excuse, then or now, has been put forward for the occupation of Denmark, but a strenuous attempt has been made in the course of this Trial to suggest that Norway was invaded only because the Germans believed that the Allies were about to take a similar step. Even if it were true, it would be no answer, but the German documents completely dispose of the suggestion that it was for such a reason that the Germans violated Norwegian neutrality.

Hitler, Göring, and Raeder had agreed as early as November 1934, and I quote (Document Number C-190): “... no war could be carried on if the Navy was not able to safeguard the ore imports from Scandinavia.”

Accordingly, as the European struggle drew near, a nonaggression pact was made with Denmark on 31 May 1939 (Document Number TC-24) following the mutual assurance to both Norway and Denmark which had already been given a month earlier (Document Number TC-30). At the outbreak of the war a further assurance was made to Norway (Document Number TC-31), followed by another on the 6th of October (Document Number TC-32). On the 6th of September, 4 days after his assurance, Hitler was discussing with Raeder the Scandinavian problem and his political intentions in regard to the Nordic states, expressed in Admiral Assman’s diary as: “a North Germanic community with limited sovereignty in close dependence on Germany.”

On the 9th of October, 3 days after his most recent assurance, in his memorandum for the information of Raeder, Göring, and Keitel, Hitler was writing of the great danger of the Allies blocking the exits for U-boats between Norway and the Shetlands and of the consequent importance of “the creation of U-boat strongpoints outside these constricted home bases” (Document Number L-52). Where outside the constricted home bases if not in Norway?

It is significant that the very next day Dönitz submitted a report on the comparative advantages of the different Norwegian bases (Document C-5), having discussed the matter with Raeder some 6 days before (Document C-122). The strategic advantages were apparent to all these men and the hollowness of the defense that the invasion of Norway was decided upon because it was believed that the Allies were going to invade is completely exposed when you consider the statement in Hitler’s memorandum preceding the passage I have just quoted, that (Document Number L-52):

“Provided no completely unforeseen factors appear, their neutrality in the future is also to be assumed. The continuation of German trade with these countries appears possible even in a war of long duration.”

Hitler saw no threat from the Allies at that time.

Rosenberg and Göring’s deputy, Körner, had been in touch with Quisling and Hagelin as early as June and it is clear from Rosenberg’s subsequent report that Hitler had been kept fully informed (Document Number 004-PS). In December the time for planning had arrived and the decision to prepare for invasion was accordingly taken at a meeting between Hitler and Raeder (Document Number C-66). It was not long before Keitel and Jodl issued the necessary directives and in due course as necessary, Göring, Dönitz, and Ribbentrop were involved.

On the 9th of October, as I have already said, Hitler was confident that there would be no danger to the Nordic states from the Allies. All the alleged intelligence reports contain no information which comes within miles of justifying an anticipatory invasion based—you might think it is laughable—on the doctrines of self-preservation. It is true that in February 1940 Raeder pointed out to him that if England did occupy Norway the whole Swedish supply of ore to Germany would be endangered (Document Number D-881), but on the 26th of March he advised that the Russo-Finnish conflict having ceased, the danger of an Allied landing was no longer considered serious. Nonetheless he went on to suggest that the German invasion, for which all the directives had been issued, should take place at the next new moon, on the 7th of April (Document Number R-81). It is interesting to note that Raeder’s own war diary signed by himself and his chief of staff operations records a similar opinion 4 days earlier. If further evidence were needed to show that the actual step was taken regardless of any risk of interference from the West, it is to be found in telegrams from the German ministers at both Oslo and Stockholm and from the German military attaché at Stockholm, advising the German Government that, far from being worried over invasion by the British, the Scandinavian Governments were apprehensive that it was the Germans who intended to invade (Documents Number D-843, D-844, D-845). Perhaps Jodl’s comment in his diary for March that Hitler “is still looking for an excuse” (Document Number 1809-PS) with Raeder’s lame explanation that this refers to the text of the diplomatic note which would have to be sent and Ribbentrop’s assertion that he was informed of the invasion only a day or so before it was to take place are as conclusive as anything else of the dishonesty of this defense. Once again all these men in their different spheres were playing their appointed parts—notably, of course, Rosenberg, who paved the way, Göring, Raeder, Keitel, Jodl, and Ribbentrop who took the necessary executive action. Not one of them protested: Even Fritzsche’s only defense is that he was not told until a very late stage when he was as usual required to broadcast. He does not suggest that he protested. Once again, a completely ruthless invasion of two countries was undertaken in breach of every treaty and assurance, solely because it was strategically desirable to have Norwegian bases and to secure Scandinavian ore.

And so it went on: Yugoslavia, her fate settled before the war, Greece, and then Soviet Russia. The German-Soviet Pact of the 23d of August 1939 paved the way. Complete worthlessness of a Ribbentrop signature is made clear by Hitler’s memorandum 6 weeks later, where he remarked (Document Number L-52): “The trifling significance of treaties of agreement has been proved on all sides in recent years.”

By the 18th of December 1940 it must have become apparent that the German hopes of overcoming the resistance of Great Britain—then and for many months holding the fort of freedom and democracy alone against an enemy never more powerful than at that time—were vain, and so the first directive was issued for an attack in another direction this time—against Soviet Russia (Document Number 446-PS). It is indeed true—and it is interesting—that on this occasion a number of the defendants did make some objection. Little Norway might be violated without protest: There was no danger there. There was happy acquiescence in the rape of the gallant Netherlands and of Belgium. But here was an enemy which might perhaps strike fear in the heart of the bully. The defendants objected, of course, if at all, on purely military grounds, although Raeder does say that he was influenced by the moral wrong which a breach of the German Soviet treaty would involve. It is for you to say. These moral scruples which ought so properly to have manifested themselves on countless other occasions are only previously recorded when one of his officers wishes to marry a lady of doubtful reputation. The truth is that some of these men were beginning to become apprehensive. Great Britain’s resistance had already begun to make them think. Was Hitler now taking on another enemy whom he could not defeat? Once the decision was taken, however, every one of them set to work to play his part with his usual disregard for all laws of morality or even decency.

In no single case did a declaration of war precede military action. How many thousands of innocent, inoffensive men, women, and children, sleeping in their beds in the happy belief that their country was and would remain at peace, were suddenly blown into eternity by death dropped on them without warning from the skies? In what respect does the guilt of any one of these men differ from the common murderer creeping stealthily to do his victims to death in order that he may rob them of their belongings?

In every single case, as the documents (Documents 386-PS, L-79) make clear, this was the common plan. The attack must be “blitzartig schnell”—without warning, with the speed of lightning—Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland—Raeder repeating Keitel’s directive for “heavy blows struck by surprise” (Document Number C-126)—Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, Russia. As Hitler had said in the presence of a number of these men (Document Number L-79): “Considerations of right or wrong or treaties do not enter into the matter.”

The killing of combatants in war is justifiable, both in international and in municipal law, only where the war itself is legal. But where a war is illegal, as a war started not only in breach of the Pact of Paris but without any sort of warning or declaration clearly is, there is nothing to justify the killing, and these murders are not to be distinguished from those of any other lawless robber bands.

Every one of these men knew of these plans at one stage or another in their development. Every one of these men acquiesced in this technique, knowing full well what it must represent in terms of human life. How can any one of them now say he was not a party to common murder in its most ruthless form?

But I am dealing now not with the murders which alone so well justify the condemnation of these men, but with their crime against peace. Let me say something about the legal aspect of this matter, for it is one to the firm establishment of which His Majesty’s Government of the United Kingdom, and indeed all the chief prosecutors here, attach great importance.

The distinguished speech by Professor Jahrreiss for the Defense was free of ambiguity. The effect was that though the Kellogg-Briand Pact and the other international declarations and treaties rendered aggressive war illegal, they did not make it criminal. In support of this contention it was argued that they could not have done so because any such attempt to make aggressive war a crime would be contrary to the sovereignty of states, and that, in any event, the entire system of prohibition of war had collapsed before the outbreak of the second World War and therefore ceased to be law. It was further argued that these treaties were not taken seriously by numerous jurists and journalists whose opinions were cited and were not really entitled to be treated seriously because they contained no provision for coping with the problem of the peaceful change of the status quo. With regard to the Pact of Paris itself, counsel contended that there could be no question of a criminal—or even unlawful—breach of that Pact of Paris because it left to each state, including Germany, the right to determine whether it was entitled to go to war in self-defense. Finally it was suggested that the state could not become the subject of criminal responsibility and that, if that proposition were not admitted, the crime was one of the German State and not of individual members of it, because in the German State which launched that war upon the world there were no individual wills but only one sovereign, uncontrolled, and final will—that of the dictator-Führer.

It might be enough for me to say that this entire line of arguments is beside the point and cannot be heard in this Court since it is in contradiction to the Charter. For the Charter lays down expressly that the planning—and I emphasize the word “planning”—preparation, initiation, or waging of a war of aggression or of a war in violation of international treaties, agreements, or assurances shall be considered crimes coming within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal. It would appear, therefore, that the only way in which the accused can escape liability is to show to the satisfaction of the Tribunal that these wars were not wars of aggression or in violation of treaties. They have not done that. That being so one asks what is the purpose of the argument which has been advanced in their behalf. Is it to deny the jurisdiction of this Tribunal in this matter? Or what is perhaps more probable, is it a political appeal to some outside audience which may be more easily impressed by the complaint that the accused are being made the object of post factum legislation?

Whatever its object, it is important that the argument should not go unchallenged. I am anxious not to take up time by repeating what I said in my opening statement on the change effected in the position of war in international law as the result of the long series of treaties, in particular the General Treaty for the Renunciation of War. I have submitted that that treaty, one of the most generally signed international treaties, established a rule of international law with a solemnity and clarity which is often lacking in customary international law; that the profound change which it produced, and this is important, although indeed the distinction between just and unjust wars had been recognized in medieval times, was reflected in weighty pronouncements of governments and statesmen. I submit that it rendered illegal recourse to war in violation of the treaty, and that there is no difference between illegality and criminality in a breach of law involving the deaths of millions and a direct attack on the very foundations of civilized life. Nor do I propose to take time by answering in detail the, if I may say so, strange chain of legal argument put forward by the Defense such as that the treaty had no effect attributed to it by its signatories on the ground that it was received in some quarters with disbelief or cynicism.

Even more curious to ordinary legal thinking is the reasoning that in any case that treaty—and the other treaties and assurances which followed it—had ceased to be legally binding by 1939 because by that time the entire system of collective security had collapsed. The fact that the United States declared its neutrality in 1939 was cited as an example of the collapse of the system as if the United States had been under any legal obligation to act otherwise. But what is the relevance of the fact that the system designed to enforce these treaties and to prevent and to penalize criminal recourse to war failed to work? Did the aggressions of Japan and Italy and the other states involved in the Axis conspiracy, followed by the German aggressions against Austria and Czechoslovakia, deprive those obligations of their binding effect simply because those crimes achieved a temporary success? Since when has the civilized world accepted the principle that the temporary impunity of the criminal not only deprives the law of its binding force but legalizes his crime?

And you will notice, incidentally, that in the case both of the Japanese and Italian aggressions, the Council and the Assembly of the League of Nations denounced these acts as violations both of the Covenant and of the General Treaty for the Renunciation of War and that in both cases sanctions were decreed. It may be that the policemen did not act as effectively as one could have wished them to act. But that was a failure of the policeman, not of the law.

But not content with the remarkable suggestion that by their very aggressions, because of the reluctance of the peace-loving states to take arms against the blackmail and the bullying which was directed against them, the aggressors had abrogated the law against aggression, the defendants have introduced some question of self-defense. They have not, indeed, really suggested that these wars were defensive wars. Not even Goebbels in his wildest extravagances went quite so far as that. It appears that what they seek to say is not that their wars were wars in self-defense, but that since the Pact of Paris not only left intact the right of states to defend themselves but also the sovereign right of each state to determine whether recourse to war in self-defense was justified in the circumstances, it did not in fact contain any legal obligation at all. That is, in our strong submission, a wholly fallacious argument. It is true that in the declarations preceding and accompanying the signature and the ratification of the Pact of Paris, self-defense was not only recognized as an inherent and inalienable right of the parties to the treaty, but its signatories reserved for themselves the exclusive right of judging whether circumstances called for the exercise of that right.

The question is whether this reservation of self-defense destroyed the purpose and the legal value of the treaty. If Germany was entitled to have recourse to war in self-defense and if she was free to determine in what circumstances she was permitted to exercise the right of self-defense, can she ever be considered to have violated the solemn obligation of the treaty? That question counsel of the defense sought to answer in the negative. But that answer amounts to an assertion that that solemn treaty subscribed to by more than sixty nations is a scrap of paper devoid of any meaning at all, and it would result in this—that every prohibition or limitation of the right of war would be a nullity if it expressly provides for the right of self-defense, and I invite the Tribunal emphatically to consign that parody of legal reasoning to where it properly belongs.

Neither the Pact of Paris nor any other treaty was intended to—or could—take away the right of self-defense. Nor did it deprive its signatories of the right to determine, in the first instance, whether there was danger in delay and whether immediate action to defend themselves was imperative; and that only is the meaning of the express proviso that each state judges whether action in self-defense is necessary. But that does not mean that the state thus acting is the ultimate judge of the propriety and of the legality of its conduct. It acts at its peril. Just as the individual is answerable for the exercise of his common law right of defense, so the state is answerable if it abuses its discretion, if it transforms “self-defense” into an instrument of conquest and lawlessness, if it twists the natural right of self-defense into a weapon of predatory aggrandizement and lust. The ultimate decision as to the lawfulness of action claimed to be taken in self-defense does not lie with the state concerned, and for that reason, the right of self-defense, whether expressly reserved or implied, does not impair the capacity of a treaty to create legal obligations against war.

Under the Covenant of the League of Nations, Japan was entitled to decide in the first instance whether events in Manchuria justified resort to force in self-defense. But it was left to an impartial body of enquiry to find, as it did find, that there was in fact no justification for action in self-defense and to mention a more recent example, Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations lays down that nothing in the Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense in case of armed attack. But it expressly leaves to the Security Council the power of ultimate action and determination. It is to be hoped that the judgment of this Tribunal will discourage, and discourage with appropriate finality, any further reliance on the argument that, because a treaty reserved for the signatories the right of action in self-defense, it becomes, for that reason, incapable of imposing upon the signatories any effective legal obligation against war.

I will now turn to the argument that the motion of criminal responsibility is incompatible with the idea of national sovereignty. A state may, and this Professor Jahrreiss conceded, commit an offense against international law, but he contends that to make it criminally responsible and punishable would be to deny the sovereignty of the state.

It is strange to see the accused who in their capacity as the German Government overran most of the states of Europe, who trampled brutally upon their sovereign independence, and who with boastful and swaggering cynicism made the sovereignty of the conquered states subservient to the new conception of the “Grossraumordnung”—it is strange to see these defendants appealing to the mystic virtues of the sanctity of state sovereignty, and perhaps it is not less remarkable to find them invoking orthodox international law to protect the defeated German State and its rulers from just punishment at the hands of the victorious powers. But there is no rule of international law which they can call in aid to this regard.

In a sense these proceedings are not concerned with punishing the German State. They are concerned with the punishment of individuals. But it might seem strange if individuals were criminally responsible for the acts of the state if such acts by the state were not themselves crimes. There is, in our submission, no substance at all in the view that international law rules out the criminal responsibility of states and that since, because of their sovereignty, states cannot be coerced, all their acts are legal. Legal purists may contend that nothing is law which is not imposed from above by a sovereign power body having the power to compel obedience. That idea of the analytical jurists has never been applicable to international law. If it had, the undoubted obligation of states in matters of contract and tort could not exist.

It may be true that in international relationships prior to the war, there was no super-sovereign body which at the same time imposed international laws and enforced them. But, at least in the international field, the existence of law has never been dependent on the existence of a correlated sanction external to the law itself. International law has always been based on the element of common consent and where you have a body of rules which, whether by common consent or treaty, are obligatory upon the members of the international community, those rules are the laws of that community although the consent has not been obtained by force, and although there may be no direct or external sanction to secure obedience. The fact is that absolute sovereignty in the old sense is, very fortunately, a thing of the past. It is a conception which is quite inconsistent with the binding force of any international treaty.

In the course of the work of the Permanent Court of International Justice, it became a stock argument to rely on state sovereignty in support of the opinion that, as states are sovereign, treaty obligations entered into by them ought to be at least interpreted restrictively. The court consistently discouraged that view. In its very first judgment—a judgment given against Germany in the Wimbledon case—it rejected the plea of sovereignty as a reason for the restrictive interpretation of obligations in treaties. The court declined to see in a treaty, by which a state undertook to observe a definite line of conduct, an abandonment of its sovereignty and the court reminded Germany that the very right to enter into international engagements is an attribute of state sovereignty. As a philosophical proposition the right to contract and the right to freedom of action too, I suppose, present an eternal antithesis. But just as individuals secure their freedom by adherence to their laws, so may sovereign states maintain their own individual status; the view that since states are sovereign they cannot be coerced has long since been abandoned. The Covenant of the League of Nations made provision, in Article 16, for sanctions against sovereign states—sanctions being only another name for coercion, probably coercion of a punitive character. The Charter of the United Nations has followed suit—much more decisively. It is true that, because of the absence of a competent compulsory jurisdiction, there is no judicial precedent for states being arraigned before a criminal tribunal. But that is equally true of the undoubted civil responsibilities of states, for apart from treaty there is no compulsory jurisdiction in any international tribunal to adjudicate upon them.

The first man tried for murder may have complained that no court had tried such a case before. The methods of procedure, the specific punishments, the appropriate courts, can always be defined by subsequent proclamation. The only innovation which this Charter has introduced is to provide machinery, long overdue, to carry out the existing law, and there is no substance in the complaint that the Charter is a piece of post factum legislation either in declaring wars of aggression to be criminal, or in assuming that the state is not immune from criminal responsibility.

But then it is argued, even if the state is liable, it is only the state and not the individual who can be made responsible under international law. That argument is put in several ways. States only, it is said, and not individuals, are the subject of international law. But there is no such principle of international law. One need only mention the case of piracy or breach of blockade, or the case of spies, to see that there are numerous examples of duties being imposed by international law directly upon individuals. War crimes have always been recognized as bringing individuals within the scope of international law. In England and the United States our courts have invariably acted on the view that the accepted customary rules of the law of nations are binding upon the subject and the citizen, and the position is essentially the same in most countries. In Germany itself, Article 4 of the Weimar Constitution laid it down that generally recognized rules of international law must be regarded as an integral part of German Federal Law and what can it mean in effect, save that the rules of international law are binding upon individuals? Shall we depart from that principle merely because we are here concerned with the gravest offense of all—crimes against the peace of nations and crimes against humanity? The law is a living, growing thing. In no other sphere is it more necessary to affirm that the rights and duties of states are the rights and duties of men and that unless they bind individuals they bind no one. It is a startling proposition that those who aid and abet, who counsel and procure the commission of a crime are themselves immune from responsibility. The international crime does not differ from the municipal offense in this respect.

Then the argument is put in another way. Where the act concerned is an act of state, those who carry it out as the instruments of the state are not personally responsible and they are entitled, it is claimed, to shelter themselves behind the sovereignty of the state. It is not suggested, of course, that this argument has any application to war crimes, and we submit each of these men is guilty of countless war crimes. It might be enough to brush the matter aside as academic. But that course perhaps would diminish the value which these proceedings will have on the subsequent development of international law. Now it is true that there is a series of decisions in which courts have affirmed that one state has no authority over another sovereign state or over its head or representative. Those decisions have been based on the precepts of the comity of nations and of peaceful and smooth international intercourse. They do not in truth depend upon any sacrosanctity of foreign sovereignty, except insofar as the recognition of sovereignty in itself promotes international relations. They really afford no authority for the proposition that those who constitute the organs of incorporate states, those who are behind the state, are entitled to rely on the metaphysical entity which they create and control when, by their very directions, that state sets out to destroy that very comity on which the rules of international law depend. Suppose a state were to send a body of persons into the territory of another state with instructions to murder and to rob. Would those persons carrying out those orders be immune because in the fulfillment of their criminal design they were acting as the organs of another state? Suppose the individuals who had ordered the predatory expedition were to fall into the hands of the state attacked—could they plead immunity? In my submission clearly not. Yet the case put is exactly the case which occurred here. The truth is that this attempt to clothe crime with impunity because the motive was political rather than personal invokes no principle of law but is based on arbitrary political doctrines more appropriate to the sphere of power politics than to that in which the rule of law prevails.

And finally it is said that these wretched men were powerless instruments in Hitler’s hands, ordered to do that which reluctantly, so they say, they did. The defense of superior orders is excluded by the Charter although Article 8 provides that it may in appropriate cases be considered in mitigation of punishment, if the Tribunal thinks that justice so requires. But the Charter no more than declares the law. There is no rule of international law which provides immunity for those who obey orders which—whether legal or not in the country where they are issued—are manifestly contrary to the very law of nature from which international law has grown. If international law is to be applied at all, it must be superior to municipal law in this respect, that it must consider the legality of what is done by international and not by municipal tests. By every test of international law, of common conscience, of elementary humanity, these orders—if indeed it was in obedience to orders that these men acted—were illegal. Are they then to be excused?

The dictatorship behind which these men seek to shelter was of their own creation. In the desire to secure power and position for themselves they built up the system under which they received their orders. The continuance of that system depended on their continued support. Even if it were true that—as Jodl suggested—these men might have been dismissed, perhaps imprisoned, had they disobeyed the orders which they were given, would not any fate have been better than that they should have lent themselves to these things? But it was not true. These were the men in the inner councils, the men who planned as well as carried out; of all people the ones who might have advised, restrained, halted Hitler instead of encouraging him in his satanic courses. The principle of collective responsibility of the members of a government is not an artificial doctrine of constitutional law. It is an essential protection of the rights of man and the community of nations; international law is fully entitled to protect its own existence by giving effect to it.

Let me now pass to Counts Three and Four of the Indictment, the Counts dealing with War Crimes and what we have described, as in fact they are, as Crimes against Humanity.

And as to these, may I first make some comment on the legal position. About the law as to war crimes, little indeed need be said, because the law is clear enough and not in doubt. Here are crimes more terrible indeed in their extent than anything which had hitherto been known, but none the less well recognizable under the pre-existing rules of international law and clearly within the legitimate jurisdiction either of a national or of an international tribunal. There is no element of retroactivity here, no question of post factum law making, nor is there any shadow of novelty in the decision of the Charter that those who shared the ultimate responsibility for these frightful deeds should bear individual responsibility. It is true that the lawyers and the statesmen who, at The Hague and elsewhere in days gone by, built up the code of rules and the established customs by which the world has sought to mitigate the brutality of war and to protect from its most extreme harshness those who were passive noncombatants, never dreamed of such wholesale and widespread slaughter. But murder does not cease to be murder merely because the victims are multiplied ten-million-fold. Crimes do not cease to be criminal because they have a political motive. These crimes were many and manifold. It is not useful to catalog them here. They vary most considerably in the numbers of victims. There are the 50 murdered prisoners of war who escaped from Stalag Luft III; the hundreds of commandos and airmen who were exterminated; there are the thousands of civilian hostages put to death; the tens of thousands of sailors and passengers who perished in a piratical campaign of terror; there are the hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war, especially Russians, and of civilians who met their death because of the rigors and cruelties to which they were exposed, if not by outright murder, and there are the many millions murdered outright, or by the slower method of deliberate starvation, 6 million of them for no better reason than that they were of Jewish race or faith.

The mere number of victims is not the real criterion of the criminality of an act. The majesty of death, the compassion for the innocent, the horror and detestation of the ignominy inflicted upon man—man created in the image of God—these are not the subjects of mathematical calculation. Nonetheless, somehow, numbers are relevant. For we are not dealing here with the occasional atrocities which are perhaps an incident in any war. It may be that war develops the good things in man; it certainly brings out the worst. It is not a game of cricket. In any war, in this war no doubt there have been—and no doubt on both sides—numbers of brutalities and atrocities. They must have seemed terrible enough to those against whom they were committed. I do not excuse or belittle them. But they were casual, unorganized, individual acts. We are dealing here with something entirely different; with systematic, wholesale, consistent action, taken as a matter of deliberate calculation—calculation of the highest level. And so the principal war crime in extent as in intensity with which these men are charged is the violation of the most firmly established and least controversial of all the rules of warfare, namely, that noncombatants must not be made the direct object of hostile operations. What a mockery the Germans sought to make of the Fourth Hague Convention on the laws and customs of war—convention which merely formulated what was already a fundamental rule: “Family honor and rights, the lives of persons and private property, as well as religious convictions and practices, must be respected.”

The murdering on the orders of the German Government, whose members are here in the dock, in the territory occupied by its military forces, whose leaders are here in the dock, of millions of civilians, whether it was done in pursuance of a policy of racial extermination, as the result of, or in connection with, the deportation of slave labor, in consequence of the desire to do away with the intellectual and political leaders of the countries which had been occupied or was part of the general application of terror through collective reprisals upon the innocent population and upon hostages—this murdering of millions of noncombatants is a war crime. It may indeed be a crime against humanity as well. Both imagination and intellect, shattered by the horror of these things, recoil from putting the greatest crime in history into the cold formula already described in the textbooks as a war crime. Yet it is important to remember that that is what these crimes were. Irrespective, in the main, of where they were committed or of the race or nationality of the victims, these were offenses upon the civilian population, contrary to the laws of war in general and to those of belligerent occupation in particular. The truth is that murder, wholesale, planned, and systematic, became part and parcel of a firmly entrenched and apparently secure belligerent occupation. That that was a war crime no one has sought to dispute.

But some attempt has been made to canvass the illegality of three other classes of action with which also these men stand charged: Deportation to Germany for forced labor; the crimes at sea in connection with submarine warfare, and the shooting of commandos. And let me shortly examine these matters.

The deportation of the civilian population for forced labor is, of course, a crime both according to international custom and to conventional international law as expressed in the Hague Convention. Article 46 of Hague Convention Number IV enjoins the occupying powers to respect “family honor and rights” and “the lives of persons.” Article 52 of the same convention lays down that:

“Services shall not be demanded from municipalities or inhabitants except for the needs of the army of occupation”—and that—“they shall be in proportion to the resources of the country and of such a nature as not to involve the population in the obligation of taking part in the operations of war against that country.”

With these simple and categorical provisions we have to contrast the staggering dimensions of the operation which the Defendant Sauckel directed and in which the other defendants participated, the ruthlessness with which peaceful citizens were torn from their families, surroundings, and employment, the manner in which they were transported, the treatment which they received on arrival, the conditions in which they worked and died in thousands and tens of thousands, and the kind of work which they were compelled to perform as direct helpers in the production of arms, munitions, and other instruments of war against their own country, and against their own people. How can all that be reconciled with the law?

It seems to have been suggested that the prohibition of the Law of Nations relating to deportation had in some way become obsolete in the face of the modern development of totalitarian war requiring the vastest possible use and exploitation of the material and labor resources of the occupied territory. I confess I do not understand how the extent of the activities a belligerent imposes on himself, the size of the effort he needs to make in order to avoid defeat, can enlarge his rights against peaceful noncombatants or enable him to brush aside the rules of war. We cannot make these post factum repeals of accepted international law in favor of the lawbreakers.

Nor is there a shadow of a right to invoke any material change in conditions as a justification for their crimes at sea—crimes which cost the lives of 30,000 British seamen alone. We need not base our case here solely on the mere violation of the customary rules of warfare as embodied in the London Protocols of 1930 and 1936, fully subscribed to as they were by Germany and prohibiting sinking without warning, or even with warning if proper provision had not been made for the safety of passengers and crew. We need not concern ourselves with the niceties of argument whether the practice of arming merchantmen affects the position.

Nor need we take time to examine the astonishing proposition that the sinking of neutral shipping was legalized by the process of making a paper order excluding such neutral ships not from some definite war zone over which Germany exercised control but from vast areas of the seas. For there is one matter at least about which nobody questions or puts questions to the law.

If you are satisfied that orders were given that survivors should not be rescued, that steps should be taken to prevent the shipwrecked from surviving, for the use of such weapons that there could be no question of survivors, you will have no doubt that what was done was contrary to law. It is no answer that to allow noncombatants to survive entailed greater risk to the attackers. The murderer is not excused because he says that it was necessary to kill the victim he had violated lest he should subsequently identify him.

So also in regard to the orders for the execution of commandos. New methods of warfare, new forms of attack, do not in themselves repeat existing established rules of law. The sanctity of the life of the soldier in uniform, who surrenders after the accomplishment of his mission and who committed no war crime prior to his capture, is, and I ask you to say, must remain an absolute principle of international law. Those who, for whatever motive, trample upon it in disregard of law, in disregard of humanity, in disregard of chivalry, must pay the penalty when at last the law is vindicated.

I shall not examine this matter further or detail the other types of war crimes charged in the Indictment. For that these matters, various in their kind or method, were crimes under established law is not in doubt. The Tribunal will be concerned only to affirm the law and to decide upon the measure of these prisoners’ involvement in its breach.

Let me, however, before I turn to questions of fact refer to the Fourth Count of the Indictment, the Crimes against Humanity. It is convenient, I think, to deal with these matters together for insofar as they were committed during the war, to some extent they overlap and in any case they are interconnected. The war crimes were in their very enormity crimes against humanity. The crimes against humanity were not seldom war crimes, larger still. Moreover, the crimes against humanity with which this Tribunal has jurisdiction to deal are limited to this extent—they must be crimes the commission of which was in some way connected with, in anticipation of or in furtherance of the crimes against the peace or the war crimes stricto sensu with which the defendants are indicted. That is the qualification which Article 6(c) of the Charter introduces. The considerations which apply here are, however, different to those affecting the other classes of offense, the crime against peace or the ordinary war crime. You have to be satisfied not only that what was done was a crime against humanity but also that it was not purely a domestic matter but that directly or indirectly it was associated with crimes against other nations or other nationals, in that, for instance, it was undertaken in order to strengthen the Nazi Party in carrying out its policy of domination by aggression, or to remove elements such as political opponents, the aged, the Jews, the existence of which would have hindered the carrying out of the total war policy.

Pursuing that for a moment, the racial policy against the Jews was, as I have said, simply one facet of the Herrenvolk doctrine. In Mein Kampf Hitler had said that the most decisive factor in the German collapse in 1918 was “the failure to recognize... the racial problem and the Jewish menace.” The attack on the Jews was at once a secret weapon—an enduring fifth column weapon—to split and weaken the democracies and a device for unifying the German people for war. Himmler made it clear in his speech on 4 October 1943, that the treatment meted out to German Jews was closely connected with the war policy. He said:

“For we know how difficult we should have made it for ourselves if ... we still had Jews today in every town as secret saboteurs, agitators, and trouble mongers.”

So the crime against the Jews, insofar as it is a crime against humanity and not a war crime as well, is one which we indict because of its close association with the crime against the peace. That is, of course, a very important qualification on the Indictment of the Crimes against Humanity which is not always appreciated by those who have questioned the exercise of this jurisdiction. But subject to that qualification we have thought it right to deal with matters which the criminal law of all countries would normally stigmatize as crimes—murder, extermination, enslavement, persecution on political, racial, or economic grounds. These things done against belligerent nationals, or for that matter, done against German nationals in belligerent occupied territory would be ordinary war crimes the prosecution of which would form no novelty. Done against others they would be crimes against municipal law except insofar as German law, departing from all the canons of civilized procedure, may have authorized them to be done by the State or by persons acting on behalf of the State. Although, so to do, does not in any way place those defendants in greater jeopardy than they would otherwise be; the nations adhering to the Charter of this Tribunal have felt it proper and necessary in the interest of civilization to say that these things even if done in accordance with the laws of the German State, as created and ruled by these men and their ringleader, were, when committed with the intention of affecting the international community—that is in connection with the other crimes charged—not mere matters of domestic concern but crimes against the law of nations. I do not minimize the significance for the future of the political and jurisprudential doctrine which is here implied. Normally international law concedes that it is for the state to decide how it shall treat its own nationals; it is a matter of domestic jurisdiction. And although the Social and Economic Council of the United Nations Organization is seeking to formulate a charter of the Rights of Man, the Covenant of the League of Nations and the Charter of the United Nations Organization do recognize that general position. Yet international law has in the past made some claim that there is a limit to the omnipotence of the state and that the individual human being, the ultimate unit of all law, is not disentitled to the protection of mankind when the state tramples upon his rights in a manner which outrages the conscience of mankind. Grotius, the founder of international law, had some notion of that principle when—at a time when the distinction between the just and the unjust war was more clearly accepted than was the case in the nineteenth century—he described as just a war undertaken for the purpose of defending the subjects of a foreign state from injuries inflicted by their ruler. He affirmed, with reference to atrocities committed by tyrants against their subjects, that intervention is justified for “the right of social connection is not cut off in such a case.” The same idea was expressed by John Westlake, the most distinguished of British international lawyers, when he said:

“It is idle to argue in such cases that the duty of neighboring peoples is to look quietly on. Laws are made for men and not creatures of the imagination and they must not create or tolerate for them situations which are beyond endurance.”

The same view was acted upon by the European powers which in time past intervened in order to protect the Christian subjects of Turkey against cruel persecution. The fact is that the right of humanitarian intervention by war is not a novelty in international law—can intervention by judicial process then be illegal? The Charter of this Tribunal embodies a beneficent principle—much more limited than some would like it to be—and it gives warning for the future. I say, and repeat again, gives warning for the future, to dictators and tyrants masquerading as a state that if, in order to strengthen or further their crimes against the community of nations, they debase the sanctity of man in their own country they act at their peril, for they affront the international law of mankind.

As for the criticism which is made of retroactive law, that it makes that criminal which men did not know to be wrong when they committed it—what application can that have here? You will not disregard it even if these defendants time after time disregard it, the countless warnings that were given by foreign states and foreign statesmen on the course which was being pursued by Germany before the war. No doubt these men counted on victory, their whole policy was based on the notion of success; they little thought that they would be brought to account. But can any one of them be heard to say that if he knew about these things at all he did not know them to be wrongs crying out to High Heaven for vengeance?

Let me deal with what they did to prisoners of war, for this alone, the clearest crime of all, demands their conviction and will for all time stain the record of German arms.

On the 8th of September 1941, final regulations for the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war in all prisoner-of-war camps were issued, signed by General Reinecke, the head of the prisoners of war department of the High Command. They were the result of agreement with the SS and read as follows (Document Number 1519-PS):

“The Bolshevist soldier has therefore lost all claim, to treatment as an honorable soldier in accordance with the Geneva Convention.... The order for ruthless and energetic action must be given at the slightest indication of insubordination especially in the case of Bolshevist trouble mongers. Insubordination, active or passive resistance, must be broken immediately by force of arms (bayonets, butts, and firearms).... Anyone carrying out the order who does not use his weapons or does so with insufficient energy is punishable.... Prisoners of war attempting to escape are to be fired on without previous challenge. No warning shot must ever be fired.... The use of arms against prisoners of war is, as a rule, legal.... Camp police must be formed of suitable Soviet prisoners of war in the camp.... Within the wire fence the camp police may be armed with sticks, whips, or other similar weapons to enable them to carry out their duties effectively.”

The regulations go on to order the segregation of civilians and politically undesirable prisoners of war taken during the Eastern campaign. After prescribing the importance for the Armed Forces of ridding themselves of all those elements among the prisoners of war which could be considered as the driving forces of Bolshevism, emphasis is placed on the need for special measures, free from bureaucratic administrative influences, and accordingly their transfer to the Security Police and the SD is given as the way to reach the “appointed goal.”

That Keitel, who is directly responsible for this order, was issuing it with full knowledge of its implications is made clear by the memorandum of Admiral Canaris dated 15 September 1941, protesting against it, and correctly stating the legal position, as follows (Document Number EC-338):

“The Geneva Convention for the treatment of prisoners of war is not binding in the relationship between Germany and the U.S.S.R. Therefore only the principles of general international law on the treatment of prisoners of war apply. Since the eighteenth century these have gradually been established along the lines that war captivity is neither revenge nor punishment but solely protective custody the only purpose of which is to prevent the prisoners of war from further participation in the war. This principle was developed in accordance with the view held by all armies that it is contrary to military tradition to kill or injure helpless people.... The decrees for the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war enclosed ... are based on a fundamentally different viewpoint.”

Canaris went on to point out the shocking nature of the orders for use of arms by guards and for equipping the camp police with clubs and whips. On this memorandum, as you were reminded this morning, Keitel noted:

“The objections arise from the military concept of chivalrous warfare. This is the destruction of an ideology. Therefore, I approve and back the measures. K.”

Any possible doubt that Keitel knew that the transfer to the Security Police and SD was intended to mean liquidation can hardly survive study of that document. Canaris writes of the screening, as it is called, of the undesirables: “The decision over their fate is effected by the action detachments of the Security Police and the SD,” on which Keitel, underlining Security Police, comments “very efficient,” whilst on the further criticism by Canaris that the principles of their decision are unknown to the Wehrmacht authorities, Keitel comments “not at all.”

The parallel instruction to the Security Police and SD recites the agreement with the High Command and after enjoining the closest co-operation between the members of the police teams and the commandants of the camp and listing those to be handed over, it reads (Document 502-PS):

“Executions must not be held in the camp.... If the camps in the Government General are located in the immediate vicinity of the border the prisoners are to be taken if at all possible to former Soviet Russian territory for special treatment.”

It is not necessary to remind you of the volume of evidence with regard to the numbers of Soviet and Polish prisoners in concentration camps. Their treatment needs no further reminder than the report by the commandant of Gross-Rosen Concentration Camp who on the 23d of October 1941 reports the shooting of 20 Russian prisoners between 5 and 6 o’clock that day and Müller’s circular from the same file, which states (Document Number 1165-PS):

“The commanders of the concentration camps are complaining that five to ten percent of the Soviet Russians destined for execution are arriving in the camps dead or half dead. Therefore the impression has arisen that the Stalags are getting rid of such prisoners in this way.

“It was particularly noted that, when marching, for example from the railroad station to the camp, a rather large number of prisoners of war collapsed on the way from exhaustion, either dead or half dead, and had to be picked up by a truck following the convoy.

“It cannot be prevented that the German people take notice of these occurrences.”

Did any of these defendants take notice of these occurrences that could not be hidden from the German people?

I go on:

“Even if the transportation to the camps is generally taken care of by the Wehrmacht, the population will still attribute this situation to the SS.

“In order to prevent, if possible, similar occurrences in the future, I therefore order that, effective from today on, Soviet Russians declared definitely suspect and obviously marked by death (for example with typhus) and who therefore would not be able to withstand the exertions of even a short march on foot, shall in the future, as a matter of basic principle, be excluded from the transport into the concentration camp for execution.

“I request that the leaders of the Einsatzkommandos be correspondingly informed of this decision without delay.”

On the 2d of March 1944, the Chief of the Sipo and SD forwarded to his various branch offices a further order of the OKW for the treatment of prisoners recaptured after attempted escape (Document Number L-158). With the exception of British and Americans, who were to be returned to the camps, the others were to be sent to Mauthausen and to be dealt with under “Operation Kugel” which, as the Tribunal will remember, involved immediate shooting. Inquiries by relatives, other prisoners, the Protecting Power, and the International Red Cross were to be dealt with in such a way that the fate of these men, soldiers whose only crime had been to do their duty, should be forever hidden (Document 1650-PS).

It was shortly after the issue of the Kugel order that 80 British officers of the R.A.F. made an attempt to escape from Stalag Luft III at Sagan. The defendants directly connected with this matter have not denied that the shooting of 50 of these officers was deliberate murder and was the result of a decision at the highest level. There can be no question that Göring, Keitel, and probably Ribbentrop, participated in this decision and that Jodl and Kaltenbrunner and, if he did not actually participate, Ribbentrop, were all aware of it at the time.

Göring’s participation is a matter of inevitable inference from the following three facts:

First: The order was given by Hitler.

Second: Westhoff of the Prisoners of War Organization of the OKW says he was informed by Keitel that Göring had blamed him for the escape at the meeting at which the order was decided upon (Document Number UK-48).

Third: In Göring’s own Ministry which was responsible for the treatment of R.A.F. prisoners of war, Walde heard of the order on the 28th of March at the meeting of executives and told General Grosch. Grosch informed Förster, who went straight to Milch, Göring’s Chief of Staff, and returned to inform Grosch that Milch had been told, and had made the necessary notes (Documents Number D-730, D-731).

You will say whether you do not consider the denials of Göring and Milch to be mere perjury.

Keitel admits that Hitler ordered transfer to the SD and that he “was afraid” they might be shot. He told his officers Graevenitz and Westhoff: “We must set an example. They will be shot—probably some have been shot already.” And when Graevenitz protested, he replied: “I do not care a damn.”

On this evidence of his own officers, surely his complicity is clear in this matter.

Jodl said that when Himmler was reporting the escape, he was in the next room telephoning, he heard a very loud discussion and on going to the curtain to hear what it was, he learned that there had been an escape from Sagan. It is incredible in these circumstances that even if he did not take part in the decision he did not at any rate know of it from Keitel immediately after the meeting. And knowing of it, he carried on playing his part in the conspiracy.

As to Kaltenbrunner’s guilt, the meeting at which Walde was informed of the decision was with Müller and Nebe, Kaltenbrunner’s subordinates. Schellenberg’s evidence of the discussion between Nebe, Müller, and Kaltenbrunner about this time on the subject of an International Red Cross inquiry about 50 English or American prisoners of war is conclusive. He heard Kaltenbrunner providing his subordinates with the answer to be given to this inconvenient inquiry and one cannot doubt his full knowledge of this matter. The reply sent to the Protecting Power and the International Red Cross by Ribbentrop is now admitted on all hands to have been a pack of lies. Is it to be believed that he also was not a party to the decision?

That any of these men would have been prepared to take such a decision themselves or to comply with it if taken by Hitler is, we submit, clear from the correspondence providing for the lynching or shooting of what were called terror-fliers. These documents show that neither Keitel nor Jodl had any scruples in the matter while both Göring and Ribbentrop agreed to the draft order (Documents Number D-777, D-783, D-784).

You will remember the meetings which preceded that correspondence—first a meeting between Göring, Ribbentrop, and Himmler at which it was agreed to modify “the original suggestion made by the Reich Foreign Minister who wished to include every type of terror attack on the German civilian population as justifying action” (Document Number 735-PS), and which concluded that “lynch law would have to be the rule.”

At the subsequent meeting between Warlimont and Kaltenbrunner it was agreed that “those aviators who escaped lynch law would in accordance with a procedure to be devised ... be handed over to the SD for special treatment.”

Finally Keitel’s note on the file: “I am against legal procedure. It does not work out.”

Similar evidence is provided when we consider the attitude taken up in February 1945, when Hitler wished to renounce the Geneva Convention. Dönitz advised that: “It would be better to carry out measures considered necessary without warning and at all costs to save face with the outside world” (Document Number C-158), a decision with which Jodl and Ribbentrop’s representative agreed. Their defense that this was merely a technical measure and that they did not in fact intend any concrete action is disposed of by Jodl’s memorandum on the whole question (Document Number D-606):

“Just as it was wrong in 1914 that we ourselves solemnly declared war on all the states which for a long time had wanted to wage war against us and through this took the whole guilt of the war on our shoulders before the outside world, and just as it was wrong to admit that the necessary passage through Belgium in 1914 was our own fault, so it would be wrong now to repudiate openly the obligations of international law which we accepted and thereby to stand again as the guilty party before the whole world.”

After this remarkable statement he added that there was nothing to prevent them in fact from sinking an English hospital ship as a reprisal and then expressing regret that it was a mistake ...

THE PRESIDENT: Would it be convenient to you to sit at 9:45 in the morning? The Tribunal anticipates in these circumstances we might be able to finish at 1 o’clock or shortly afterward. In any event, we would sit on in order to finish.

SIR HARTLEY SHAWCROSS: I think I would be very much obliged if the Court would do that.

[The Tribunal adjourned until 27 July 1946 at 0945 hours.]

ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-EIGHTH DAY

Saturday, 27 July 1946

Morning Session

SIR HARTLEY SHAWCROSS: May it please the Tribunal: Yesterday when we recessed I had been dealing with the War Crimes in stricto sensu and in particular with the murder of the RAF officers from Stalag Luft III.

I want now very shortly to consider the question of the employment of prisoners of war. Under Article 31 of the Geneva Convention it might have been permissible to employ prisoners on certain work in connection with the raw materials of the armament industry. But the statement made by Milch at the Central Planning Board on the 16th of February 1943 in the presence of Speer and Sauckel had no legal justification at all. He said, if you will remember, and I quote:

“We have made the request that a certain percentage of men in our ack-ack artillery must be Russians. 50,000 will be taken altogether, 30,000 are already employed as gunners. This is an amusing thing that Russians must work the guns” (Document Number R-124).

That was quite obviously flagrantly illegal. Nobody could have had the faintest doubt about it. The minutes record no protest whatever. It has not been suggested that Göring or any of the others who must have read the minutes and known what was going on, regarded this outrage by the effective head of the German Air Force as being in any way unusual.

Himmler’s cynical words spoken at Posen on the 4th of October 1943 on the subject of the Russian prisoners captured in the early days of the campaign ought again to be put on record for history. I quote:

“At that time we did not value the mass of humanity as we value it today as raw material, as labor. What, after all, thinking in terms of generations, is not to be regretted but is now deplorable by reason of the loss of labor, is that the prisoners died in tens and hundreds of thousands of exhaustion and hunger” (Document Number 1919-PS).

I turn now to the murder of the Commandos.

The evidence with regard to the Commando Order of the 18th of October 1942 (Document Number 498-PS) directly involves Keitel, Jodl, Dönitz, Raeder, Göring, and Kaltenbrunner. By Article 30 of the Hague Rules, and I quote: “A spy taken in the act shall not be punished without previous trial.” And even the regulations printed in the book of every German soldier provide, and I quote: “No enemy can be killed who gives up, not even a partisan or a spy. These will be brought to punishment by the courts.” These men were not spies; they were soldiers in uniform. It is not suggesting that any man dealt with under the order was ever given a trial before he was shot. Legally there can be no answer to the guilt of any of those defendants who passed on or who applied this wicked order, an order which Jodl admitted to be murder and in respect of which Keitel, confessing his shame, admitted its illegality.

Raeder admitted that it was an improper order. Even Dönitz stated that now he knew the true facts he no longer regarded it as correct. The only defenses put forward have been that the individual in question did not personally carry it out, that they regarded the statement in the first paragraph of the order as justifying the action by way of reprisal, that they did their best to minimize its effect and that it was not up to the individual to question the directives of a superior. But no one has seriously disputed that handing over to the SD—in the context here—meant shooting without a trial.

The answer to these defenses, insofar as the defenses are not purely dishonest, is that the security precautions provided in the order itself were the plainest indication that the facts stated in the first paragraph did not constitute any justification which would bear the light of day. No higher degree of precaution accompanied the “Kugel Order,” “Nacht und Nebel Order,” or any other of their brutal orders. That the shackling incident at Dieppe had nothing to do with it appears from Jodl’s staff memorandum of the 14th of October 1942 (Document Number 1266-PS) which states in terms that the Führer’s aim was to prevent the Commando method of waging war by dropping small detachments who did great damage by demolitions, et cetera, and then surrendered.

The cancellation of the order in 1945 (Document Number D-649) is further evidence that those responsible for it recognized their guilt, guilt which was perhaps best summarized by the entry in the War Diary of the Naval War Staff with regard to the shooting of the Commandos taken in uniform at Bordeaux: “Something new in international law” (Document Number D-658). Yet Raeder and his Chief of Staff were prepared to initial, that entry. Kaltenbrunner’s knowledge is clearly shown by his letter to the Armed Forces planning staff of the 23d of January 1945 (Document Number 535-PS) referring to it in detail and disputing its application to particular categories.

Other men have already been sentenced to death for execution of this order, men whose only defense was that they obeyed an order from their superiors. I refer to the members of the SD who were executed for the murder of the crew of Motor Torpedo Boat 345 in Norway, and General Dostler in Italy. Innumerable instances from their own records have been proved against these defendants. Shall they escape? You will remember the attitude of the Nazi People’s Court in 1944 to the plea of superior orders (Document Number 3881-PS).

The Commando Order cannot compare in wickedness or brutality with the Nacht und Nebel Order (Night and Fog Decree) of the 7th of December 1941. The Hitler directive signed by Keitel, after prescribing the death penalty for offenses endangering the security or state of readiness of the occupying powers, orders the removal to Germany of offenders, other than those whose execution could be completed in a very short time, under circumstances which would deny any information with regard to their fate. And Keitel’s covering letter of the 12th of December gives the reason:

“Efficient and enduring intimidation can only be achieved either by capital punishment or by measures by which the relatives of the criminals and the population do not know the fate of the criminal. This aim is achieved when the criminal is transferred to Germany” (Document Number L-90).

It is interesting to contrast that statement written when Keitel thought that Germany was winning the war with his evidence before the Tribunal. He said, you will remember: “Penal servitude would be considered dishonorable by these patriots. By going to Germany they would suffer no dishonor.”

This decree was still being enforced in February 1944 when the commanders of some 18 concentration camps were being reminded of its purpose and how to dispose of the bodies of the “Night and Fog” prisoners without revealing the place of death (Document Number D-569). The treatment of these prisoners was described by the Norwegian witness, Cappelen, and members of the Tribunal will not have forgotten his account of the transport of between 2,500 and 2,800 “Nacht und Nebel” prisoners from one concentration camp to another in 1945 when 1,447 died on the way. We who talk about the dignity of man, let us remember this, and I quote it again (Cappelen speaking):

“... We could not walk fast enough and, seizing their rifles, they smashed in the heads of five ... they said in German: ‘That is what happens to those who cannot walk properly’... After walking for 6 to 8 hours we came to a station, a railway station. It was very cold and we had only striped prison clothes on, and bad boots; but we said, ‘Oh, we are glad that we have come to a railway station. It is better to stand in a cow truck than to walk in the middle of winter.’ It was very cold, 10 to 12 degrees below zero (Centigrade). It was a long train with open cars. In Norway we call them sand cars and we were kicked on to those cars about 80 on each car.... In this car we sat for about five days without food—cold—and without water. When it was snowing we made like this [indicating] just to get some water into the mouth and, after a long, long time—it seemed to me years—we came to a place which I afterward learned was Dora. That is in the neighborhood of Buchenwald.

“Well, we arrived there. They kicked us down from the cars, but many were dead. The man who sat next to me was dead, but I had no right to get away. I had to sit with a dead man for the last day. I did not see the figures myself, naturally, but about a third or half of us were dead, getting stiff. And they told us that...—I heard the figure afterward in Dora—that the dead on our train numbered 1,447.

“Well, from Dora I do not remember so much because I was more or less dead. I have always been a man of good humor and high spirited, to help myself first and my friends; but I had nearly given up.... I was fortunate because Bernadotte’s action came and we were rescued and brought to Neuengamme, near Hamburg; and when we arrived, there were some of my old friends, the student from Norway who had been deported to Germany, other prisoners who came from Sachsenhausen and other camps, and the few, comparatively few, Norwegian ‘NN’ prisoners who were living, all in very bad conditions. Many of my friends are still in the hospital in Norway. Some died after coming home.”

In July 1944 a yet more drastic order followed the Night and Fog. On the 30th of that month Hitler issued the “Terror and Sabotage Decree” (Document Number D-762) providing that all acts of violence by non-German civilians in occupied territories should be combated as acts of terrorism and sabotage. These not overcome on the spot were to be handed over to the SD (Document Number D-763), women put to work, only children spared. Within a month Keitel extended the order to cover persons endangering security or war preparedness by any means other than acts of terrorism or sabotage (Document Number D-764), the usual secrecy requirements were laid down, restricting distribution in writing to a minimum. He then ordered that the Terror and Sabotage Decree was to form the subject of regular emphatic instruction to all personnel of the Armed Forces, SS and Police. It was to be extended to crimes affecting German interests, but not imperiling the security or war preparedness of the occupying power. New regulations could be made by the agreement of particular commanders and higher SS chiefs. In other words any offense by any person in the occupied territories could be dealt with under this decree.

On the 9th of September 1944, a meeting was solemnly held between representatives of the High Command and the SS to discuss the relationship of the Night and Fog Order to the Terror and Sabotage Decree (Document Number D-767). It was considered that the Night and Fog Order had become superfluous and the meeting went on to consider the transfer of the 24,000 non-German civilians held under it by the SS to the SD. The meeting discussed the problem of certain neutrals who had been “turned into fog” by mistake. The German word “vernebelt” justifies the statement of the witness Blaha that the special and technical expressions used in concentration camps can only be said in German and cannot really be translated into any other language. It is perhaps superfluous to remind the Tribunal that when the Luftwaffe general in Holland asked for authority to shoot striking railwaymen (Document Number D-769), since the procedure of handing over to the SD under the decree was too roundabout, Keitel, in a reply, copies of which were sent both to the Admiralty and to the Air Ministry as well as to the principal commanders in occupied territories, agreed at once that if there was any difficulty in handing over to the SD, I quote: “... other effective measures are to be taken ruthlessly and independently...” (Document Number D-770).

In other words, General Christiansen could shoot the railwaymen if he thought fit.

Let us not forget when we consider the problems of Europe in these days, that it is not easy for anyone who has not had to live in territory occupied by the Germans to realize the suffering and the state of terror and constant apprehension in which the peoples of Europe lived through those long years of subjection. It was Frank, who, writing on the 16th of December 1941, said: “As a matter of principle we shall have pity only for the German people and for no one else in the world” (Document Number USSR-223).

Save that they had no pity even for their own people, how faithfully these men carried out that principle.

I turn now to the attack on the partisans. If any doubt remained that the German Armed Forces were directed not by honorable soldiers but by callous murderers, it must be dissolved by the evidence as to the appalling ruthlessness with which it was sought to put down the partisans. The witness Ohlendorf said that the direction of antipartisan warfare was the subject of a written agreement between the German War Office, the High Command, and the SS. As a result of that agreement an Einsatz group was attached to each Army Group Headquarters and directed the work of the Einsatzkommandos allotted to the group in co-ordination and agreement with the military authorities. If confirmation of the Army’s support, knowledge and approval were needed, one has only got to look at the report of the Einsatz Group A on its activities during the first 3 months of the campaign against the Soviet Union.

I quote:

“Our task was to establish hurriedly personal contact with the commanding generals of the armies and with the commanding general of the army of the rear area. It must be stressed from the beginning that co-operation with the Armed Forces was generally good, in some cases ... it was very close, almost cordial” (Document Number L-180).

And again, speaking of the difficulty of dealing with the partisans in a particular area:

“After the failure of purely military activities such as the placing of sentries and combing through the newly occupied territories with whole divisions, even the Armed Forces had to look out for new methods. The Einsatzgruppe made it its foremost task to search for new methods. Soon therefore, the Armed Forces adopted the experiences of the Security Police and their methods of combating the partisans.”

One of these methods is described in the same report in these words:

“After a village had been surrounded, all the inhabitants were forcibly shepherded into the main square. The persons suspected on account of confidential information and the other villagers were interrogated and thus it was possible in most cases to find the people who helped the partisans. Those were either shot offhand, or, if further interrogations promised useful information, taken to headquarters. After the interrogation they were shot.

“In order to get a deterring effect the houses of those who had helped the partisans were burnt down on several occasions.”

And then, after stating that villagers were always threatened with the burning of the whole village, the report adds: “The tactics to put terror against terror succeeded marvelously” (Document Number D-735).

The Einsatzkommandos were, as Ohlendorf stated, under Kaltenbrunner’s command, but the orders under which they were acting cannot have exceeded in severity those which were issued by Keitel. The Führer order issued by him on 16 December 1942 on the combating of partisans states—I quote:

“If the fight against the partisans in the East as well as in the Balkans is not waged with the most brutal means, we will shortly reach the point when the available forces are insufficient to master this scourge.

“It is therefore not only justifiable but it is the duty of the troops to use all means without restriction—even against women and children—so long as it insures success” (Document Number UK-66).

Three days later he and Ribbentrop were informing their Italian opposite numbers at breakfast that: “The Führer had declared that the Serbian conspirators were to be eliminated and that no gentle methods must be used in doing this.”

Keitel interjected, “Every village in which partisans might be found must be burnt down” (Document Number D-735).

Two months later Ribbentrop was urging the Italian Ambassador in Berlin to greater brutality in dealing with the partisans in Croatia. I quote: “The gangs would have to be exterminated, including men, women, and children, as their further existence imperiled the lives of German and Italian men, women, and children” (Document Number D-741).

Göring appears to have assisted Himmler in recruiting the necessary personnel for antipartisan work and he is recorded by a cabinet councillor on the 24th of September 1942 as stating that he was looking for daring fellows for employment in the Eastern special purpose units and that he was considering convicts and poachers for the purpose. His idea was:

“In the regions assigned for their operations these bands, whose first task should be to destroy the commands of the partisan groups, could murder, burn, and ravish. In Germany they would once again come under strict supervision” (Document Number 638-PS).

A month later he gave the Duce a description of Germany’s methods in combating the partisans in the following terms:

“To begin with, the entire livestock and all foodstuff is taken away from the areas concerned so as to deny partisans all sources of food. Men and women are taken away to labor camps, children to children’s camps and the villages burnt down....

“Should attacks occur, then the entire male population of villages would be lined up on one side and the women on the other side. The women would be told that all men would be shot unless they (the women) indicated which of the men did not belong to the village. In order to save their men the women always pointed out the stranger” (Document Number D-729).

These methods were not confined to the East. They were going on throughout the length and breadth of every occupied territory. Wherever the slightest resistance was offered the German answer was to attempt to stamp it out with the utmost brutality. It would not be difficult to rival the events of Lidice and Oradour-sur-Glane by a hundred other instances.

One of the most brutal expedients, the taking of hostages, was the subject of an order by the German High Command on 16 September 1941. Keitel ordered—I quote:

“a. It should be inferred in every case of resistance to the German occupying forces, no matter what the individual circumstances, that it is of Communist origin.

“b. In order to nip these machinations in the bud the most drastic measures should be taken immediately on the first indication so that the authority of the occupying forces may be maintained and further spreading prevented. In this connection it should be remembered that a human life in the countries involved frequently counts for nothing and a deterrent effect can be attained only by unusual severity. The death penalty for 50 to 100 Communists should generally be regarded in those cases as suitable atonement for one German soldier’s life. The way in which sentence is carried out should still further increase the deterrent effect” (Document Number C-148).

We may compare the wording of the Einsatzkommando report:

“In the knowledge that the Russian has been accustomed from old to ruthless measures on the part of the authorities, the most severe measures were applied” (Document Number L-180).

There is no difference in outlook between Keitel and Kaltenbrunner; the German soldier was being ordered to emulate the SS.

A fortnight after issuing that order, Keitel, whose only defense was that he had pressed for 5 to 10 hostages for one German in place of 50 to 100, had had a further idea, and on the 1st of October 1941 he suggested that it is advisable that military commanders should always have at their disposal a number of hostages of different political tendencies, nationalist, democratic-bourgeois, or Communist, adding:

“It is important that among them shall be well-known leading personalities or members of their families whose names are to be made public. Depending on the membership of the culprit, hostages of the corresponding group are to be shot in case of attacks” (Document Number 1590-PS).

The original document bears the ominous note: “Complied with in France and Belgium.”

The effect of these orders throughout the German Army is well seen from three instances of the action taken by a local commander.

In Yugoslavia, a month after Keitel’s original order a station commander reported that in revenge for the killing of 10 German soldiers and the wounding of another 26, a total of 2,300 people had been shot, 100 for each killed and 50 for each wounded German soldier (Document Number USSR-74).

On the 11th of July 1944 the commander of the district of Covolo in Italy was, in a public poster, threatening to kill 50 men for every member of the German Armed Forces whether military or civilian, who was wounded, and a hundred if a German was killed. In the event of more than one soldier or civilian being killed or wounded, all the men of the district would be shot, the houses set on fire, the women interned, and the cattle confiscated immediately. In June of the same year 560 persons, including 250 men, were reported by Kesselring as having been taken into custody under threat of shooting within 48 hours, some German colonel having been captured by bandits (Document Number D-39).

The men directly implicated in these brutalities are Göring, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Jodl, and Kaltenbrunner, but who can doubt that every man in that dock knew of the orders and of the way in which the German Armed Forces were being taught to murder men, women, and children, and were doing so throughout the length and breadth of Europe? Raeder, who says he disapproved of this sort of policy in Norway, states that he tried to dissuade Hitler, yet he continued to hold his post and to lend his name to the regime under which these things were being done.

I pass on to matters for which he and Dönitz were more immediately responsible. The conduct of the war at sea reveals exactly the same pattern of utter disregard for law and for decency. There can seldom have been an occasion when the minds of two naval commanders have been so clearly read from their documents as those of the Defendants Raeder and Dönitz that can be read in the present case.

As early as the 3d of September 1939 the German Navy, in a memorandum to the Foreign Office, were seeking agreement to a policy of sinking without warning both enemy and neutral merchant ships in disregard of the London Submarine Rules, their own Prize Ordinance and of course the international law. A series of documents during the following 6 weeks reveals constant pressure on the Foreign Office by Raeder to consent to this policy.

On the 16th of October 1939 Raeder produced a memorandum on the intensification of naval warfare against England. In this document, having proclaimed the “utmost ruthlessness” as necessary and the intention to destroy Britain’s fighting spirit within the shortest possible time, Raeder went on to say—I quote:

“The principal target of naval warfare is the merchant ship, not only the enemy’s but in general every merchant ship which sails the seas in order to supply the enemy’s war industry both for imports and exports.”

It is that document which contains the infamous passage:

“It is desirable to base all military measures taken on existing international law; however, measures which are considered necessary from a military point of view, provided a decisive success can be expected from them, will have to be carried out even if they are not covered by existing international law. In principle, therefore, any means of war which is effective in breaking enemy resistance should be supported by a legal conception, even if this entails the creation of a new code of naval warfare.”

In another memorandum on the 30th of December he went on to urge further intensification, particularly with regard to neutrals—I quote: “... without binding ourselves to any conceptions such as the declaration of barred zones...”—and he suggested that as they were going to invade, neutral states it really did not matter if they went a little far at sea: “... the intensified measures of the war at sea will, in their political effect, only play a small part in the general intensification of the war” (Document Number C-100).

You will have noted that these memoranda on the conduct of the war at sea echo the High Command’s view on the future war which had been written 18 months earlier:

“According to whether the application of normal rules of war will create greater advantages or disadvantages for them, the warring nations will consider themselves as being at war or not being at war with the neutral states” (Document Number L-211).

Was that a mere coincidence? At all events, such was the pattern laid down by Raeder and followed by Dönitz. From the very first the Naval War Staff never had any intention of observing the laws of war at sea.

The defense that the sinking of Allied merchant ships without warning was justified by Allied measures is as untenable as the suggestion that the sinking at sight of neutral merchant ships was preceded by warning which complied with the requirements of international law. You have seen the very vague and general warnings given to the neutrals and the memorandum of the Naval War Staff revealing that these were deliberately given in the most general terms because Raeder knew that the action he intended against neutrals was utterly illegal. I need not remind you of the document which suggests that orders should be given by word of mouth and a false entry made in the log book, the very practice followed in the case of the Athenia, or of the entries in Raeder’s own war diary revealing that carefully selected neutrals should be sunk wherever the use of electric torpedoes might enable the Germans to maintain that the ship had really struck a mine. You have confirmation in the bland denials prepared by Raeder to answer the protests of the Norwegian and Greek Governments on the sinking of the Thomas Walton and the Garufalia and the reluctant admission in the case of the Deptford, all three ships sunk in December 1939 by the same U-boat. Nothing reveals more of the cynicism or opportunism with which Raeder and Dönitz treated international law than the contrast between their attitude toward the sinking of a Spanish ship in 1940 and that in September 1942. In 1940 Spain did not matter to Germany; in 1942 she did.

Details with regard to the various successive measures taken in the course of putting into effect the policy of sink at sight do not require recapitulation but there are two features of the conduct of naval warfare by these two defendants which I must emphasize. First, they continued to put out to the world that they were obeying the London Rules and their Prize Ordinance. The reason for that appears in Raeder’s memorandum of the 30th of December 1939 where he says—I quote:

“... a public announcement of intensified measures for the war at sea must be urgently advised against in order not to burden the Navy again in the eyes of history with the odium of unrestricted U-boat warfare” (Document Number C-100).

And that, you see, is the common plan—the common plan—the very argument put forward by Jodl and Dönitz in February 1945, in favor of simply breaking the regulations of the Geneva Convention rather than announcing Germany’s renunciation of it to the world. And here, once again, is the doctrine of military expediency; if it will pay Germany to break a particular law she is entirely justified in breaking it, provided always it can be done in such a way as to avoid detection and the condemnation of world opinion.

It must not be thought that in initiating this policy of sink at sight and in disregarding the rules of war at sea Raeder was any more drastic than Dönitz. In his defense Dönitz made a great effort to explain away his order of 17 September 1942. I ask the Tribunal to remember its terms: “No attempt of any kind must be made at rescuing members of ships sunk.... Rescue runs counter to the rudimentary demands of warfare aimed at the destruction of enemy ship and crews” (Document Number D-630).

His diary entry of the same date, which confirms that order, starts—I quote: “The attention of all commanding officers is again drawn to the fact that all efforts to rescue run counter to the rudimentary demands of warfare ...”

Well, the defendant denied that this means that crews were to be destroyed or annihilated. But the previous history makes it abundantly clear that this was an invitation to U-boat commanders to destroy the crews of shipwrecked merchantmen, while preserving an argument for Dönitz to make, should—as has indeed happened—occasion arise. That, after all, was the pattern laid down by Hitler when on the 3d of January 1942, he told Oshima that—I quote: “... he must give the order that in case foreign seamen could not be taken prisoner ... U-boats were to surface after torpedoing and shoot up the lifeboats” (Document Number D-423).

The evidence shows constant pressure by Hitler from then on for the issue of this order. It is admitted that he demanded it at a meeting with both Dönitz and Raeder on the 14th of May 1942 and that he raised the question again on the 5th of September 1942. Dönitz himself referred to pressure by Hitler during the Laconia incident. You have confirmation that the order issued on the 17th of September was intended to bear the construction put upon it by the Prosecution in the evidence of the witness Heisig and in that of Möhle. Is it conceivable that a senior officer would have been allowed to go on from the 17th of September 1942 until the end of the war briefing the hundreds of U-boats which set out from Kiel that this was an order to annihilate unless that was what the Naval War Staff intended? You have the evidence that Dönitz himself saw every U-boat commander before and after his cruise, his own admissions with regard to the comments made by his staff officers at the time he drafted the order and his general attitude revealed by the order of October 1939, which he admits was a nonrescue order—an utterly indefensible order in itself in the submission of the Prosecution. There is further the coincidence that the very argument which Hitler advanced to Oshima, namely, the importance of preventing the Allies finding the crews for the immense American construction program, was the argument Dönitz himself admits putting forward on the 14th of May, was the argument which Heisig reports hearing, and is the reason given for the subsequent order to give priority in attacking convoys to sinking rescue ships. You have the instances of the Antonice, the Noreen Mary, and the Peleus whilst the man who expressed horror at the idea that he should issue such an order admittedly saw the log book of the U-boat which sank the Sheaf Mead with its brutal entry describing the sufferings of those left in the water. Dönitz’ own statement was that—I quote: “... to issue such a directive could only be justified if a decisive military success could be achieved by it.”

Was it not because, as his own document shows, the percentage of ships being sunk outside convoys in September 1942 was so high that a decisive military success might have been gained that this order was issued, whereas in April 1943, when almost all sinkings were in convoy, it was not necessary to issue a further order in more explicit terms?

The Prosecution firmly and strongly submit that the Defendant Dönitz intended by that order to encourage and to procure as many submarine commanders as possible to destroy the crews of merchant ships but deliberately couched the order in its present language so that he could argue the contrary if circumstances required it. On the evidence of Admiral Wagner that the Naval War Staff approved the order of 17 September 1942 with respect to survivors, Raeder cannot escape responsibility and, indeed, since he was present at the meeting with Hitler in May of that year and received the Führer order of the 5th of September 1942 (Documents Dönitz-16 and 39) to issue instructions to kill survivors, there can be little doubt that he was fully involved in his subordinate’s policy.

Although within a few months Allied air power made it impossible for U-boats in most areas to risk surfacing at all after they had discharged their torpedo, and the question became one of less importance, it is interesting to note that when the order against rescue ships was issued on the 7th of October the following year the same phrase “destruction of ships’ crews” (Document Number D-663) recurred.

Despite the denial of Kapitänleutnant Eck, (Document Number Dönitz-36) there can really be no real doubt that, briefed by Möhle, he did what his superior officers intended him to do. Why should it be supposed that a man, who a month later received Hitler’s Commando Order without protest, should shrink from ordering the destruction of seamen on rafts or clinging to wreckage, when Hitler had explained its military necessity. Eck, who obeyed the orders of Raeder and Dönitz, has paid the supreme penalty. Are they to escape with less?

I turn now to yet another war crime—the use of slave labor. Its importance for the German war machine had been appreciated by these defendants long before the outbreak of war. Hitler had mentioned it in Mein Kampf and emphasized it at the meeting in May 1939. A few weeks later in June the Reich Defense Council, Göring, Frick, Funk, and Raeder, and representatives of every other ministry of state were planning to employ 20,000 concentration camp inmates and hundreds of thousands of workers from the Protectorate in the coming war.

Hitler’s plan for Poland, revealed to Schirach and Frank, was as follows—I quote:

“The ideal picture is this: A Pole may possess only small holdings in the Government General which will to a certain extent provide him and his family with food. The money required by him for clothes, ... et cetera, he must earn in Germany by work. The Government General must become a center for supplying unskilled labor, particularly agricultural labor. The subsistence of these workmen will be fully guaranteed because they can always be made use of as cheap labor” (Document Number USSR-172).

That policy, of course, was a short-term policy, the real aim being the elimination of the Eastern peoples. Sauckel was appointed plenipotentiary with the task of replacing 2 million German workers who had been called to service with the Wehrmacht, and he himself says that after Hitler had emphasized that it was a war necessity he had no scruples and within a month of his appointment he had sent his first labor mobilization program to Rosenberg.

“Should we not succeed in obtaining the necessary labor on a voluntary basis we must immediately institute conscription of forced labor ... a gigantic number of new foreign workers ... men and women ... an indisputable necessity” (Document Number 016-PS).

This program he was to carry out “with every possible energy and a ruthless commitment of all our resources ...”(Document Number 017-PS).

It is unnecessary to refer to the voluminous evidence of the execution of this policy for the recruitment of workers. It is sufficient to quote Sauckel again addressing the Central Planning Board in March of 1944:

“... to train male and female agents ... who shanghaied ... men for labor in Germany.... Out of 5 million foreign workers who arrived in Germany not even 200,000 came voluntarily” (Document Number R-124).

The methods employed in their forced deportations are hideous in their brutality and must have been known to every one of these defendants. In April of 1941 Himmler was addressing the officers of the SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler. I quote:

“Very frequently a member of the Waffen-SS thinks about the deportation of this people here. These thoughts come to me today watching the very difficult work performed by the Security Police and supported by your men who help them a great deal. Exactly the same thing happened in Poland in weather 40 degrees below zero where we had to haul away thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands ...” (Document Number 1918-PS).

And again:

“Whether 10,000 Russian females fall down from exhaustion while digging an antitank ditch interests me only insofar as the antitank ditch for Germany is finished ... When somebody comes to me and says, ‘I cannot dig the antitank ditch with women and children, it is inhuman, for it would kill them’, then I have to say: ‘You are a murderer of your own blood because if the antitank ditch is not dug, German soldiers will die and they are the sons of German mothers.’ We must realize that we have 6-7 million foreigners in Germany ... Perhaps it is even 8 million now. We have prisoners in Germany. They are none of them dangerous so long as we take severe measures at the merest trifle” (Document Number 1919-PS).

By August 1943 the need for workers was even greater. Himmler ordered:

“... that all young female prisoners capable of work are to be sent to Germany for work through the agency of Reich Commissioner Sauckel. Children, old women and old men are to be collected and employed in women’s and children’s camps ...” (Document Number 744-PS).

The orders issued to group leaders of the SD, active in the Ukraine, showed the same urgency. I quote:

“The activity of the Labor Office ... is to be supported to the greatest extent possible. It will not be possible always to refrain from using force.... When searching villages, or when it has become necessary to burn down a village, the whole population will be put at the disposal of the commissioner by force. As a rule, no more children will be shot.... If we limit our harsh Security Police measures through the above orders for the time being, it is only done for the following reason. The most important thing is the recruitment of workers” (Document Number 3012-PS).

Speer admitted—how could he deny it—the knowledge and approval of the way the workers were enrolled and brought to Germany against their will; there was Kaltenbrunner’s letter to his friend Blaschke:

“For ... special reasons I have in the meantime given orders to ship several evacuation transports to Vienna; at present four shipments with approximately 12,000 Jews are pending.... They should reach Vienna within the next few days.... Women unable to work and children of those Jews who are all kept in readiness for special action and therefore one day will be removed again, have to stay in the guarded camp also during the day” (Document Number 3803-PS).

That sinister phrase again—the meaning of which they all knew so well—“special treatment,” “special action.” Murder remains murder by whatever euphemism murderers may seek to describe it.

The need for labor became so urgent that not only were even Jews spared the gas chambers so long as they were fit for employment but children were seized and put to work.

So much for their deportation to Germany. What was to be their lot on their arrival? As early as March 1941 instructions had been issued to the Kreis Farmers Association on the treatment Polish farm workers were to receive (Document Number EC-68). They were to have no rights to complain. They were forbidden—this religious people—to visit churches; all forms of entertainment, public transport were barred. Their employers were given the right to inflict corporal punishment and were “not to be held accountable in any case by any official agency.” And lastly, it was ordered:

“Farm workers of Polish nationality should if possible be removed from the community of the home; they can be quartered in stables, et cetera. No remorse whatever should restrict such action.”

The treatment of those employed in industry was even worse. You will remember the affidavit of the Polish doctor in Essen who did his best to attend to the Russian prisoners of war.

“... men were thrown together in such a catastrophic manner that no medical treatment was possible ... it seemed to me ... unworthy of human beings that people should find themselves in such a position.... Every day at least 10 men were brought to me whose bodies were covered with bruises because of the continual beatings with rubber tubes, steel switches, or sticks. The people were often writhing with agony and it was impossible for me to give them even a little medical aid.... It was difficult for me to watch how such suffering people could be directed to do heavy work ... Dead people often lay for 2 or 3 days on the palliasses until their bodies stank so badly that fellow prisoners took them outside and buried them somewhere ... I was a witness during a conversation with some Russian women, who told me personally that they were employed in Krupp’s factory and that they were beaten daily in a bestial manner.... Beating was the order of the day” (Document Number D-313).

By the end of 1943 more than 5 million men, women, and children were working in the Reich and if we include prisoners of war the total of those working in Germany was at this date just under 7 million (Document Number D-524). To these must be added the hundreds of thousands brought in during 1944—millions of men and women taken from their homes by the most brutal methods, transported in all weather in cattle-trucks from every quarter of Europe, employed on farms and in factories throughout the Reich, frequently under abominable conditions; children taken from their parents, many to remain for their lives orphans, not knowing their identity or true names, taken away before they were old enough to remember the place from which they came. What is the measure of this crime? No man in that dock can dispute his knowledge or his complicity. The minutes of the Central Planning Board must have been read in every department of the State. You have seen the mass of evidence connecting the military leaders and every other branch of the Government with this colossal program of slavery. None of these men can be acquitted of this crime. None of them can have been ignorant of the scale and brutality with which it was perpetrated.

I pass now to a connected matter, but one even more terrible—the general manner in which the defendants conducted the belligerent occupation of the territories which they had overrun.

The evidence that these territories were the scene of murder, slavery, terrorism, and spoliation on a scale without precedent in history, in breach of the most elementary rules as to belligerent occupation, has not really been seriously challenged. These crimes were in no sense sporadic or isolated depending on the sadism of a Koch here or cruelty by a Frank there. They were part and parcel of a deliberate and systematic plan of which their action in regard to slave labor was just a symptom. In order to establish the “1,000-year Reich,” they set out to accomplish the extermination or permanent weakening of the racial and national groups of Europe or of those sections, such as the intelligentsia, on which the survival of those groups must largely depend.

The origin of this terrible attempt upon the existence of free and ancient nations goes back to the whole Nazi doctrine of total war which rejected war as being merely against states and their armies, as international law provides. Nazi total war was also a war against civilian populations, against whole peoples. Hitler told Keitel at the end of the Polish campaign: “Prudence and severity must be the maxims in this racial struggle in order to spare us from going to battle on account of Poland again” (Document Number 864-PS).

The aims of genocide were formulated by Hitler in the following words in his conversation with Hermann Rauschning:

“The French complained after the war that there were 20 million Germans too many. We accept the criticism. We favor the planned control of population movements. But our friends will have to excuse us if we subtract the 20 millions elsewhere. After all these centuries of whining about the protection of the poor and lowly, it is about time for the decision to protect the strong against the inferior. It will be one of the chief tasks of German statesmanship for all time to prevent, by every means in our power, the increase of the Slav races. Natural instincts bid all living beings not merely to conquer their enemies, but also destroy them. In former days, it was the victor’s prerogative to destroy entire tribes, entire peoples. By doing this gradually and without bloodshed, we demonstrate our humanity” (Document Number USSR-378).

Himmler’s vision was similar. I quote:

“For us the end of this war will mean the open road to the East, the creation of the Germanic Reich in this way or that ... the fetching home of 30 million human beings of our blood, so that still during our lifetime we shall be a people of 120 million Germanic souls. That means that we shall then be able to tackle the peace, during which we shall be willing for the first 20 years to rebuild and spread out our villages and towns, and that we shall push the borders of our German race 500 kilometers farther out to the East” (Document Number L-70).

Their aims went beyond mere Germanization, the imposition of the German cultural pattern upon other peoples. Hitler was resolved to expel non-Germans from the soil he required but that they owned, and colonize it by Germans. This is plainly stated in Mein Kampf. I quote:

“The Polish policy in the sense of a Germanization of the East, demanded by so many, was rooted unfortunately almost always in the same wrong conclusion. Here too it was believed that one could bring about a Germanization of the Polish element by a purely linguisitic integration into the German nationality. Here too the result would have been an unfortunate one; people of an alien race, expressing their alien thought in the German language, compromising the height and dignity of our own nationality by their own inferiority” (Document Number USA-256, Pages 429-430).

Himmler put it even more clearly:

“It is not our task to germanize the East in the old sense, that is to teach the people there the German language and the German law, but to see to it that only people of purely Germanic blood live in the East” (Document Number 2915-PS).

The defendants were careful to conceal their true aims from their victims. In January 1940 a captured report reads:

“In order to relieve the living space of Poles in the Government General as well as in the liberated East, one should remove cheap labor temporarily by hundreds of thousands, employ them for a few years in the old Reich, and thereby hamper their native biological propagation at the same time,”

and it concludes:

“Strictest care is to be taken that secret circulars, memoranda, and official correspondence which contain instructions detrimental to the Poles are kept rigidly under lock and key so that they will not some day fill the White Books printed in Paris or the U.S.A.” (Document Number 661-PS).

Again, the day before the appointment of Rosenberg as Minister for the East, Hitler told him in the presence of Keitel, Göring, and Bormann, I quote:

“We ought to act here in exactly the same way as we did in the case of Norway, Denmark, Holland, and Belgium. In these cases, too, we did not publish our aims and it is only sensible to continue in the same way. Therefore we shall emphasize again that we were forced to occupy, administer, or secure a certain area. It was in the interests of the inhabitants that we provided order, food, communications, et cetera. Hence our measures. Nobody shall be able to recognize that it initiates a final settlement. This should not prevent our taking all necessity measures—shooting, deportation, et cetera, and we shall take them” (Document Number L-221).

Having given these words of caution to his confederates, you will remember how Hitler went on to elaborate his plans for the destruction of the Soviet peoples. The Crimea, he said, must be evacuated of all foreigners and settled by Germans only.

“We now have to face the task of cutting up the giant cake according to our needs in order to be able: First, to dominate it, secondly, to administer it, thirdly, to exploit it.”

The pattern was exemplified in the infamous plan of Neurath and Frank for Bohemia and Moravia—the same Neurath whose counsel the day before yesterday asked you to respect the holiness of the individual” (Document Number 3859-PS).

The pattern, I say, was exemplified in their plan for Bohemia and Moravia. No more terrible document has been put in evidence in this Trial nor one which more completely exposes the falsity of the slogan “Lebensraum,” which constituted the excuse for the rape of Czechoslovakia. That plan required the elimination of the intelligentsia, the bearers of Czechoslovakian history and tradition, and, since the long-term solution of evacuating all Czechs completely from the country and replacing them by Germans could not be effected immediately because of shortage of Germans, a short term solution of germanizing the remainder of the population. This was to be done by rendering their language a dialect, by abolition of higher education, by instituting a stringent marriage policy after various racial examinations. You will remember Frank’s summary. I quote:

“Apart from the continuance of the propaganda for Germanization and the granting of advantages as an inducement, severest police methods with exile and special treatment for all saboteurs. Principle: ‘Pastry and Whip’” (Document Number 3859-PS).

You will remember too the plan for Poland discussed in Hitler’s train on the 12th of September 1939 by Ribbentrop, Keitel, and Jodl, as described in the evidence of the witness Lahousen, and the discussion between Hitler, Schirach, and Frank 3 weeks later after dinner in the Führer’s apartment.

“... there should be one master only for the Poles—the German; two masters side by side cannot and must not exist and therefore all representatives of Polish intelligentsia are to be exterminated. This sounds cruel but such is the law of life” (Document Number USSR-172).

Such were the plans for the Soviet Union, for Poland and for Czechoslovakia. Genocide was not restricted to extermination of the Jewish people or of the gypsies. It was applied in different forms to Yugoslavia, to the non-German inhabitants of Alsace-Lorraine, to the people of the Low Countries and of Norway. The technique varied from nation to nation, from people to people. The long-term aim was the same in all cases.

The methods followed a similar pattern: First a deliberate program of murder, of outright annihilation. This was the method applied to the Polish intelligentsia, to gypsies, and to Jews. The killing of millions, even by the gas chambers and the mass shootings employed, was no easy matter. The defendants and their confederates also used methods of protracted annihilation, the favorite being to work their victims to death, hence Himmler’s bond with the Minister of Justice in September 1942 under which antisocial elements were handed over to the SS “to be worked to death” (Document Number 654-PS). On the 14th of the same month Goebbels was recommending this method in terms:

“With regard to the destruction of asocial life Dr. Goebbels has the opinion that the following groups should be exterminated: Jews and gypsies unconditionally, Poles who have to serve about 3 or 4 years of penal servitude, and Czechs and Germans who are sentenced to death or penal servitude for life or to security custody. The idea of exterminating them by labor is the best” (Document Number 682-PS).

Another favorite technique of extermination was by starvation. Rosenberg, the great architect of this policy of national murder, told his collaborators in June 1941:

“The object of feeding the German people stands this year without a doubt at the top of the list of Germany’s claims on the East, and there the southern territories and the northern Caucasus will have to serve as a balance for the feeding of the German people. We see absolutely no reason for any obligation on our part to feed also the Russian people with the products of that surplus territory. We know that this is a harsh necessity bare of any feelings. A very extensive evacuation will be necessary without any doubt and it is sure that the future will hold very hard years in store for the Russians” (Document Number 1058-PS).

The method applied in Alsace was deportation. A captured report reads:

“The first expulsion action was carried out in Alsace in the period from July to December 1940 in the course of which 105,000 persons were either expelled or prevented from returning. They were in the main Jews, gypsies and other foreign racial elements, criminals, antisocial, and incurably insane persons, and in addition Frenchmen, and Francophiles. The patois-speaking population was combed out by these series of deportations in the same way as the other Alsatians” (Document Number R-114).

The report goes on to state that new deportations are being prepared and after reciting the categories affected, sums up the measures being taken:

“... the problem of race has been given first consideration and this in such a manner that persons of racial value are to be deported to Germany proper and racially inferior persons to France.”

The Nazis also used various biological devices, as they have been called, to achieve genocide. They deliberately decreased the birthrate in the occupied countries by sterilization, castration, and abortion, by separating husband from wife and men from women and obstructing marriage. I quote:

“We are obliged to depopulate”—said Hitler to Rauschning—“as part of our mission of preserving the German population. We shall have to develop a technique of depopulation. If you ask me what I mean by depopulation, I mean the removal of entire racial units. And that is what I intend to carry out—that, roughly, is my task. Nature is cruel, therefore, we, too, must be cruel. If I can send the flower of the German nation into the hell of war without the smallest pity for the spilling of precious German blood, then surely I have the right to remove millions of an inferior race that breeds like vermin” (Document Number USSR-378).

You have seen Neurath’s use of this biological device in his plan for Czechoslovakia. Listen to Bormann’s directives for the Eastern territory summarized by one of Rosenberg’s subordinates. I quote:

“The Slavs are to work for us. Insofar as we do not need them, they may die. Therefore, compulsory vaccination and German health services are superfluous. The fertility of the Slavs is undesirable. They may use contraceptives or practice abortion; the more the better. Education is dangerous. It is enough if they can count up to a hundred. At best an education which produces useful stooges for us is admissible” (Document Number R-36).

Himmler speaks with the same voice:

“We must be honest, decent, loyal, and comradely to members of our own blood, to nobody else. What happens to the Russians, the Czechs, does not interest me in the slightest. What the nations can offer in the way of good blood of our type we will take, if necessary by kidnapping their children and raising them here with us. Whether nations live in prosperity or starve to death interests me only insofar as we need them as slaves for our Kultur; otherwise it is of no interest to me” (Document Number 1919-PS).

The converse to methods designed to decrease the birthrate in occupied territories was the artificial increase in the birthrate of Germans. In February 1941 the Defendant Seyss-Inquart organized a system of giving away Dutch girls to German soldiers. In violation of Article 43 of the Hague Convention, he ordered changes in the law of the Netherlands so that he could assume parental and guardianship rights over girls, substituting himself for their parents if the parents refused their daughters permission to marry German soldiers.

This policy of Seyss-Inquart’s was later confirmed by the supreme authorities of the German Reich, Hitler, Keitel, and Lammers, on July 28th, 1942. A decree was issued granting subsidies and employment privileges for Dutch and Norwegian women bearing children to members of the German Armed Forces. And they have the impudence to talk now about the holiness of the individual. This was simply a plan to transfer, as if it were some mercantile commodity, the biological resources of Holland and Norway to the use of the German people. Himmler was one of the advocates of stealing children; as he said on the 14th of October 1943:

“Obviously in such a mixture of peoples there will always be some racially very good types. In these cases I think that it is our duty to take their children with us to remove them from their environment, if necessary by robbing or stealing them.... Either we win over any good blood that we can use for ourselves and give it a place in our people or ... we destroy this blood” (Document Number L-70).

In the case of Russia, Keitel, who had learned the phrase “shrewdness and severity” as the maxim for the exploitation of Poland, paved the way by his orders of the 13th of May and 23d of July 1941 (Documents Number C-50 and C-52). I quote from the latter, drafted on his own admission by Jodl:

“In view of the vast size of the occupied areas in the East the forces available for establishing security in these areas will be sufficient only if all resistance is punished not by legal prosecution of the guilty but by the spreading of such terror by the occupying power as is appropriate to eradicate every inclination to resist among the population. The competent commanders must find the means of keeping order ... not by demanding more security forces but by applying suitable Draconic methods ...” (Document Number C-52).

The immediate needs of the war machine no doubt saved the western territories from similar destruction, but the Tribunal have an ample evidence of the plunder of France, the Low Countries, and the other territories which these men exploited to the utmost possible extent. In view of the nature of their murderous policy, it is not surprising that the men charged by the defendants to carry it out were brutes. In Rosenberg’s domain, for instance, there was Koch, who was recommended by Rosenberg for the post of Commissar in Moscow because of the very fact of his “absolute ruthlessness.” It was Koch who caused the slaughter of several hundred innocent human beings in the Zuman wood area so that he could have a private hunting reserve. Another of Rosenberg’s agents was Kube, who wrote:

“... we have liquidated in the last 10 weeks about 55,000 Jews in White Ruthenia. In the territory Minsk-Land Jewry has been eliminated without endangering the manpower demands. In the pre-eminently Polish territory Lida, 16,000 Jews, in Slonim 8,000 Jews and so forth have been liquidated” (Document Number 3428-PS).

As in Poland the orders given to Frank were as follows:

“Ruthless exploitation ... reduction of entire Polish economy to absolute minimum necessary for bare existence ... The Poles shall be the slaves of the greater German world empire” (Document Number EC-344).

And we know how he carried it out. In January 1940 he records:

“Cheap labor must be removed from the Government General by hundreds of thousands. This will hamper the native biological propagation ...” (Document Number 2233-PS).

In May he speaks of:

“... taking advantage of the focusing of world interest on the Western Front by liquidations of thousands of the Poles, first the leading representatives of the Polish intelligentsia.”

And in December:

“Poles must feel they have only one duty; to work and to behave. We must carry out all measures ruthlessly; rely on me ...”

We who try to understand the problems of eastern Europe must try to understand this; the details of the martyrdom of Poland simply cannot be described; a third of the people murdered; millions left impoverished, sick, maimed, and helpless; liberation was just in time to save this ancient people from the terrible fulfillment of the program which these men had plotted.

Would that be a convenient moment to ...

THE PRESIDENT: Certainly.

[A recess was taken.]

SIR HARTLEY SHAWCROSS: There is one group to which the method of annihilation was applied on a scale so immense that it is my duty to refer separately to the evidence. I mean the extermination of the Jews. If there were no other crime against these men, this one alone, in which all of them were implicated, would suffice. History holds no parallel to these horrors.

As soon as the prospect of a second World War became a certainty, Streicher, who had preached this infamous doctrine as far back as 1925, began in earnest to advocate annihilation (Document Number M-13). As he, on his own admission, had been instrumental in effecting the Nuremberg Decrees by years of propaganda in favor of racial laws, so now, in January 1939, anticipating the war which was to come, he began, in articles published in the Stürmer with “the full support of the highest Reich authority,” to demand with all vehemence the physical extinction of the Jewish race. Unless words have completely lost their meaning, what do these words mean but murder:

“They must be exterminated root and branch” (Document Number D-811).

“Then will the criminal Jewish race be forever eradicated” (Document Number D-813).

“Then will they slay the Jews in masses” (Document Number D-817).

“Prepare a grave from which there can be no resurrection” (Document Number M-148).

Almost immediately after the war had started the organized extermination of the Jewish race began: Hoess has told you:

“The final solution of the Jewish question means the complete extermination of all Jews in Europe. I was ordered to establish extermination facilities in Auschwitz in June 1941. At that time there were already in the Government General three other extermination camps: Belzek, Treblinka, and Wolzek.”

Already the Jews in Germany and Poland had been concentrated in the ghettos of the Government General. Over dinner in the Führer’s apartment in October 1940, Frank had explained and I quote:

“The activities in the Government General could be termed very successful. The Jews in Warsaw and other cities were now locked up in ghettos, Kraków very shortly would be cleared of them.

“Reichsleiter Von Schirach ... remarked that he still had more than 50,000 Jews in Vienna whom Dr. Frank would have to take over from him” (Document Number USSR-172).

When the order actually came, therefore, the preparatory measures, so far as they affected Poland and Germany, had already been taken. Of the destruction of the ghettos and the slaughter of their populations General Stroop’s report on the Warsaw action is eloquent evidence (Document Number 1061-PS). But the fate of the Jews in Warsaw was only typical of the fate of the Jews in every other ghetto in Poland.

When they were not slaughtered in the ghettos themselves they were transported to the gas chambers. Hoess, Commandant of Auschwitz, described the procedure:

“I visited Treblinka to find out how they carried out their exterminations. The camp commandant at Treblinka told me that he had liquidated 80,000 in the course of one half-year. He was primarily concerned with the liquidation of the Jews from the Warsaw ghetto.”

Hoess describes the improvements that he made at Auschwitz. He introduced the new gas, Cyclone B which—I quote:

“... took from 3 to 15 minutes to kill the people in the death chamber, depending upon climatic conditions. We knew when the people were dead because their screaming stopped.... Another improvement we made over Treblinka was that we built our gas chambers to accommodate 2,000 people at a time, whereas at Treblinka their 10 gas chambers accommodated only 200 people each.”

And he describes the selection of the victims from the daily transports that arrived:

“Those who were fit for work were sent into the camp. Others were sent immediately to the extermination plants. Children of tender years were invariably exterminated since, by reason of their youth, they were unable to work. Still another improvement we made over Treblinka was that at Treblinka the victims almost always knew they were to be exterminated and at Auschwitz we endeavored to fool the victims into thinking that they were going through a delousing process. Of course, frequently they realized our true intentions. Very frequently the women would hide their children under the clothes but of course when we found them we would send the children in to be exterminated. We were required to carry out these exterminations in secrecy, but of course the foul and nauseating stench from the continuous burning of bodies permeated the entire area and all of the people living in the surrounding communities knew that exterminations were going on at Auschwitz.”

So also must they have known in the districts surrounding Belzek, Treblinka, Wolzek, Mauthausen, Sachsenhausen, Flossenbürg, Neuengamme, Gusen, Natzweiler, Lublin, Buchenwald, and Dachau.

I do not repeat these things in order to make the blood run cold. It is right that a few of these typical matters should be extracted from the great mass of the evidence which is accumulated here so that one may see this thing in its true perspective and appreciate the cumulative effect of what has been proved.

Whilst the German armies surged into Russia and the Baltic States, the Einsatzkommandos followed in their wake. Their dreadful work had been planned and prepared in advance. In the file describing the operations of the Task Force A there is a map of the Baltic countries showing the number of Jews that were living in each state who were to be hounded out and killed (Document Number L-180). Another map shows the results achieved after those 2 or 3 months’ work—a total of 135,567 Jews destroyed. In another report on their operations during October 1941 it is proudly stated that they continued “on the march with the advancing troops into the sectors which have been assigned to them” (Document Number 2273-PS).

These actions were not only the work of the SS and Himmler. They were carried out in co-operation with the army commanders with the full knowledge of Keitel and Jodl and, indeed, because every soldier fighting in the East must have known about them, with the knowledge also of every member of the Government and of the commanders of its Armed Forces.

“Our task”—so states the report of the Task Force A—“was hurriedly to establish personal contact with the commanding generals of the armies and with the commanding general of the rear army. It may be stressed from the beginning that co-operation with the Armed Forces was generally good. In some cases, for instance, with Panzer Group 4 under Generaloberst Hoeppner, it was very close, almost cordial” (Document Number L-180).

The German generals were “almost cordial” as they weltered in the blood of hundreds of thousands of helpless, innocent men, women, and children. Perhaps they enjoyed this work—in the same way as the members of the Einsatzkommandos themselves apparently enjoyed it.

“It should be mentioned”—states the report—“that the assigned leaders of the Waffen-SS and of the Order Police, as far as they are reserves, have declared their wish to stay on with the Security Police and the SD” (Document Number L-180).

Again and again, in the reports of the Einsatzkommandos, progress, co-operation with the Army authorities is emphasized. After describing how thousands of Lithuanian Jews had been made harmless, during a particular pogrom in June, it is stated: “These self-cleansing actions went smoothly because the Army authorities who showed full understanding for this procedure were informed of them.”

Nor was it only cordiality and understanding that the Army authorities showed. In some cases they themselves took the initiative. After describing the murder of inmates of lunatic asylums that had fallen into their hands, the Einsatzkommando report continues:

“Sometimes authorities of the Armed Forces asked us to clear out in a similar way other institutions which were wanted as billets. However, as the interests of the Security Police did not require any intervention, it was left to the authorities of the Armed Forces to take the necessary action with their own forces.”

And again:

“The advance of the forces of Special Task Group A which were intended to be used for Leningrad was effected in agreement with and on the express wish of Panzer Group 4.”

How can operations of this kind, extending for months and years over vast territories, carried out with the co-operation of the Armed Forces as they advanced and in the rear areas that they administered, have remained unknown to the leaders in Germany? Even their own commissioners in the occupied territories protested. In October 1941 the Commissioner for White Ruthenia was forwarding to the Reich Commissioner for Eastern Territories at Riga a report on the operations in his district. Some idea of the horror of those operations can be seen from that report. I quote:

“Regardless of the fact that the Jewish people, among whom were also tradesmen, were mistreated in a terribly barbarous way in the face of the White Ruthenian people, the White Ruthenians themselves were also worked over with rubber clubs and rifle butts ... the whole picture was generally more than ghastly.... I was not present at the shooting before the town. Therefore I cannot make a statement on its brutality. But it should suffice if I point out that persons shot have worked themselves out of their graves some time after they had been covered” (Document Number 1104-PS).

But such protests of this kind were of no avail; the slaughter continued with unabated ghastliness.

In February 1942, in Heydrich’s activity and situation report on the Einsatzkommandos in the U.S.S.R. of which a copy was addressed to Kaltenbrunner personally, it was stated:

“We are aiming at cleansing the Eastern countries completely of Jews.... Estonia has already been cleared of Jews.

“In Latvia the number of Jews in Riga, of which there were 29,500, has now been reduced to 2,500” (Document Number 3876-PS).

By June 1943 the Commissioner for White Ruthenia was again protesting. After referring to 4,500 enemy dead, he says:

“The political effect of this large-scale operation upon the peaceful population is simply dreadful in view of the many shootings of women and children.”

The Reich Commissar for Eastern Territories, forwarding that protest to Rosenberg, the Reich Minister for Occupied Eastern Territories in Berlin, added:

“The fact that Jews receive special treatment requires no further discussions. However, it appears hardly believable that this is done in the way described in the report of the Commissioner General.... What is Katyn against this? Imagine only that these occurrences would become known to the other side and exploited by them. Most likely such propaganda would have no effect if only because people who read and heard about it simply would not be ready to believe it” (Document Number R-135).

How true that comment is. Are we ready even now to believe it? Describing the difficulty of distinguishing between friend and foe, he says:

“Nevertheless, it should be possible to avoid atrocities and to bury those who have been liquidated. To lock men, women, and children into barns and set fire to them does not appear to be a suitable method of combating bands, even if it is desired to exterminate the population. This method is not worthy of the German cause and hurts our reputation most severely.”

Of these Jews murdered in White Ruthenia, over 11,000 were slaughtered in the district of Libau, and 7,000 of them had been killed in the naval port itself (Documents Number L-180, D-841).

How can any of these defendants plead ignorance of these things? When Himmler was speaking of these actions quite openly amongst his SS generals and all the officers of his SS divisions in April 1943, he told them:

“Anti-Semitism is exactly the same as delousing. Getting rid of lice is not a question of ideology: it is a matter of cleanliness. In just the same way, anti-Semitism for us has not been a question of ideology but a matter of cleanliness which now will soon have been dealt with. We shall soon be deloused. We have only 20,000 lice left, and then the matter is finished off within the whole of Germany” (Document Number 1919-PS).

And in October of that year:

“Most of you must know what it means when 100 corpses are lying, side by side, or 500, or 1,000.”

Meanwhile, the mass murder of Jews at Auschwitz and the other extermination centers was becoming a State industry with by-products. Bales of hair, some of it, as you will remember, still plaited as it has been shorn off the girls’ heads, tons of clothing, toys, spectacles, and other articles went back to the Reich to stuff the chairs and clothe the people of the Nazi State. The gold from their victims’ teeth, 72 transports full, went to fill the coffers of Funk’s Reichsbank. On occasion, even the bodies of their victims were used to make good the wartime shortage of soap (Document Number USSR-272).

The victims came from all over Europe. Jews from Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Holland, Soviet Russia, France, Belgium, Poland, and Greece were being herded together to be deported to the extermination centers or to be slaughtered on the spot.

In April 1943, Hitler and Ribbentrop were pressing the Regent Horthy to take action against the Jews in Hungary. Horthy asked:

“What should he do with the Jews now that he had deprived them of almost all possibilities of livelihood? He could not kill them off. The Reich Foreign Minister declared that the Jews must be either exterminated or taken to concentration camps. There was no other possibility” (Document Number D-736).

Hitler explained:

“In Poland the state of affairs had been fundamentally cleared up. If the Jews there did not want to work, they were shot. If they could not work they had to succumb. They had to be treated like tuberculosis bacilli. This was not cruel if one remembered that even innocent creatures of nature, such as hares and deer, have to be killed so that no harm is caused by them.”

In September 1942, Ribbentrop’s State Secretary, Luther, was writing:

“The Reich Foreign Minister has instructed me today by telephone to hasten as much as possible the evacuation of the Jews from different countries.... After a short lecture on the evacuation now in progress in Slovakia, Croatia, Romania, and the occupied territories, the Reich Foreign Minister has ordered that we are to approach the Bulgarian, Hungarian, and Danish Governments with the goal of getting evacuation started in those countries” (Document Number 3688-PS).

By the end of 1944, 400,000 Jews from Hungary alone had been executed in Auschwitz. In the German Embassy in Bucharest the files contained a memorandum:

“... 110,000 Jews are being evacuated from Bukovina and Bessarabia into two forests in the area of the river Bug.... The purpose of the action is the liquidation of these Jews.” (Document Number 3319-PS)

Day by day, over years, women were holding their children in their arms and pointing to the sky while they waited to take their place in blood-soaked, communal graves. Twelve million men, women, and children have died thus, murdered in cold blood; millions upon millions more today mourn their fathers and mothers, their husbands, their wives, and their children. What right has any man to mercy who has played a part—however indirectly—in such a crime?

Let Gräbe speak again of Dubno (Document Number 2992-PS):

“On 5 October 1943 when I visited the building office at Dubno my foreman ... told me that in the vicinity of the site, Jews from Dubno had been shot in three large pits, each about 30 meters long and 3 meters deep. About 1,500 persons had been killed daily. All of the 5,000 Jews who had still been living in Dubno before the action were to be liquidated. As the shooting had taken place in his presence, he was still much upset.

“Thereupon I drove to the site, accompanied by my foreman, and saw near it great mounds of earth, about 30 meters long and 2 meters high. Several trucks stood in front of the mounds. Armed Ukrainian militia drove the people off the trucks under the supervision of an SS man. The militia men acted as guards on the trucks and drove them to and from the pit. All these people had the regulation yellow patches on the front and back of their clothes and thus could be recognized as Jews.

“My foreman and I went directly to the pits. Nobody bothered us. Now I heard rifle shots in quick succession from behind one of the earth mounds. The people who had got off the trucks—men, women, and children of all ages—had to undress upon the orders of an SS man, who carried a riding or dog whip. They had to put down their clothes in fixed places, sorted according to shoes, top clothing, and underclothing. I saw a heap of shoes of about 800 to 1,000 pairs, great piles of under linen and clothing. Without screaming or weeping these people undressed, stood around in family groups, kissed each other, said farewells, and waited for a sign from another SS man, who stood near the pit, also with a whip in his hand. During the 15 minutes that I stood near I heard no complaint or plea for mercy. I watched a family of about eight persons, a man and a woman both about 50 with their children of about 1, 8, and 10, and two grown-up daughters of about 20 to 24. An old woman with snow-white hair was holding the one-year-old child in her arms and singing to it and tickling it. The child was cooing with delight. The couple were looking on with tears in their eyes. The father was holding the hand of a boy about 10 years old and speaking to him softly; the boy was fighting his tears. The father pointed to the sky, stroked his head, and seemed to explain something to him. At that moment the SS man at the pit shouted something to his comrade. The latter counted off about 20 persons and instructed them to go behind the earth mound. Among them was the family which I have mentioned. I well remember a girl, slim and with black hair, who as she passed close to me, pointed to herself and said, ‘23’. I walked around the mound and found myself confronted by a tremendous grave. People were closely wedged together and lying on top of each other so that only their heads were visible. Nearly all had blood running over their shoulders from their heads. Some of the people shot were still moving. Some were lifting their arms and turning their heads to show that they were still alive. The pit was already two-thirds full. I estimated that it already contained about 1,000 people. I looked for the man who did the shooting. He was an SS man, who sat at the edge of the narrow end of the pit, his feet dangling into the pit. He had a tommy gun on his knees and was smoking a cigaret. The people, completely naked, went down some steps which were cut in the clay wall of the pit and clambered over the heads of the people lying there, to the place to which the SS man directed them. They lay down in front of the dead or injured people; some caressed those who were still alive and spoke to them in a low voice. Then I heard a series of shots. I looked into the pit and saw that the bodies were twitching or the heads lying motionless on top of the bodies which lay before them. Blood was running away from their necks. I was surprised that I was not ordered away but I saw that there were two or three guards in uniform nearby. The next batch was approaching already. They went down into the pit, lined themselves up against the previous victims and were shot. When I walked back round the mound I noticed another truck load of people which had just arrived. This time it included sick and infirm persons. An old, very thin woman with terribly thin legs was undressed by others who were already naked, while two people held her up. The woman appeared to be paralyzed. The naked people carried the woman around the mound. I left with my foreman and drove in my car back to Dubno.

“On the morning of the next day, when I again visited the site, I saw about 30 naked people lying near the pit—about 30 to 50 meters away from it. Some of them were still alive; they looked straight in front of them with a fixed stare and seemed to notice neither the chilliness of the morning nor the workers of my firm who stood around. A girl of about 20 spoke to me and asked me to give her clothes and help her escape. At that moment we heard a fast car approach and I noticed that it was an SS detail. I moved away to my site. Ten minutes later we heard shots from the vicinity of the pit. The Jews still alive had been ordered to throw the corpses into the pit, then they had themselves to lie down in this to be shot in the neck.”

That no man in that dock can have remained ignorant of the horrors perpetrated to support the Nazi war machine and the policy of genocide becomes the more clear when you consider the evidence with regard to another great crime little heard of during the course of this Trial but which, as clearly as any other, illustrates the wickedness of these men and of their regime—the murder of some 275,000 persons by so-called mercy killing. To what base uses that beautiful word was put!

Sometime in the summer of 1940 Hitler secretly ordered the murder of ill and aged people in Germany who were no longer of productive value for the German war machine. Frick, more than any other man in Germany, was responsible for what took place as a result of that decree. Of his knowledge and of the knowledge of a great many people in Germany there is abundant evidence. In July 1940 Bishop Wurm was writing to Frick (Document Number M-152):

“For some months past, insane, feeble-minded, and epileptic patients of state and private medical establishments have been transferred to another institution on the orders of the Reich Defense Council. Their relatives, even when the patient was kept at their cost, are not informed of the transfer until after it has taken place. Mostly they are informed a few weeks after that the patient concerned has died of an illness and that owing to the danger of infection the body has had to be cremated. At a superficial estimate several hundred patients of an institution in Württemberg alone must have met their death in this way ...

“Owing to numerous inquiries from town and country and from the most variegated circles, I consider it my duty to point out to the Reich Government that this fact is causing a particular stir in our small province.... Transports of sick people who are unloaded at the small railway station of Marbach on the Lahn, the buses with opaque windows which bring sick persons from more distant railway stations or directly from the institutions, the smoke which rises from the crematorium and which can be noticed even from a considerable distance ... all this gives rise to speculation the more so as no one is allowed into the castle.... Everybody is convinced that the causes of death which are published officially are selected at random. When, to crown everything, regret is expressed in the obituary notice that all endeavors to preserve the patient’s life were in vain, this is felt as a mockery. But it is above all the mysteriousness which gives rise to the thought that something is happening which is contrary to justice and ethics and cannot therefore be openly defended by the Government like other necessary and stringent war measures.... This point is continually stressed by simple people as well as in the numerous oral and written statements which come to us ...”

Frick’s ears were deaf to pleas for justice and ethics such as that. A year later, in August 1941, the Bishop of Limburg wrote to the Reich Ministries of the Interior, of Justice, and Church Affairs (Document Number 615-PS):

“About 8 kilometers from Limburg in the little town of Hadamar, on a hill overlooking the town there is an institution which had formerly served various purposes and of late has been used as a nursing home. This institution was renovated and furnished as a place in which, by consensus of opinion, the above-mentioned euthanasia had been systematically practiced for months, approximately since February 1941. The fact has become known beyond the administrative district of Wiesbaden....

“Several times a week buses arrive in Hadamar with a considerable number of such victims. School children of the vicinity know this vehicle and say: ‘There comes the murder box again.’ After the arrival of these vehicles citizens of Hadamar watch the smoke rise out of the chimney and are tortured with the constant thought of the misery of the victims, especially when repulsive odors annoy them....

“The effect of the principles at work here are that children call each other names and say: ‘You are crazy, you will be sent to the baking ovens in Hadamar.’ Those who do not want to marry or find no opportunity say: ‘Marry, never! Bring children into the world so that they can be put into the pressure steamer!’ You hear old folks say: ‘Do not send me to a state hospital. After the feeble minded have been finished off the next useless eaters whose turn it will be are the old people ...’

“Officials of the Secret State Police, it is said, are trying to suppress discussion of the Hadamar occurrences by means of severe threats. In the interests of public peace this may be well intended, but the knowledge and the conviction and the indignation of the population cannot be changed by it. The conviction will be increased with the bitter realization that discussion is prohibited with threats, but that the actions themselves are not prosecuted under penal law. Facta loquuntur.”

If the common people of Germany knew and were complaining of these relatively insignificant murders, when the Ministries of Justice, of the Interior, and of Church Affairs were receiving protests from the Bishop of two districts far removed from each other, on what was common knowledge in their dioceses, how much greater were the security problems of the Einsatzkommandos in the East. In May 1942 an SS leader reporting to Berlin on a tour of inspection of the progress of the extermination drive wrote of the gas vans:

“By having small shutters introduced, one on each side of the smaller van and two on each side of the bigger van, such as one sees often on peasants’ houses in the country, I have had the vehicles in Group D disguised to look like vans for living in. The cars were so well known that not only the authorities but also the civilian population allude to it as the ‘Death Car’ as soon as one of these vehicles appears. In my opinion even with camouflage it cannot be kept secret for any length of time” (Document Number 501-PS).

Can these defendants have remained in ignorance? What peculiar dispensation of Providence was there that protected them from knowledge of these matters, matters which were their concern?

This slaughter of the aged and imbeciles—the subject of gossip throughout Germany and of articles in the world press—must have been known to every one of these men. How much more then must they have known of the concentration camps which, during those years, covered like a rash the whole of Germany and the occupied territories. If they could only acquiesce in the mercy killings, with what favor they must have regarded the extermination of the Jews.

In 1939 there had been six main concentration camps—Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, Mauthausen, Flossenbürg, and Ravensbruck. Frick’s budget for the Ministry of the Interior for that year includes a sum of RM 21,155,000 for armed SS and concentration camps—no less than a fifth of the total budget (Document Number 2873-PS). By April 1942 there had been added to those six camps nine more and more were to follow afterward.

But these were only the core of the system. Like planets, each of them had its attendant satellites. Ziereis has given you some idea of the extent of this system (Document Number D-626). He describes the subsidiary camps that were based on Mauthausen alone: 33 of them he mentioned by name, giving the numbers of prisoners at each—a total of over 102,000. Besides those 33, there were another 45, also all under the authority of the Mauthausen commandant.

You have seen the map of Europe showing the location of as many of these main subsidiary concentration camps as are known. Over 300 of them are marked on that map (Document Number F-321).

By August 1944 there was a total of 1,136,000 prisoners, which included 90,000 from Hungary, 60,000 from the police prison and ghetto of Litzmannstadt, 15,000 Poles from the Government General, 10,000 convicts from Eastern Territories, 17,000 former Polish officers, 400,000 Poles from Warsaw and between 15,000-20,000 continually arriving from France (Document Number 1166-PS).

These were only the physically fit and therefore permanent residents—permanent, at least until through physical exhaustion their productive capacity was no longer worth the nuisance that their continued existence meant. Then they took their place in the daily detail for the gas chambers.

Day after day the chimneys of the crematoria belched their nauseating stench over the countryside. When the Bishop of Limburg could write to Frick of the repulsive odors from the comparatively insignificant ovens at Hadamar, can we doubt the evidence of Hoess that I mentioned?

“The foul and nauseating stench from the continuous burning of bodies permeated the entire area and all the people living in the surrounding communities knew that exterminations were going on at Auschwitz.”

Day after day trainloads of victims traveled over the railroads of the whole Reich on their way to the extermination centers or their own slavery. Many arrived dying and even dead through the appalling conditions under which they journeyed. An official at the railway station at Essen has described the arrival of workers from Poland, Galicia, and the Ukraine:

“They came in goods wagons in which potatoes, building materials, and also cattle had been transported. The trucks were jammed full with people. My personal view was that it was inhuman to transport people in such a manner.

“The people were squashed closely together and they had hardly any room for free movement.... It was enraging to every decent German to see how the people were beaten and kicked and generally maltreated in a brutal manner. In the very beginning, as the first transports arrived, we could see how inhumanly these people were treated. Every wagon was so overfull that it was incredible that such a number could be jammed into one wagon.... The clothing of prisoners of war and civilian workers ... was catastrophic. It was ragged and ripped and the footwear was the same. In many cases they had to go to work with rags round their feet. Even in the worst weather and bitterest cold I have never seen that any of the wagons were heated” (Document Number D-321).

Those men were not destined for concentration camps—that was certain. How much worse the conditions of these who were. Great columns, too, trekked on foot along the highways of the Reich. They walked until they could walk no more; then they died by the side of the road. Ziereis, commandant of Mauthausen, in his dying confession said:

“In the presence of Baldur von Schirach and others I received the following order from ... Himmler ...:

“All Jews of localities in the Southeast, working on the so-called fortification commands ... are to be sent on foot to Mauthausen.

“In consequence of this order of Himmler’s 60,000 Jews were to come to Mauthausen, but in fact only a small fraction of this number arrived. As an example I mention that out of one convoy of 4,500 Jews which started out from somewhere in the country, only 180 arrived ... women and children had been without shoes and were in rags and were very verminous. In that convoy were complete families of which due to weakness an immense number had been shot on the way” (Document Number D-626).

Now, whatever may have been hidden from view behind the stockades of the concentration camps, these things were open for all to see. Every one of these defendants must have seen them and the thousands of concentration camp prisoners working in the fields and factories adorned in their striped pajamas—a uniform that was as familiar as any other in Germany.

How possibly could any one of these defendants, had he even a spark of human pity, have continued to take active part in support of a system that was responsible for such suffering? But they had no pity—and by their ideology and teaching they had deprived the German people of pity.

Ziereis describes the frightful end that Kaltenbrunner contemplated for the concentration camps and their inmates when the advancing Allied Armies brought with them the danger of capturing those camps and of disclosing the guilt of the Nazi Government.

“... Prisoners were to be led into the tunnels of the factory Bergkristall ... the only entrance was to be blown up by the use of explosive and the death of the prisoners was to be effected in this manner” (Document Number 3870-PS).

Even Ziereis, murderer of Mauthausen’s 65,000 dead, shied, and refused that order.

That evidence is corroborated beyond question by the written order issued by the commandant of the Sipo and SD in the Government General, which has been put in as evidence:

“Should the situation at the front necessitate it, early preparations are to be made for the total clearance of the prisons. Should the situation develop suddenly, in such a way that it is impossible to evacuate the prisoners the present inmates are to be liquidated and their bodies disposed of as far as possible (burning, blowing up the building, et cetera). If necessary, Jews still employed in the armament industry or on other work are to be dealt with in the same way. The liberation of prisoners or Jews by the enemy, be it the Western enemies or the Red Army, must be avoided under all circumstances. Nor may they fall into their hands alive” (Document Number L-53).

And Kaltenbrunner himself saw to it that these orders should be carried out. With this evidence before us, there can be only one meaning to that teleprint message which was found among his papers on his arrest:

“Please inform the Reichsführer SS and report to the Führer that all arrangements as to Jews, political and concentration camp internees in the Protectorate have been taken care of by me personally today” (Document Number 2519-PS).

The proposition which you are asked to accept is that a man who was either a minister or a leading executive in a state which, within the space of 6 years, transported in horrible conditions some 7 million men, women, and children for labor, exterminated 275,000 of its own aged and mentally infirm and annihilated in the gas chambers or by shooting what must at the lowest computation be 12,000,000 people, remained ignorant of or irresponsible for these crimes. You are asked to accept that the horrors of the transports, of the conditions of this slave labor, deployed as it was in labor camps throughout the country, the smell of the burning bodies, all of which were known to the world, were not known to these 21 men by whose orders such things were done. When they spoke or wrote in support of this horrible policy of genocide you are asked to accept that their utterances were made in ignorance of the facts, as part of their general duty to support the policy of their government, or finally, should be regarded merely as, tactical—that is to say, that only by talking or writing in such a way could they divert Hitler from cruelty or aggression. It is for you to decide.

Göring, Hess, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Streicher, Funk, Schacht, Dönitz, Raeder, Schirach, Sauckel, Jodl, Von Papen, Seyss-Inquart, Speer, Von Neurath, Fritzsche, Bormann—these are the guilty men.

Let me make brief comments upon each one of them, but in particular upon those whose close complicity in the most sordid crimes of all, the bestial murders, has possibly been less manifest.

Göring’s responsibility in all these matters is scarcely to be denied. Behind his spurious air of bonhomie, he was as great an architect as any in this satanic system. Who, apart from Hitler, had more knowledge of what went on, or greater influence to affect its course? The conduct of government in the Nazi State, the gradual build-up of the organization for war, the calculated aggression, the atrocities—these things do not occur spontaneously or without the closest co-operation between the holders of the various offices of state. Men do not advance into foreign territory, pull the trigger, drop their bombs, build the gas chambers, collect the victims, unless they are organized and ordered to do it. Crimes on the national and systematic scale which occurred here must involve anyone who forms a part of the necessary chain, since without that participation, plans for aggression here, mass murder there, would become quite impossible. The Führer Principle by which the Nazis placed their bodies and their very souls at the disposal of their leader was the creation of the Nazi Party, and of these men. When I addressed you at the opening of this Trial, I remarked that there comes a time when a man must choose between his conscience and his leader. No one who chooses, as these men did, to abdicate their consciences in favor of this monster of their own creation can complain now if they are held responsible for complicity in what their monster did.

And least of all, Hess. The role Hess played in the Nazi Party is well established. But not content with creating the monster, he aided it in every aspect of its monstrous work.

I mention only one instance. You will recall, in connection with the extermination of the Eastern peoples, his direction to Party officials to support recruitment for the Waffen-SS. He said:

“... it consists of National Socialists who are more suitable than other armed units for the specific tasks to be solved in the Occupied Eastern Territories, owing to their intensive National Socialist training in regard to questions of race and nationality” (Document Number 3245-PS).

Ribbentrop’s part, also, is clear. No one in history has so debauched diplomacy. No one has been guilty of meaner treachery. But he, like the rest of them, is just a common murderer. Ribbentrop it was who, since 1940, had been directing the minions in his Embassy and legations throughout Europe to accelerate the execution of such “political measures,” that is, measures of racial extermination (Document Number EC-265). It was not Himmler, but the Reich Foreign Minister who proudly reported to the Duce in February 1943 that, “All Jews had been transported from Germany and from the territories occupied by her to reservations in the East” (Document Number D-734).

His bald recommendations to Horthy two months later and the record of the conference called by Steengracht, his permanent Under Secretary of State, betray the meaning of these ghastly euphemisms (Documents D-736, 3319-PS).

No one was more insistent on merciless action in the occupied territories than Ribbentrop. You will remember his advice to the Italians on how to deal with strikes: “... in such a case only merciless action is any good ... in the occupied territories where it has proved that we would not get anywhere with soft measures or the endeavor to reach an agreement” (Document Number D-740).

Advice which he proceeded to reinforce by referring with pride to the successes of “brutal measures” in Norway, “brutal action” in Greece, and in France and Poland the success of “Draconian measures.”

Were Keitel and Jodl less involved in murder than their confederates? They cannot deny knowledge or responsibility for the operations of the Einsatzkommandos with whom their own commanders were working in close and cordial co-operation. The attitude of the High Command to the whole question is typified by Jodl’s remark about the evacuation of Danish Jews: “I know nothing of this. If a political measure is to be carried out by the military commander in Denmark, the OKW must be notified by the Foreign Office” (Document Number D-547).

You cannot disguise murder by calling it a political measure.

Kaltenbrunner, as chief of the RSHA, must be guilty. The reports of the Einsatzkommandos were sent to him monthly (Document Number 3876-PS). You will remember the words of Gisevius, a witness for the Defense:

“We asked ourselves whether it was possible that an even worse man could possibly be found after such a monster as Heydrich.... Kaltenbrunner came ... and things got worse every day.... We had the experience that perhaps the impulsive actions of a murderer like Heydrich were not as bad as the cold legal logic of a lawyer who was handling such a dangerous instrument as the Gestapo.”

You will remember his description of those horrible luncheon parties at which Kaltenbrunner discussed every detail of the gas chambers and of the technique of mass murder.

Rosenberg’s guilt as the philosopher and theorist who made the ground fertile for the seeds of Nazi policy is not in doubt, and it is beyond belief that he, as Reich Minister for Eastern Occupied Territories, did not know of and support the destruction of the ghettos and the operations of the Einsatzkommandos. In October 1941, when the operations of those Kommandos were at their height, one of Rosenberg’s ministerial departmental chiefs was writing to the Reich Commissioner for the East in Riga informing him that the Reich Security Main Office had complained that he had forbidden the executions of the Jews in Libau and asking for a report upon the matter. On 15 November, the report comes back addressed to the Reich Minister for Occupied Eastern Territories:

“I have forbidden the wild execution of Jews in Libau because they were not justifiable in the manner in which they were carried out. I should like to be informed whether your inquiry of 31 October is to be regarded as a directive to liquidate all Jews in the East? Shall this take place without regard to age and sex and economic interests...? ... of course, the cleansing of the East of Jews is a necessary task; its solution, however, must be harmonized with the necessities of war production” (Document Number 3663-PS).

Frank—if it is not sufficient to convict him that he was responsible for the administration of the Government General and for one of the bloodiest and most brutal chapters in Nazi history—has himself stated: “One cannot kill all lice and all Jews in one year” (Document Number 2233-C-PS).

It is no coincidence that that was exactly Hitler’s language. And again:

“As far as the Jews are concerned, I want to tell you quite frankly that they must be done away with in one way or another.... Gentlemen, I must ask you to rid yourselves of all feeling of pity. We must annihilate the Jews wherever we find them and whenever it is possible in order to maintain the structure of the Reich as a whole.... We cannot shoot or poison these 3,500,000 Jews, but we shall nevertheless be able to take measures which will lead to their annihilation in some way” (Document Number 2233-D-PS).

Can Frick, as Minister of Interior, have been unaware of the policy to exterminate the Jews? In 1941 one of his subordinates, Heydrich, was writing to another—the Minister of Justice: “... it may safely be assumed that in the future there will be no more Jews in the annexed Eastern Territories” (Document Number R-96).

Can he, as Reich Protector for Bohemia and Moravia, deny responsibility for the deportations of thousands of Jews from his territory to the gas chambers of Auschwitz, only a few miles across the frontier?

Of Streicher, one need say nothing. Here is a man more responsible, perhaps, than any, for the most frightful crime the world has ever known. For 25 years the extermination of the Jews had been his terrible ambition. For 25 years he had educated the German people in the philosophy of hate, of brutality, of murder. He had incited and prepared them to support the Nazi policy, to accept and participate in the brutal persecution and slaughter of millions of his fellow men. Without him these things could not have been. It is long since he forfeited all right to live.

The fact that the Defendants Schacht and Funk dealt chiefly with economics ought not blind the Tribunal to their important part in the general plan. Schacht says that he had clean hands in this matter. It is for you to say. Schacht played his part in bringing Hitler to power. He says he thought that Hitler was “a man with whom one could co-operate,” and assured Hitler that he could always count on him “as your reliable assistant” (Document Number EC-457). He helped to consolidate the Nazi position and he was the main figure in collecting election funds from the industrialists.

It then became his task to provide the economic plan and machinery necessary to launch and maintain aggression. He knew the policy about the Jews, he knew the methods Hitler was using to build up his power, he knew the ultimate aim was aggression. But he continued to play his part. Messersmith has summed up his work:

“... yet by Schacht’s resourcefulness, his complete financial ruthlessness and his absolute cynicism, Schacht was able to maintain and to establish the situation for the Nazis. Unquestionably, without this complete lending of his capacities to the Nazi Government and all of its ambitions, it would have been impossible for Hitler and the Nazis to develop an armed force sufficient to permit Germany to launch an aggressive war” (Document Number EC-451).

The fact that that was in Schacht’s mind was shown at a very early date most clearly in a secret report issued by his Ministry of Economics on 30 September 1934 (Document Number EC-128). I have already referred to his deputy’s report showing the amazing detail in which plans and preparations for the management of German economy in time of war had been worked out before Schacht resigned in 1937 (Document Number EC-258).

It is not surprising that on Schacht’s sixtieth birthday the then German Minister of War, Von Blomberg, said to him: “Without your help, my dear Schacht, none of this armament could have taken place.”

In the witness box Schacht says that as early as the second half of 1934 and the first half of 1935 he found he was “wrong in thinking” that Hitler would bring the “revolutionary forces” of Nazism into the regular atmosphere and he discovered that Hitler did nothing to stop the excesses of individual Party members or Party groups. He was pursuing a “policy of terror.”

That accords very closely with Schacht’s statement to the American Ambassador in September 1934: “... the Hitler Party is absolutely committed to war and the people too are ready and willing. Only a few government officials are aware of the danger and are opposed” (Document Number EC-461).

Schacht’s further suggestions that his purpose in the Government was to be critical and was to act as a brake are, as we submit, impossible to reconcile with his own actions. He need not have become Minister of Economics according to his own account, but he did so nonetheless. In May 1935, the month in which he undertook his task as General Plenipotentiary for War Economy, “to put all economic forces in the service of carrying on war and to secure the life of the German people economically,” he wrote to Hitler:

“... all expenditures which are not urgently needed in other matters must stop and the entire, in itself small, financial power of Germany must be concentrated toward the one goal—the financing of the armament” (Document Number 1168-PS).

In May 1936 he told a secret meeting of Nazi ministers that his program of financing armaments had meant “the commitment of the last reserve from the beginning” (Document Number 1301-PS). He said he would continue to work since he stood “with unswerving loyalty to the Führer because he fully recognizes the basic idea of National Socialism.”

In 1937, when Hitler bestowed the Golden Party Badge upon him, Schacht appealed to all his colleagues: “... further to devote with all their hearts their entire strength to the Führer and the Reich. The German future lies in the hands of our Führer” (Document Number EC-500).

The mercy killings; the persecution of the Jews. These things must have been known at that time. Were his hands so clean?

In the light of these quotations it is not unexpected to find Ambassador Dodd, whom Schacht counted among his friends, recalling in his diary on 21 December 1937:

“Much as he dislikes Hitler’s dictatorship, he (Schacht), as most other eminent Germans, wishes annexation—without war if possible, with war, if the United States will keep hands off” (Document Number 2832-PS).

These quotations, in our submission, make it clear that Schacht knew well that Hitler’s aim was war very much earlier than he himself admits. He does admit, however, that he knew that the plot to discredit General Von Fritsch meant war. Despite that knowledge, on 9 March 1938, he accepted the appointment as Reichsbank president for an additional 4 years. He joyously took part in the acquisition of the former Austrian National Bank on 21 March 1938 and on 7 June 1939 wrote to Hitler:

“From the beginning the Reichsbank has been aware of the fact that a successful foreign policy could be attained only by the reconstruction of the German Armed Forces. It therefore assumed to a very great extent the responsibility to finance the rearmament in spite of the inherent dangers to the currency. The justification thereof was the necessity—which pushed all other considerations into the background—to carry through the armament at once, out of nothing and furthermore under camouflage in the beginning, which made a foreign policy commanding respect possible” (Document Number EC-369).

These words, and others like them, are merely putting into fine phrases Schacht’s knowledge that, if the proposed victims resisted, Hitler was prepared and would be able to plunge into war conditions to achieve his aims. Schacht’s intellect and international position only increased the cynical immorality of his crimes.

Moreover Schacht must face these facts. The Tribunal has seen the evidence of the film which showed his sycophantic trotting beside Hitler and swarming over him in 1940. Long before 1943 he must have known of the treatment of the Jews and the reign of terror in occupied countries. Yet until 1943 Schacht remained a Minister without Portfolio and at all events lent his name and weight to this regime of horror. Should anyone be left to boast that he did this with impunity?

Funk carried on Schacht’s work. He had already rendered invaluable service to the conspirators by his organization of the Ministry of Propaganda. From 1938 on he was Minister of Economics, president of the Reichsbank and chief Plenipotentiary for Economics, mobilizing economy for aggressive war, well knowing the Nazi plans for aggression. We find him in every field; attending Göring’s conference on 12 November 1938, the meeting of the Reich Defense Council in June 1939, advising on decrees to be issued against the Jews at the former and the employment of concentration camp and slave labor at the latter. The final proof of the welcome with which he viewed aggression is found in his letter to Hitler on the 25th of August 1939, the day before the invasion of Poland had been said to begin; he said:

“How happy and how grateful we must be to you to be favored to experience these colossal and world-moving times, and that we can contribute to the tremendous events of those days.

“... Generalfeldmarschall Göring informed me last night that you—my Führer—have approved in principle the measures prepared by me for financing a war, for setting up the wage and price system and for carrying out the plan for an emergency contribution....

“With the proposals worked out by me regarding a ruthless restriction of any unessential consumption and any public expenditure and project not necessary for war, we will be able to meet all financial and economic demands without any serious reverberations” (Document Number 699-PS).

His part during the war needs no further mention than reference to the minutes of the Central Planning Board and to his arrangement with Himmler for the exploitation of the SS loot which, as he knew, came in truckloads from Auschwitz and the other concentration camps to the vaults of the Reichsbank. The Tribunal will also remember the document which shows that his Ministry of Economics received enormous quantities of civilian clothing from these unhappy victims (Document Number 1166-PS).

Was Dönitz ignorant, when he addressed to a Navy of some 600,000 men, a speech on the “spreading poison of Jewry” (Document Number 2878-PS)? Dönitz, who thought fit to circulate to the Naval War Staff Hitler’s directive for dealing with the general strike at Copenhagen—“terror should be met by terror”—and asked for 12,000 concentration camp workers for the shipyards, recommending collective reprisals for Scandinavian workers in view of the efficacy of similar methods in France (Documents C-171, C-195).

Are Raeder’s hands unstained with the blood of murder? As early as 1933, to use his own words: “... Hitler had made the clear political request to build up ... by 1 April 1938 armed forces which he could put in the balance as an instrument of political power” (Document Number C-135).

When, therefore, he received successive orders to fight if war resulted from Hitler’s foreign policy, he knew very well that war was a certain risk if that policy went awry. Again and again he had this warning, first when Germany left the Disarmament Conference, again at the time of the negotiations for the Naval Agreement in 1935, at the time of the Rhineland, and later when he attended the famous Hossbach conference. He has tried to persuade this Tribunal that he regarded Hitler’s speeches at these meetings as mere talk, yet we know that they gave Neurath a heart attack. His old service comrades, Von Blomberg and Von Fritsch, who were unwise enough to object at the conference which sealed the fate of Austria and Czechoslovakia, were dealt with in a manner which, in his own words, shook his confidence not only in Göring, but in Hitler as well.

Can Raeder have been ignorant of the murder of thousands of Jews at Libau in the Baltic? You will remember the evidence that many of them were killed in the naval port and the facts reported by his naval officers at the local headquarters to Kiel (Documents D-841, L-180). We now know from the report of the Kommando which dealt with the Jews of Libau that at the end of January 1942 they had accounted for 11,860 in that district alone. Raeder, on Heroes Day 1939, spoke of the clear and inspiring summons to fight international Jewry (Document Number D-653). Do you really believe, when he was always helping individual Jews, he had never heard of the horrors of concentration camps or the murder of millions? Yet he still went on.

Von Schirach. What need one say of him? That it were better that a millstone had been placed round his neck...? It was this wretched man who perverted millions of innocent German children so that they might grow up and become what they did become—the blind instruments of that policy of murder and domination which these men carried out.

The infamous “Heu Aktion” by which between 40,000 and 50,000 Soviet children were kidnapped into slavery was a product of his work (Document Number 031-PS). You will remember the weekly SS reports on the extermination of the Jews found in his office (Document Number 345-PS).

What is the crime of Sauckel whose Gau contained the infamous camp of Buchenwald? Sauckel may now seek to put a gloss on his order to shanghai Frenchmen, to deny that he advocated the hanging of a prefect or a mayor to crush opposition, to say that references to ruthless action referred to interdepartmental disputes and that reformatory labor camps were purely educational institutions. You who have seen the documents which attest the horrors perpetrated in what we are now told was the product of an emergency—the urgent need for workers to feed the Nazi war machine, you who have heard and read of the conditions in which 7 million men, women, and children torn from their homes were dragged into slavery at his orders can need no further proof of his guilt.

Papen and, if mercy can survive his record in Czechoslovakia, Neurath, are in like case with Raeder. Like him they professed old family and professional integrity, facts which carry with them a great responsibility from which men like Ribbentrop and Kaltenbrunner are free.

Within 18 months of putting Hitler in power Papen knew that Hitler’s Government meant oppression of opponents, ill-treatment of the Jews, and persecution of the churches including his own. His recent political friends had been sent to concentration camps or killed, including men like Von Schleicher, and Von Bredow. He had himself been arrested, two members of his staff killed and another compelled to witness killing. None of these things were hidden from Von Neurath, yet he remained in office.

In 1934 Papen was writing sycophantic letters to Hitler and shortly afterward we find him in Austria working for a man he knows to be a murderer, undermining a regime for which he professed outward friendship. Even after the Anschluss he was still working for a regime which he knew used murder as an instrument of policy and after losing yet another secretary by murder he was ready to accept a post in Turkey. The Concordat with his own Church which he had himself negotiated is treated as “a scrap of paper” to use his own words, and Catholics from archbishops to simple believers were outraged. He has said: “Hitler was the greatest crook that ever lived.” The case for the Prosecution in a sentence is that, knowing this only too well, Von Papen gave Hitler his support and co-operation because his greed for power and office made it “better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven.”

Defense Counsel have sought to portray Papen as an advocate of peace. If he preferred to attain the objects of the conspiracy by the methods of assassination, bullying, and blackmail rather than open war, the reason may be that provided by him in his own evidence, namely that he feared that: “If a world war were to break out, Germany’s situation would be hopeless.”

As to Seyss-Inquart, you will remember Göring’s instructions to him on the 26th of March 1938, to institute anti-Semitic measures in Austria, followed by the progress report on 12 November by one of his officials (Documents 3460-PS, 1816-PS). As far as concerns the Jews in the Netherlands, he admits that he knew they were being deported, but says he was powerless to stop it as it was ordered from Berlin. He has further said that he knew they went to Auschwitz but he says he sent there to inquire about them, was told they were well off, and arranged for them to send mail from Auschwitz to Holland. It is likely that Seyss-Inquart who admits knowledge of large-scale crimes against the Jews in the Netherlands, for example “a drive to force the Jews to be sterilized,” who admits that many and grave excesses occurred in the Netherlands concentration camps and indeed that in wartime he “considered that almost inevitable,” who pleads that in comparison with camps elsewhere “it was perhaps not quite so bad in the Netherlands,”—is it possible that he was really deceived as he says into thinking the people in Auschwitz were “comparatively well off”?

One comes next to the Defendants Speer and Fritzsche who have appeared in this Trial as experts. Speer has admitted that his responsibility for conscription of labor helped to bring up the total number of workers under him to 14 million. He stated that when he took over office in February 1942 all the perpetrations or violations of international law of which he could be accused had already been realized. Nevertheless he went on to say:

“the workers were ... brought into Germany against their will. I had no objection to their being brought to Germany against their will. On the contrary during the first period until autumn of 1942 I certainly used all my energy, that as many workers as possible should be brought to Germany.”

Further, workers were placed at his disposal by Sauckel and he was responsible for their allocation priorities.

He acknowledged the receipt of 1 million Soviet laborers in August 1942 (Document Number R-124). On 4 January 1944 he demanded 1,300,000 workers for the coming year. Speer produced no defense of this conscription of labor but he did assert that from 1943 he had supported the retention of French workers in France, which is a mere matter of mitigation (Document Number 1202-PS). The moderation of Speer’s manner ought not to hide the fact that this policy, which he cheerfully adopted and applied, was one that meant the most appalling misery and suffering for millions of Soviet and other families.

It displays once again the complete disregard for the fate of other people which runs like a sordid thread through the evidence in this Trial, and no moral awakening regarding the interest of the German people—I repeat “the German people”—at the end of the war, can offset the participation in this horrible action.

With regard to the treatment of foreign workers Speer’s general point was that the evidence for the Prosecution is simply that of individual bad instances and should not be taken as the general condition. If it were the general condition he would accept responsibility. The Prosecution submit that their evidence, viewed as a whole, is conclusive evidence of general bad conditions.

Neurath, who has told the Tribunal that he joined Hitler’s Government to keep it peace-loving and respectable, knew within a few weeks that the Jews were being persecuted, that reputable foreign papers and reputable German papers too for that matter were quoting official figures of 10,000 to 20,000 internees. He knew that the opposition, the Communists, the trade unionists and Social Democrats were being destroyed as political forces. The blood purge followed, yet he went on and seconded Hitler in his breaches of the Treaty of Versailles. We have the evidence of Paul Schmidt that the murder of Dollfuss and the attempted Putsch in Austria seriously disturbed the career personnel of the Foreign Office whilst they regarded the Mutual Assistance Pact between France and the Soviet Union as a further very serious warning as to the potential consequences of German foreign policy.

“At this time the career officials at least expressed their reservation to the Foreign Minister Neurath. I do not know whether or not Neurath in turn related these expressions of concern to Hitler” (Document Number 3308-PS).

Yet when Raeder was issuing orders about the danger of showing “enthusiasm for war,” Von Neurath would have you believe that he had failed to realize its growth. He, as much as Raeder, saw and took part in the events which followed, the secret meetings, the treatment of Von Blomberg and Von Fritsch; he it was at the time of the Anschluss who, though no longer Foreign Minister gave the support of a name, not yet notably tarnished, to Hitler’s action by transmitting untruths in denial of the British note and by reassuring the Czechs (Document Number C-194). That reassurance ought never to be forgotten—there can be few things more grimly cynical than Von Neurath who had listened to the Hossbach meeting solemnly telling M. Mastny that Hitler would stand by the Arbitration Treaty with Czechoslovakia. As soon as Hitler had marched into Prague, he it was who became Protector of Bohemia and Moravia. You have heard his admission that he applied all decrees for the treatment of the Jews which had appeared in Germany between 1933 and 1939.

Fritzsche’s work was to organize the entire German press so that it became “a permanent instrument of the Propaganda Ministry” (Document Number 3469-PS). Propaganda was the most potent factor in all Nazi strategy. Here in turn that factor made all the press its most potent weapon. The fact that he knew and participated in the use of his organization is shown by his attempt to whitewash the successive propaganda actions which led up to each of the various aggressions mentioned in his affidavit. As he said: “All news checked by me was full of tendency while not invented” (Document Number 3469-PS).

It is incredible that when he was called upon time after time to conduct what was specifically referred to as actions and when each time he saw the practical results he did not realize the dishonesty with which the German policy was being conducted or that the aim of the Nazi Government was aggressive war. His personal ability as a broadcaster caused him to become virtually an official commentator. To quote his own words: “May I add that it is even known to me that in remote front sectors, for instance, or in German colonies abroad my radio speeches were considered, shall we say, the political guide.”

He has emphasized that in these comments he had a free hand. Is it to be doubted that this was because he was prepared to broadcast whatever lie Goebbels wanted? He himself says, in dealing with the uses to which his influence was put: “... again and again I was requested to awaken hatred against individuals and against systems.”

You have seen a sample in his broadcast on the Athenia (Document Number D-912). As early as 1940 he broke far enough away from the restraint which he tried to picture in the witness box to call the Poles “underpeople” and “beasts in human form” (Document Number USSR-492).

On the 18th of December 1941 he referred to the fate of European Jews in the following words:

“The fate of Jewry in Europe has turned out to be as unpleasant as the Führer predicted it would be in the event of a European war. After the extension of the war instigated by the Jews, this unpleasant fate may also spread to the New World, for you can hardly assume that the nations of the New World will pardon the Jews for the misery of which the Old World did not absolve them” (Document Number 3064-PS).

There were few more dreadful or hate-provoking accusations among the whole miasma of Nazi lies against the Jews, than that of instigating the war which brought such misery to humanity, yet this educated and thoughtful defendant deliberately made it.

It is difficult to imagine any more fulsome or callous adulation of Hitler’s aggression than his speech on 9 October 1941 which contained the words:

“... and we are particularly grateful for these lightning victories because—as the Führer emphasized last Friday—they gave us the possibility of embarking on the organization of Europe and of lifting the treasures of this old continent even now in the middle of a war, without having to keep millions and millions of German soldiers on guard ...” (Document Number 3064-PS).

Perhaps the key to Fritzsche’s readiness to conceal the war crimes of his masters is revealed by the basic principle of his propaganda. I quote:

“But decisive for such a news machine is not the detail but the final fundamental basis on which propaganda is built. Decisive is the belief in the purity of the leader’s of the state on which in some way every journalist must rely.”

Fritzsche maintained until practically the very end the most excellent relations with Dr. Goebbels. When the Tribunal consider the picture of total extremism and violent anti-Semitism which the other defendants have painted of Goebbels it is difficult to imagine that the worship of his closest collaborator could have been based on innocent ignorance.

The Prosecution submit that it is laughable that such a man should try and persuade you that it was in ignorance of these horrors that he went on exhorting and persuading the German people to tread the path to their doom. Fritzsche shares with Streicher, Rosenberg, and Schirach the responsibility for the utter degradation of the German people so that “they shut the gates of mercy on mankind.” It was because of them that such scenes as that in the Jewish cemetery at Schwetz on that Sunday morning in October 1939 occurred, when 200 of Keitel’s decent Wehrmacht soldiers watched without a murmur the murder of that lorry-load of women and children. You will remember the story as three of them have told it:

“On Saturday ... I heard ... from conversations among my comrades that a large number of Poles had been shot at the Jewish cemetery of Schwetz in the morning.... Talk about the imminent shootings was common among the soldiers stationed in Schwetz. For this reason I went to the Jewish cemetery on Sunday morning together with most of the comrades of my company. We waited there in vain until 9 o’clock.

“... when a large truck loaded with women and children entered the cemetery. We saw how a group of one woman and three children ... were led to a ready-dug grave. The woman had to get down into the grave, holding her youngest child in her arms. The two other children were handed to her by two men of the execution squad. The woman had to lie face downward in the grave; her three children on her left in the same way. After that four men of the squad got down into the grave, raised their rifles and, aiming the muzzles at the woman and the children about one foot from their necks, shot them. In all, about nine or ten groups of women and children were shot in this mass grave in groups of four. When three or four groups had been shot, two more comrades were ordered to fill in the graves. Two hundred soldiers of the Wehrmacht witnessed these shootings from a distance of about 100 feet.

“Somewhat later a second bus arrived at the cemetery, loaded with men; one woman was among them. These men were separated into groups of four and made to get down into the grave. The corpses there were only barely covered with sand. They had to lie face downward and were executed by the four men of the squad, who shot them in the back of the neck.”

You are asked to believe that these 21 ministers and leading officers of state did not know about those matters—were not responsible. It is for you to decide.

Years ago Goethe said of the German people that some day fate would strike them ...

“... would strike them because they betrayed themselves and did not want to be what they are. It is sad that they do not know the charm of truth, that mist, smoke, and berserk immoderation are so dear to them, pathetic that they ingenuously submit to any mad scoundrel who appeals to their lowest instincts, who confirms them in their vices and teaches them to conceive nationalism as isolation and brutality.”

With what a voice of prophecy he spoke—for these are the mad scoundrels who did those very things.

Some it may be are more guilty than others; some played a more direct and active part than others in these frightful crimes. But when those crimes are such as you have to deal with here—slavery, mass murder and world war, when the consequences of the crimes are the deaths of over 20 million of our fellow men, the devastation of a continent, the spread of untold tragedy and suffering throughout the world, what mitigation is it that some took less part than others, that some were principals and others mere accessories. What matters it if some forfeited their lives only a thousand times whilst others deserved a million deaths?

In one way the fate of these men means little: Their personal power for evil lies forever broken; they have convicted and discredited each other and finally destroyed the legend they created round the figure of their leader. But on their fate great issues must still depend, for the ways of truth and righteousness between the nations of the world, the hope of future international co-operation in the administration of law and justice are in your hands. This Trial must form a milestone in the history of civilization, not only bringing retribution to these guilty men, not only marking that right shall in the end triumph over evil, but also that the ordinary people of the world—and I make no distinction now between friend or foe—are not determined that the individual must transcend the state. The state and the law are made for men, that through them he may achieve a fuller life, a higher purpose, and a greater dignity. States may be great and powerful. Ultimately the rights of men, made as all men are made in the image of God, are fundamental. When the state, either because as here its leaders have lusted for power and place, or under some specious pretext that the end may justify the means, affronts these things, they may for a time become obscured and submerged. But they are immanent and ultimately they will assert themselves more strongly still, their immanence more manifest. And so, after this ordeal to which mankind has been submitted, mankind itself—struggling now to re-establish in all the countries of the world the common simple things—liberty, love, understanding—comes to this Court and cries: “These are our laws—let them prevail!”

Then shall those other words of Goethe be translated into fact, not only, as we must hope, of the German people but of the whole community of man:

“... thus ought the German people to behave—giving and receiving from the world, their hearts open to every fruitful source of wonder, great through understanding and love, through mediation and the spirit—thus ought they to be; that is their destiny.”

You will remember when you come to give your decision the story of Gräbe, but not in vengeance—in a determination that these things shall not occur again.

“The father”—do you remember?—“pointed to the sky, and seemed to say something to his boy.”

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn.

[The Tribunal adjourned until 29 July 1946 at 1000 hours.]

ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-NINTH DAY

Monday, 29 July 1946

Morning Session

THE PRESIDENT: I call on the Chief Prosecutor for the Provisional Government of the Republic of France, M. Champetier de Ribes.

M. AUGUSTE CHAMPETIER DE RIBES (Chief Prosecutor for the French Republic): Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Tribunal:

On presenting the final address of the French Public Prosecutor, I beg the Tribunal to permit me to express the admiration and the gratitude of my country for the objectivity and calm with which these proceedings have been conducted. In the course of the last 9 months the events of more than 15 years of history have been evoked at this bar. Germany’s archives, those of them that the Nazis were unable to burn before their defeat, have yielded up their secrets. We have heard numerous witnesses, whose recollections would have been lost to history but for the present Trial.

All the facts have been presented with strict objectivity, leaving no room for passion nor even for sensibility. The Tribunal have excluded from the proceedings everything that, in their opinion, seemed insufficiently proved, everything that might have appeared to be dictated by a spirit of vengeance. For the chief concern of this Trial is above all that of historical truth.

Thanks to it, the historian of the future, as well as the chronicler of today, will know the truth of the political, diplomatic, and military events of the most tragic period of our history; he will know the crimes of Nazism as well as the irresolution, the weaknesses, the omissions of the peace-loving democracies.

He will know that the work of twenty centuries of a civilization, which believed itself eternal, was almost destroyed by the return of ancient barbarism in a new guise, all the more brutal because more scientific.

He will know that the progress of mechanical science, modern means of propaganda, and the most devilish practices of a police which defied the most elementary rules of humanity, enabled a small minority of criminals within a few years to distort the collective conscience of a great people, and to transform “the nation described by Dr. Sauter at the conclusion of his speech in defense of Von Schirach, as loyal, upright, and full of virtue, into that of Hitler, Himmler, and Goebbels—to mention only those of them who are dead. He will know that the real crime of these men was the conception of the gigantic plan of world domination and the attempt to realize it by every possible means. By every possible means, that is of course, by the breaking of pledges and by unleashing the worst of all wars of aggression, but, above all, by the scientific and systematic extermination of millions of human beings and more especially of certain national or religious groups whose existence hampered the hegemony of the Germanic race. This is a crime so monstrous, so undreamt of in history throughout the Christian era up to the birth of Hitlerism, that the term “genocide” has had to be coined to define it and an accumulation of documents and testimonies has been needed to make it credible.

The perfect collaboration of the four public prosecutors has enabled it to be proved, to the shame of the times we live in, that this crime was possible; and, within the limits of those Counts of the Indictment reserved for herself, France believes that she has done her part in the common task.

While the defendants and their counsels have said a great deal before the Tribunal regarding the protection to which the innocent civilian population is entitled, and have referred to this as to an obvious principle, we have established the fact that the defendants have deliberately violated this principle by treating these civilian populations with the most complete disregard for human life. Is it necessary to recall the terrible words of the Defendant Keitel, “human life is worth less than nothing in the occupied territories.”

By reverting to the taking of hostages the defendants revived a tradition which symbolizes the most primitive practices of warfare. They put their signatures to general orders decreeing the capture and execution of thousands of martyrs. In France alone 29,000 hostages were shot. We know that the champions of the resistance movement, whose patriotism is now admired by the defendants, were massacred, tortured, and imprisoned with a view to their slow extermination. We know, too, that, on the pretext of reprisals, in execution of orders or by the cruelty of individuals covered by the complicity of the authorities, civilians were taken at random and executed and that whole villages were burnt down: Oradour-sur-Glane and Maillé in France, Putten in Holland have not risen again from their ruins.

The atrocious orders issued in Marshal Kesselring’s operational sector for combating partisan activity by terror are in all our minds. There we saw one officer order the execution of fifty or a hundred men or even of the entire male population of a region as a reprisal for isolated acts directed against the German Army. The execution of that order was authorized by instructions from the commander of the theater of operations, who was himself acting on more general instructions issued by the Defendant Keitel. This is an example of the perfect collaboration existing between the National Socialist cadre and the State and is an argument, if such be still necessary, for the joint responsibility of the leading personalities of the regime. We know that thousands of men were torn from their homes and forced to make arms to be used against their own country.

The harsh treatment given to soldiers shocked us even more deeply, because Germany, be it the traditional Germany, the Nazi Germany when it was in power, or the Germany which is now presenting the paltry arguments for its defense in the prisoners’ dock, has always claimed to uphold the universal rules governing military honor and the respect due to all combatants. In spite of this, we have seen Keitel himself, who championed these ideas to such a degree that he even referred to them again at the conclusion of his testimony in the witness box, urge Wilhelmstrasse and his Codefendant Göring to approve his criminal proposals for the treatment of airmen who fell into their hands.

Documents such as the testimony of Grüner leave no room for doubt that criminal orders to exterminate and lynch airmen were given in the customary way and transmitted to those responsible for their execution. There is no doubt as to the principles which governed the drafting of the order concerning the Commandos, nor as to the execution of this order in the various theaters of operations. The Prosecution have produced a striking collection of evidence on this point.

Our consternation was even greater when it was borne upon us with certainty that cruel decrees had been issued for the execution or imprisonment for the purpose of extermination of men already reduced to a state of helplessness by their internment in prisoner-of-war camps. The sinister affair of Sagan, often evoked in the course of this Trial, is present in our minds. The defendants themselves attempt only to evade personal responsibility without denying the atrocity of the truth of the facts. We have shown how rebellious escaped officers and noncommissioned officers, whose past records and attitude are proof of their moral strength, were exterminated by “Aktion Kugel.”

At length, Nazi Germany unveiled her plans for expansion and world domination by organizing the systematic extermination of the peoples whose territories she had occupied. This operation was carried out at first, as we have shown, by the political, economic, and moral destruction of the occupied countries. The methods employed were the brutal or gradual seizure of power, or carefully calculated infiltration of German authority in every sphere, the preparation of a program of economic pillage and its pitiless execution so as to lead to the exhaustion of the occupied country and to put it at the absolute mercy of the occupying power; in a word the Nazification of the State and the people, as well as the destruction of cultural and moral values.

But this methodical extermination was carried out also in a concrete way by the systematic massacre of the people. Is it necessary to recall the mass extermination of groups considered impossible of assimilation into the National Socialist world, the vast graveyard of the concentration camps, where 15 million people perished, the abominable achievements of the “Einsatzgruppen” (special purposes groups), described with irrefutable precision by General Ohlendorf?

We consider we have also established proof of those pernicious attempts at extermination, which on examination are seen to be one of the most perfect examples of the defendants’ policy. I refer to the deliberate undernourishment to which those non-Germans were subjected who for any reason whatsoever came under Nazi authority—whole nations starved by way of reprisal, civilian rations in occupied territories ruthlessly cut to enable the plan for the pillage of the territory to be carried out. The Tribunal will recall Göring’s speech to the Gauleiter which has been submitted under Document Number USSR-170:

“It is absolutely immaterial to me if you say that your people are fainting from hunger. Let them faint, as long as no German starves.”

And again, with reference to Holland:

“It is not our mission to feed a nation which turns from us in spirit. If its people are so weak that they cannot even raise a hand where they are not employed to work for us ... so much the better.”

Famine, bodily misery, and the resulting reduction of the potential of life, are all included, together with the slow exhaustion of political internees and prisoners of war, in the plan for the extermination of populations in order to free German living space.

The same idea is behind the detention in captivity or semi-captivity, as in the case of labor deportees, of healthy young men whose presence at home was of vital importance for the future of their country. All this has been confirmed by the latest census results.

These reveal that all the countries occupied by Germany show a decrease in their population varying from 5 percent to 25 percent, whereas Germany herself is the only country in Europe which shows an increase. Gentlemen, we have proved all these crimes. After the submission of our documents, the hearing of the witnesses, the projection of films which the defendants themselves could not see without shuddering with horror, nobody in the world can possibly claim that the extermination camps, the executed prisoners, the slaughtered peoples, the mounds of corpses, the human herds maimed in body and soul, the instruments of torture, the gas chambers and crematories—no one can claim that all these crimes existed only in the imagination of anti-German propagandists.

Indeed, none of the defendants have challenged the truth of the facts we have reported. Unable to deny them, they try only to evade their own responsibility by placing the guilt on those of their accomplices who committed suicide.

“We knew nothing of those horrors,” they say, or else: “We did everything we could to prevent them but Hitler, who was all-powerful, gave the orders and allowed no one to disobey or even resign from office.” What a poor defense! Who is likely to believe that they alone were ignorant of what the whole world knew and that their monitoring stations never reported to them the solemn warnings which were broadcast repeatedly by the heads of the United Nations?

They could not disobey Hitler’s order, they could not even resign from office? Indeed! Hitler might have governed their bodies but not their souls. By disobeying him they might perhaps have lost their liberty or even their lives but they would at least have saved their honor. Cowardice has never been an excuse, nor even an extenuating circumstance.

The truth is that having taken part in its elaboration they all knew perfectly well the doctrine of National Socialism and its will to universal domination. They were very well aware of the monstrous crimes to which it inevitably led its adepts and its exponents and that all accepted the responsibility in the same way that all accepted the material and moral advantages which it lavished upon them.

But they thought themselves sure of impunity because they were certain of victory, and that in the face of force triumphant no questions would be asked about the justice of the cause. They persuaded themselves, as they had done after the war of 1914, that no international jurisdiction could ever indict them. They thought that Pascal’s pessimistic judgment on human justice in international relationship would always be true. “Justice can be disputed; force is easily recognizable and cannot be disputed. So, as right cannot be made into might, might has been made into right.” They are mistaken. Since Pascal’s day, the concepts of morality and justice have slowly but surely taken shape and been incorporated in the international customs of civilized nations.

The Tribunal will doubtless remember that at the conclusion of his presentation of the charges made in the Indictment, the French prosecutor stated in precise terms the responsibility of all the defendants who are “guilty of having, in their role as the chief Hitlerian leaders of the German people, conceived, willed, ordained, or merely tolerated by their silence that assassinations or other inhuman acts should be systematically committed, that violent treatment should be systematically imposed on prisoners of war or civilians, that devastations without justification be systematically committed as a deliberate instrument for the accomplishment of their purpose of dominating Europe and the world through terrorism and the extermination of entire populations in order to enlarge the living space of the German people.”

All that is left to us now is to demonstrate that the proceedings which have taken place before you have served only to confirm and reinforce the accusations and the statements formulated at the beginning of these proceedings against the major criminals who, in execution of the Charter, and to satisfy the demands of justice, have been committed by the United Nations for trial by your Tribunal.

I ask the Tribunal to allow M. Dubost, the chief prosecutor, to present his final statement.

M. CHARLES DUBOST (Deputy Chief Prosecutor for the French Republic): Such are the facts set forth by the French Delegation. It was necessary to recall them in order to establish our contribution to the Trial. We do not intend, however, to deal with our own work apart from the whole resulting from the presentations of the other three delegations and the general proceedings. It is on the basis of this work as a whole that we shall proceed with our indictment and examine the personal responsibility of the defendants.

Taking one by one the deeds for which they are responsible, there are found to be murder, indictable theft, and other serious offenses against persons and property which are always punishable in civilized countries. M. de Menthon has already shown this in his introductory address.

The defendants did not actually commit the crimes; they were content to decree them. According to our French law, they are therefore accomplices in the technical sense of the term. Allowing for certain differences which are mostly only differences of form, the perpetrators of serious offenses and their accomplices are subject in most countries to capital punishment or to very severe penalties, such as forced labor or solitary confinement.

That is the Anglo-Saxon practice. This also holds good in France from application of Articles 221 ff, 379 ff, 59 ff of the French Penal Code. In Germany, Article 211 provides for the punishment of homicide; Article 212 relates to murder; Articles 223 to 226 to torture; Article 229 to poisoning and murder by gas. Article 234 covers slavery, reduction to serfdom, incorporation with a view to military service abroad; Articles 242 and 243 cover theft and pillage; Article 130 deals with the incitement of the populace to violence. The position of accomplices and co-originators is covered by Articles 47 and 49 of German law. Similar provisions exist in Soviet legislation as well as in the legislation of all great civilized countries.

The fact that, as leaders of the Reich and accomplices of the Führer, these men are all responsible for the crimes committed under their regime, and that in the eyes of all men of conscience their responsibility is heavier than that of those who carried out their orders, has been admitted by two of the defendants, Frank and Schirach.

Frank said:

“I have never founded extermination camps for Jews, nor was I ever in favor of the existence of these camps; but if Adolf Hitler placed this terrible responsibility on the shoulders of his people, I, too, share in it; for we conducted a campaign against the Jews for years, we made all kinds of statements against them ...”

In his last few words Frank condemns, along with himself, all those who pursued the campaign of incitement against the Jews in Germany and elsewhere. Let us remember Frank’s answer to the question put to him by his defense counsel as to the charges brought against him in the Indictment. It is true of all the defendants and still more of those who were closer to Hitler than he himself:

“As to these charges, I have only this to say: I ask the Tribunal to determine the extent of my guilt at the end of these proceedings; but I should like to say on my own account that after all I have seen in the course of these 5 months of the Trial, which have given me a general view of all the atrocities that have been committed, I myself feel thoroughly guilty.”

Von Schirach for his part stated:

“This is the crime for which I am answerable, before myself, before God, and before the German people: I trained the youth of our country for the man whom, for years and years, I considered unimpeachable as the head of our country. I trained our youth for him. My crime lies in the fact that I trained our youth for a man who was a murderer, who killed millions of people.... Any German who, after Auschwitz, still adheres to the racial policy, is guilty....

“I feel it my duty to say this.”

Such cries of conscience were rare in the course of this Trial and more frequently, copying Göring’s quibbling vanity, the defendants tried to extricate themselves by invoking a policy of neo-Machiavellism which would free the leaders of the State of all personal responsibility. Let us simply state that no such provisions exist in the laws of any civilized country, and that, on the contrary, arbitrary and aggressive acts aimed at personal liberty, at civic rights or at the constitution, are all the more severely punished in cases where they have been committed by a public functionary or high-ranking government official; and that the most severe penalties are reserved for the ministers themselves (Articles 114 and 115 of the French Penal Code).

But let us limit ourselves on this point. We aim only at recalling that each of the principal deeds charged against the defendants may be considered by itself as violating the criminal laws of one or other of the positive internal laws of every civilized country, or as violating that common international law, which M. de Menthon has already interpreted and which has been submitted here as the root of international custom, and that the punishment of each of these deeds is therefore not without foundation; on the contrary, even if we restrict ourselves to this preliminary analysis, the heaviest penalties have already been incurred.

We must, however, go further; for while it does not omit any culpable fact as such, the analysis of the defendant’s guilt in the light of internal law is only a first approximation which would enable us to prosecute the defendants merely as accomplices and not as principal authors. And we are anxious to prove that they were in reality the principal culprits.

We hope to succeed in this by developing the following three points:

1) The defendants’ acts are elements in a criminal political plan.

2) The co-ordination of the various departments headed by these men implies close co-operation between them for the realization of their criminal policy.

3) They must be judged as functioning within the scope of this criminal policy.

The acts of the defendants are the elements of a criminal political plan:

The defendants have been active in widely differing spheres. As politicians, diplomats, soldiers, sailors, economists, financiers, jurists, or propagandists, they represent practically every form of liberal activity. We recognize unhesitatingly, however, the tie that binds them together. They have all put the best—or the worst—of themselves at the service of the Hitlerite State. To a certain extent they represent the brains of that State; but they themselves were not the whole brain. Nevertheless, no one can doubt that they were an important part of it. They conceived the policy of that State. They wanted to transform their thoughts into action and all contributed in almost the same degree toward its realization. This is true, no matter whether it applies to Hess or Göring, professional politicians who admit never having practiced any other profession but that of agitator or statesman, or to Ribbentrop, Neurath, Papen, the diplomats of the regime, or to Keitel, Jodl, Dönitz, or Raeder, the fighting men, to Rosenberg, Streicher, Frank, or Frick, the inventors—if that term can be applied to them—of the ideology of the system, to Schacht and Funk, the financiers without whom the system would have gone bankrupt and collapsed in the resulting inflation before it could rearm, to jurists like Frank, to publicists and propagandists like Fritzsche and—again—Streicher, devoted to the dissemination of the common idea, or to technicians like Speer or Sauckel, without whom the idea could never have been translated into action as it has been, to policemen such as Kaltenbrunner who destroyed morale by terror, to ordinary Gauleiters like Seyss-Inquart, Schirach, or—again—Sauckel, to administrators and high-ranking officials as well as politicians, who gave definite shape to the common policy conceived by the whole state and Party machine.

I know very well that the shadow of those who are absent looms over this machine, and today’s defendants are perpetually reminding us of them: “Hitler wanted this, Himmler wanted this, Bormann wanted this.” They say: “I only obeyed,” and their defense counsels outdid them. Hitler, the monstrous tyrant, the fanatic visionary, imposing his will with an irresistible magnetic power—this is too simple; this is too sweeping. No man is entirely unreceptive to suggestion, insinuation, and influence; and Hitler escaped that law no more than any other man. We have had irrefutable proof of this in all the glimpses afforded us by these proceedings of the struggle for influence which went on in the “great man’s” entourage. Malicious, underhand calumnies were circulated; there were intrigues which reminded us at times during the proceedings of the little courts of the Italian Renaissance. All the elements were present, even murder. Did not Göring, before he himself fell into disgrace, rid himself of Röhm and Ernst, who had plotted, not against their master, but against him, as Gisevius told us. So much imagination, such perseverance in evil, but also such efficiency, show us that Hitler was not blind to the actions and intrigues of the men around him. What a pity that these intrigues did not work in the right direction! But éwe have direct evidence of Hitler’s responsiveness to influences and it is given us by Schacht who, at the same time apart from these men, raises the question of the German masses, whose good judgment they had contributed to warp and whose worst passions they roused.

Did not Schacht say of Hitler in Court:

“I believe that at first his tendencies were not wholly evil; he undoubtedly believed that his intentions were only good, but little by little he became the victim of the charm he exerted over the masses; for he who begins by seducing the masses is in the end himself seduced by them, so that this relation between leader and follower helped to lead him into the erroneous ways of mob instincts, which every political leader should strive to avoid.”

What was then the great idea behind it all? It was indisputably that of the conquest of living space by any and every means, even the most criminal.

At a time when Germany was still disarmed and when discretion was still necessary, Schacht, who was at Hitler’s side, asked for colonies. We remember Hirscheid’s testimony. He dissembled, however, and in part disguised the master conception of the state machine to which he belonged and we could not denounce this idea so easily were it not for the disconcerting naiveté of the “great man” who had laid his entire plan of campaign open to the inspection of the whole world 10 years before.

Indeed we read in Mein Kampf (Excerpt from Page 641), First quotation:

“Hence, the German nation can defend its own future only as a world power. For more than two thousand years the defense of our people’s interests, as we should designate our more or less successful activity in the field of foreign affairs, was world history. We ourselves were witnesses to this fact: For the gigantic struggle of the nations in the years 1914-18 was only the struggle of the German people for its existence on the globe, but we designated the type of event itself as a world war.

“The German people entered this struggle as a supposed world power. I say here ‘supposed,’ for in reality she was none. If the German nation in 1914 had had a different relation between area and population, Germany would really have been a world power, and the war, aside from all other factors, could have been terminated favorably.”

(Excerpt from Page 647) Second quotation:

“I should like to make the following preliminary remarks: The demand for restoration of the frontiers of 1914 is a political absurdity of such proportion and consequences as to make it seem a crime. Quite aside from the fact that the Reich’s frontiers in 1914 were anything but logical! For in reality they were neither complete in the sense of embracing the people of German nationality, nor sensible with regard to geomilitary expediency. They were not the result of a considered political action, but momentary frontiers in a political struggle that was by no means concluded; partly, in fact, they were the results of chance.”

(Excerpt from Page 649) Third quotation:

“The boundaries of the year 1914 mean nothing at all for the German future. Neither did they provide a defense of the past, nor would they contain any strength for the future. Through them the German nation will neither achieve its inner integrity, nor will its sustenance be safeguarded by them, nor do these boundaries, viewed from the military standpoint, seem expedient or even satisfactory, nor finally can they improve the relations in which we at present find ourselves toward the other world powers, or, better expressed, the real world powers.”

(Excerpt from Page 650) Another quotation:

“As opposed to this we National Socialists must hold unflinchingly to our aim in foreign policy, namely, to secure for the German people the land and soil to which they are entitled on this earth. And this action is the only one which, before God and our German posterity, would make any sacrifice of blood seem justified; before God, since we have been put in this world with the mission of eternal struggle for our daily bread, beings who receive nothing as a gift, and who owe their position as lords of the earth only to the genius and courage with which they can conquer and defend it; and for German posterity insofar as we have shed its blood out of which a thousand others will rise. The soil on which some day German generations of peasants can beget powerful sons will sanction the investment of the sons of today, and will someday acquit the statesmen of blood-guilt and sacrifice of the people, even if they are persecuted by their contemporaries.”

(Excerpt from Page 687) Another quotation:

“A state which in this age of racial poisoning dedicates itself to the care of its best racial elements must some day become lord of the earth.”

(Excerpt from Page 135)

“A stronger race will drive out the weak, for the vital urge in its ultimate form will, time and again, burst all the absurd fetters of the so-called humanity of individuals in order to replace it by the humanity of nature, which destroys the weak to give place to the strong.”

And then the machinery of State and Party gathered force. The Army secretly reorganized, was soon strong enough to allow Germany to rearm openly. Who, at that time, would have dared to interfere with the monstrous growth of this biological materialism? Hitler expounded his theories to a small circle and those who heard his words are by no means all Nazis. Informed of their master’s aims, they were still willing, to stay by his side, and that condemns them. Is this not the case with Raeder?

“It is not a question of conquering populations but of conquering territories suitable for cultivation....”

Hitler, in conference with Von Blomberg, Von Fritsch, Raeder, 5 November, said: “Expansion cannot be achieved without breaking resistance and without taking risks ...” (Document Number 386-PS).

After the disgrace of Von Fritsch and Von Blomberg, Keitel and Jodl, chosen for their servile attitude to the regime, had a solid weapon in their hands. On the eve of the conflict Hitler reiterated his ideas:

“Circumstances must rather be adapted to aims. This is impossible without invasion of foreign states or attacks on foreign property.

“Living space, in proportion to the magnitude of the state, is the basis of all power. One may refuse for a time to face the problem, but finally it is solved one way or the other. The choice is between advancement or decline. In 15 or 20 years’ time we shall be compelled to find a solution. No German statesman can evade the question longer than that. We are at present in a state of patriotic fervor, which is shared by two other nations, Italy and Japan.

“The period which lies behind us has indeed been put to good use. All measures have been taken in the correct sequence and in harmony with our aims.

“After 6 years, the situation is today as follows:

“The national-political unity of the Germans has been achieved, apart from minor exceptions. Further successes cannot be attained without the shedding of blood....

“Danzig is not the subject of the dispute at all. It is a question of expanding our living space in the East and of securing our food supplies.... The population of non-German areas will perform no military service, and will be available as a source of labor.

“The Polish problem is inseparable from the conflict with the West.”

Extract from minutes of a conference held at the Reich Chancellery on 23 May 1939, in the presence of Hitler, Göring, Raeder, Keitel, and others (Document Number L-79, Exhibit USA-27).

And then came the war; and in a few months’ time all Germany was led to believe that her strength was irresistible and that she was on the way to the conquest of the world. All that was implied by Hitler’s cruel and monstrous words:

“As opposed to that we National Socialists must keep firmly to the aim of our foreign policy, namely, to secure for the German people the territory to which it is entitled in this world. And this act is the sole act which, before God and our German posterity, justifies bloodshed....”

All the cruel and monstrous implications of these words were elaborated here.

Speech by Hitler on the Eastern Territories 16. 7. 41 (Document Number L-221):

“We shall emphasize again that we were forced to occupy, administer, and secure a certain area.... Nobody shall be able to recognize that it initiates a final settlement. This need not prevent us taking all necessary measures: shooting, deportation ... et cetera.”

Further: “Partisan warfare will have one advantage for us; it enables us to eradicate all those who oppose us....”

The same theme was taken up and cynically proclaimed by the spokesmen of the State. This Trial has brought you many echoes thereof. In a speech by Himmler we find these words again:

“What the nations can offer us of good blood we shall take, if necessary by taking their children away from them and bringing them up among us.”

From the same speech:

“Whether nations thrive or starve only interests me inasmuch as we can use them as slaves for our civilization.”

Still from the same speech:

“That 10,000 Russian women should die of exhaustion in digging an antitank ditch only interests me as to whether or not the antitank ditch has been completed for Germany.

“When somebody comes and says to me, ‘I cannot dig the antitank ditch with women and children, it is inhuman, for it will kill them’; then I have to say, ‘You are a murderer of your own kin, because if the antitank ditch is not dug, German soldiers will die and they are sons of German mothers.’”

And concerning the extermination of Jews:

“We have exterminated a microbe. We do not wish to be contaminated and die from it. We have fulfilled this duty for the sake of our people. Our spirit and character have not suffered from it” (Document 1919-PS).

The conquest of living space, that is, of territories emptied of their population by every means including extermination—that was the great idea of the Party, the system, the State, and consequently of all those at the head of the main administration of both State and Party.

That is the main idea, in the pursuit of which they united and for which they worked. They stopped at nothing in order to achieve their end: Violation of treaties, invasion, and enslavement in peacetime of weak and peaceful neighbors, wars of aggression, and total warfare, with all the atrocities which these words imply. Göring and Ribbentrop cynically admitted that they took both a spiritual and a material part in it; and the generals and admirals did their utmost to help matters forward.

Speer exploited to the point of exhaustion and death the manpower recruited for him by Sauckel, Kaltenbrunner, the NSDAP Gauleiter, and the generals. Kaltenbrunner made use of the gas chambers, the victims for which were furnished by Frick, Schirach, Seyss-Inquart, Frank, Jodl, Keitel, and the rest. But the existence of the gas chambers themselves was only made possible through the development of a political ideology favorable to such things; there, inextricably merged, we find the responsibility of all of them—Göring, Hess, Rosenberg, Streicher, Frick, Frank, Fritzsche, down to Schacht himself, the pro-Jewish Schacht. Did he not say to Hirschfeld: “I want Germany to be great; to accomplish this I am prepared to ally myself with the very devil.”

He did enter into this alliance with the devil and with hell.

We may include Papen, who saw his secretaries and his friends killed around him and still continued to accept official missions in Ankara and Vienna because he thought he could appease Hitler by serving him.

Some are not present; some are dead, and some still living, as, for example, the industrialists who exploited the workers of the enslaved countries after putting Hitler and his system in power by providing the funds, without which no action could have been possible, and who put them in power as much for reasons of nationalistic fanaticism as because they expected from Nazism the guarantee of their privileges.

Everything kept steady, everything was indissolubly united because totalitarian policy, total war, the preparation and direction of the campaign of extermination of peoples for the conquest of living space, implied the closest co-ordination and liaison between all the parts of the machine, between Police and Army; Foreign Affairs and Police and Army; Justice and Police; Economics and Justice; Universities and Propaganda and Police. And now we come to the second point which we have to present to you.

The co-ordination of the various departments at the head of which these men stood, implies close co-operation between them.

The Defense have tried to establish the existence of watertight partitions between the different elements of the German State.

According to them, there is supposed to be a parallel without a horizontal bond between the various State and Party departments, between individual ministerial administrations and between individual National Socialist organizations. The only connecting link would be the person of the chief, at the head. According to the Defense, the dominating principle of the German structure would be a personal union, not co-ordination and co-operation.

This is false. This is contrary to the principles of the Nazi State and requirements of a State in which every force strives toward the same goal and toward the actual reality of German life as revealed by the debates.

According to National Socialist conception, the Party must take the place of democracy. The Party is the political expression of the nation, which materializes in the political action of the State carried out by the activity of its administrations. The 1st of December 1933 Act proclaims, for the purpose of insuring the unity of the Party and State, that the Party is the exclusive support of the State conception, and indissolubly unites the Party and the State.

At the Party Congress in 1931, Hitler says:

“It is not the State that created us. We create the State for ourselves. To some it may appear as the Party, to others as an organization, for yet others as something different, but actually we are what we are.”

The aim pursued by the Party was therefore the achievement of an increasingly complete union between the State and the Party. This is the reason of the legislation which makes it compulsory for the head of the Party Chancellery to be consulted on the appointment of high-ranking officials, which incorporates Party chiefs into municipal administration, integrates the SS into the Police, and converts the SS to police officers, makes the direction of the Hitler Youth a State department, brings the direction of Party headquarters abroad under the Foreign Office, and merges the military personnel of the Party to an ever increasing degree with those of the Army. General Von Brodowsky’s war diary, which we have submitted to the Tribunal, shows that this merger was a fact at the time of the landing in France. Hitler, however, continued to maintain the system of parallel State and Party administration, because they exercised mutual control and supervision. But he insisted on the closest co-operation by both parties in order to be certain that the control was effective.

All the defendants, moreover, with the exception of Hess, are representatives of State departments. They cannot plead the absolute power of the Party as an excuse, since Party and State shared the power. The doctrine preached by the Party must guide the actions of the State, but the actions of the State in turn modify and develop the doctrine of the Party. Many items of the Party Program of 24 February 1920 never came into effect and were completely forgotten when the Party had been in power for some time. For instance, unearned income was not abolished (Item 11); trusts were not nationalized (Item 13); land reform was not carried out as provided for in Item 17;[14] interest on property and speculation in real estate remained. In the end, every aspect of German life was affected by the combined influence of the State and Party forces. All the departments of the State and the Party combined to make the component parts. Examples are plentiful and may be found in every State department.

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[14] This program, known as the 25-point Program, was drawn up by Hitler, Drexler, and Feder and read out on 24 Feb. 1920 at the Hofbräu beer house. It was the program of the German Labor Party.

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Let us take the department of Foreign Affairs. Of all the administrational sections of the State, this, according to the orthodox conception, should be the farthest removed from political doctrine. Not so in Nazi Germany. With a view to the extermination of the Jews, headquarters abroad co-operated with the Reich Security Main Office through Wilhelmstrasse, as is shown by Documents RF-1206, 1220, 1502, 1210, and Exhibit Number USA-433 (Document Number 3219-PS). Wilhelmstrasse officials were called upon to advise the military police and Secret State Police (Document Number RF-1061). It was Best, Ribbentrop’s representative in Denmark, who transmitted the order for the deportation of the Jews to the Chief of the German Police Mildner (Document Number RF-1503). Document Number RF-1501 shows Ribbentrop defending anti-Semitism to Mussolini and asking for Italian co-operation.

Ribbentrop and Kaltenbrunner are implicated in all the terrorist measures taken against the elite. The SD and Wilhelmstrasse are also involved in the organization of attacks of a provocative nature, such as that made on the broadcasting station at Gleiwitz in order to furnish the pretext of an attack by the Poles. The report made by the German military administration on the pillage of art treasures in France incriminates both the special staff of Rosenberg and the German Embassy in Paris (Document Number RF-1505). Wilhelmstrasse and the Army are involved along with the Police in the question of hostages, reprisals, and deportations. Examples could be multiplied. We do not claim to exhaust the subject, but only to give illustrations in support of an opinion.

Let us now examine the activities of Rosenberg’s organizations. Rosenberg, by virtue of his function, co-ordinated several branches of the German State. His function in foreign policy was incorporated in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Moreover, he was the philosopher of the regime, Minister for the Eastern Territories, and chief of the special staff in charge of art treasures. The SD and the Secret Police worked in liaison with him (Documents Number L-188 and 946-PS).

We note the same liaison and the same co-ordination within the machinery of the State in questions, of forced labor. All the ministers and higher functionaries, such as the Gauleiter, were involved, either by planning or preparing the operation, or simply enforcing it, or benefiting by it.

We remember the interministerial meetings in Berlin to discuss this subject and the conference between Sauckel, Kaltenbrunner, Speer, Funk, and the representatives of the OKW which forms the subject of Document Number PS-3819. We remember the meeting in Paris presided over by Sauckel and attended by representatives of the Army, the Police, and the Embassy (Document Number RF-1517).

Neither was economic life any more independent. During the war there existed under Funk a close co-operation between the economic and administrative services of the Army and those of economic affairs (Document Number RF-3 bis). The Ministry of Economy appealed to the Police to work out plans for economic Germanization (Documents RF-803 and 814). The Ministry of Finance subsidized the SS to carry out scientific research under abominable conditions using internees as involuntary subjects for experiment (Document Number 002-PS). Under Schacht and long before the war, politics, finance, and economic affairs were linked with the Army, at first secretly, and then publicly, and by bands closer than in any other country in the world. Schacht, in a speech on 29 November 1938, pronounced the following opinion on his achievement:

“It is impossible that any other issuing bank has followed in peacetime a credit policy so audacious as that of the Reichsbank since the assumption of power by National Socialism. With the aid of this policy, however, Germany has created an armament that ranks foremost in the world, and this armament has made possible the results of our policy ...” (EC-611).

Nor was the judicial system more independent. We find it associated with the Police in highly criminal enterprises. Document Number 654-PS contains an account of a discussion between Thierack, Himmler, and others, at the end of which it was decided that antisocial elements and concentration camp prisoners—Jews, gypsies, Russians, Ukrainians, Poles—sentenced to more than 3 years’ imprisonment should be turned over by the administration to Himmler to be exterminated through labor, and that in future individuals belonging to these categories should not be judged by ordinary tribunals but handed over immediately to Himmler’s department.

Finally, during the war, the terrorist activities of the Army and the German Police and the activities of the State and the Party merged together. On occasion, the Police were subordinated to the Army, though retaining a certain autonomy, on the orders of the Reich Security Main Office. This was the case in Belgium. In France, although separate from the Army, the Police maintained close co-operation with it. The Army participated with the Sipo (Security Police) and the SD in the persecution of the Jews, the administration of the internment camp at Compiègne and the selection of hostages (Documents RF-1212 and 1212 bis) and execution (Document Number RF-1244). As we have seen, the Army and the Police were associated in the terrorist actions against the populations. The Navy and the Police are also associated in the massacre of the Commandos, and the Police were responsible for the murder of certain categories of war prisoners, although all these prisoners without exception came under the authority of the OKW (Document Number 1165-PS). One might multiply instances of the close association of Party machinery and State services and the co-ordination between them, which at times amounted to symbiosis. In one way or another, they all worked for the realization of the common political aim: the conquest of space by all possible means.

The co-operation of the defendants is an obvious consequence. Apart from the definite fact of co-operation alleged by us, all that we know of the general functioning of this totalitarian State, bound to the destiny of the Party, the vigorous measures taken by it against its opponents, for whom it prepared camps and gas chambers—all this leads us to affirm that the defendants, whether ministers, dignitaries or high functionaries with State or Party powers, combined with others who are not present—who are dead or held for Trial in other courts—to form one whole. And this entity was the Government of the Reich, this was the State-Party or Party-State; an entity, perhaps, but a conscious and criminal entity which decreed the murder of millions of human beings in order to enlarge the Reich beyond all limits.

The acts of the defendants are not only those particular ones which we analyzed a moment ago in the light of the national penal codes of their own or our countries respectively. They include also these members of the German State for whom they acted, of that German State to which they gave life, conscience, thought, will, and for which they must now assume responsibility and bear the consequences, even the most extreme consequences, because they could not dissociate individually from these crimes. And this brings us to our third point.

The defendants must be judged on the basis of that criminal policy of which they were promoters and instruments.

Was it not Dr. Seidl who, defending Frank, has said (Page 55 of his text):

“This is an acknowledged principle deriving from the penal code of all civilized nations, that a uniform and natural action must be appraised in its entirety, and that all circumstances which can be considered must be examined in order to form a basis for passing judgment.”

All the crimes of the defendants lie in their political life. They are, as we know, the elements of a criminal State policy. To consider the defendants as offenders against common law, to forget that they have acted in the name of the German State and on account of that State, to apply the same standard to them as that applied to hooligans or to murderers, would narrow the scope of the Trial and misrepresent the character of their crimes. The crimes ordinarily tried by the courts of our countries show the criminal as opposed to the social order. These are individual deeds; their range is limited and their consequences circumscribed. Their crimes never strike more than a very few victims, and there are no examples in the annals of our countries of murder methodically perpetrated by terror organizations whose victims number more than a few hundred people.

That is the highest cost of a criminal plot within our own national communities. Organized as they are, extremely hierarchichal, and possessed of armed forces and judicial institutions, our national communities can eliminate delinquents before they can do all the harm of which they are capable.

These defendants, on the contrary, developed their criminal activity within the community of states in an unorganized world which was just beginning to be conscious of its own existence and at that time possessed neither armed power nor judges.

These defendants seized the German State and turned it into a gangster State, pressing into the service of their criminal plans all the executive power of that State. They acted as chiefs or heads of political, diplomatic, juridical, military, economic, and financial staffs. The activity of these staffs is normally co-ordinated in any country as they serve a common purpose deriving from a common political idea. But in National Socialist Germany, as we know, such co-ordination was reinforced by the overlapping of Party and administrative departments. Individual crimes were crimes of the community when they became the crimes of the State. Indeed, they were fostered by the political conception of each individual: “Conquest of space at any price.”

State crimes committed by any one of those who controlled a major department were made possible only because all those who controlled every other major department contributed their share. If some of them and their departments defaulted, it meant the collapse of the State, the annihilation of its criminal power and with it the end of the gas chambers or the technical impossibility of creating them. But none had either the intention or the desire to default, for gas chambers and extermination, for the sake of gaining living space, were the dominant idea of the system—were, indeed, themselves the system.

Is not evidence of this unity in crime furnished by the very statements made by the defendants, the unremitting efforts of themselves and their counsels to prove the autonomy of their departments and throw the responsibility of the Army on to the Police, that of the Foreign Office on to the head of the Government, that of the Labor Department on to the Four Year Plan, that of the Gauleiter on to the generals; in short, by their attempt to persuade us that everything in Germany was organized in watertight compartments, whereas the interdependence of the administration and Party and the multiplicity of connecting and controlling links between the State and Party prove the contrary by their skillful dovetailing. All French people who have lived in occupied France remember having seen on the walls of local Kommandanturs a poster depicting the bricks of a wall with the words Teneo quia teneor printed over the picture. It was the whole motto of the system. It only needed a few bricks to be taken away for the wall to collapse. None of those men did that. On the contrary, they all contributed their own brick to the edifice.

In this way, Gentlemen, by presenting the facts, apart from any legal conception of conspiracy or complicity which might be debatable according to the varying opinions of the jurists, we furnish proof of solidarity and of the equal culpability of all in the crime.

To prove that they perpetrated the crime, it suffices to show that they were chiefs or high officials of the Party or one of the main State departments and that they acted on behalf of the State; that, in order to extend German living space by every means at their command, they conceived, willed, ordered, or merely tolerated by their silence the violation of treaties guaranteeing the independence of other countries; prepared or declared wars of aggression; systematically carried out mass murder and other atrocities; and systematically committed demolition and looting without justification. This is the crime of the German Reich, and all the defendants have conspired to commit it.

We will prove this in the case of each of the defendants by means of examples taken from the proceedings.

Concerning each of the defendants, the three main points of this presentation will be the following:

1) The defendant occupied within the machinery of the State and the Party a position of eminence which endowed him with authority over one entire office or several.

2) The defendant complied with, if he did not conceive, the doctrine of the regime: Conquest of space by any means.

3) He personally played an active part in the political development of this doctrine.

As to Göring and Hess, the Tribunal will undoubtedly allow me to dispense with developing their case at length. They were the appointed successors of the Führer. They belonged to the Movement from the beginning. Hess assumed responsibility for the racial laws. Both played a part in formulating the political doctrine of the regime, of which they were the embodiment in the eyes of the masses. By their speeches, their lectures, they made this doctrine familiar to all classes. Göring made an active and essential contribution to the military and economic preparations for wars of aggression. Göring is the founder of the Gestapo and the concentration camps where millions of alleged enemies of the regime found their death, and where ultimately genocide was almost totally achieved.

The major part of his criminal activities concerns the putting into practice of The Four Year Plan, the sole object of which, as has been proved, was the preparation for war. In common with others, he is responsible for the deportation and brutal treatment of workers and for their allocation to spheres of production aimed against their own country. Further, he was party to the allocation of prisoners of war and political prisoners to labor directly connected with the war effort of the Reich. He organized the plunder of the occupied countries and the destruction of their economy. Lastly, he organized, with the help of Einsatzstab Rosenberg, the wholesale looting of works of art, often with the object of enriching his own collections.

Hess, by a decree of the Führer dated 21 April 1933, was given full powers to decide all questions of Party management. He participated in the preparation of laws and decrees in general, and even in the preparation of the Führer’s decrees. He took part in the appointment of government officials and the chiefs of labor services. He strengthened the Party’s hold on the internal life of Germany. He exerted a direct influence on the Army and on foreign policy. The part which he played in the growth of anti-Semitism implicates him in the criminal consequences of the Movement and condemns him.

Ribbentrop was one of the mainsprings of the Party and State machine. Placed in Wilhelmstrasse by Hitler who distrusted “old-fashioned” diplomats, he worked with all his might to create diplomatic conditions which would favor a war of aggression, the essential means for realizing the conquest of space. We recall the document submitted by our British colleagues establishing the fact that Ribbentrop assured Ciano in August 1939 that Germany would make war even if Danzig and the Corridor were ceded to her. As has already been shown, he and his office were involved in acts of terrorism and extermination in the occupied countries.

My comments on Keitel are equally brief. The conditions under which he consented to be placed by Hitler at the head of the High Command of the Army in the place of Von Fritsch and Von Blomberg, and brought into the councils of the Government, his political activities in these posts, as indicated by his presence at the Führer’s side in Godesberg and later during the interviews with Pétain and Horthy—to say nothing of the orders which he signed, not the least notorious of which was the order for the implementation of the N.N. (Night and Fog) decree—all these facts reveal that we are dealing here not with an ordinary soldier, but with a general who was also a politician, under orders of the regime. The part he played in the arrest and murder of patriots condemns him. There is no doubt whatsoever that he participated in the work of extermination, if only by handing over to the Police for special treatment certain classes of prisoners of war in defiance of military honor. Moreover, we remember connections between his office and the police services and armed forces of the Party.

In the year 1932 Kaltenbrunner became a member of the Party and of the SS in Austria. He became Secretary of State for Security and the Police in Austria and then Chief of Police in Vienna and Chief of RSHA (Reich Security Main Office) from 30 January 1943 up to the capitulation. During this latter period he was responsible for the Gestapo, the Police, the Security Service and the concentration camps.

He was one of the most important factors in the criminal organization which carried out the policy of extermination and genocide. His responsibility for these mass murders has been established. Orders for imprisonment and execution were signed by him.

“Detention and protective custody,” he said, “were measures justified by the war.” At the same time, however, he tried to make us believe that he opposed the introduction of these measures. It is impossible to believe this, for we have proof that he had supreme authority over the camps.

We are aware of Rosenberg’s important position in the Third Reich. A department bore his name. Moreover, he was Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories and an exponent of the Nazi doctrine. In “Blood and Honor” (Blut und Ehre), in particular, he revived and elaborated the theory of living space to which the so-called German race was entitled. He started with the unfounded statements that “the evolution of humanity owes its entire meaning to the irradiation of Nordism” and that “a decline takes place wherever this Nordic culture, instead of condemning Asiatics and Jews to permanent enslavement, mingles with these impure elements ...” He concluded by saying that the continent must be subjected to the German philosophy and race. To restore the racial purity of Germany by any means was the subject of his speech at Nuremberg in 1933. He extolled the extermination of the Jews, and we know today that it was no empty phrase. Furthermore, in a report to the Führer dated 11 August 1942 (Document Number 042-PS) he wrote:

“Decrees not to support an increase in the population of the Ukraine and to render inapplicable Article 218 of the German Penal Code were issued last year on the occasion of an address and were pronounced again on the occasion of a visit made by the Director of the Ministry of Health ... In the Ukraine, measures were taken to prevent the spreading of epidemics, not in the interest of other peoples, but exclusively to secure German occupation and keep up the efficiency of the labor in the service of the German war industry.”

Finally, he was implicated in the attack on Norway, and thanks to his special staff he conducted the methodical plundering of the artistic wealth of Europe.

Frank was one of the Party’s earliest adherents. He was its legal adviser and took part in the elaboration of its program. He was also the Führer’s adviser. He was Minister of Justice in Bavaria, then Minister of State charged with the co-ordination of justice in the Reich, and finally Governor General of Poland. It is he who tried to give legal form to the program of persecution and extermination drawn up by the State and the Party. He defended the establishment of concentration camps in the German Legal Gazette in 1936 and he proclaimed that the second fundamental concept of the Hitlerite Reich was racial legislation. His personal activities in Poland contributed to the extermination of numerous Poles. He boasted of these activities in his diary.

Frick was a member of the Party from 1925. He became a Reichsleiter and afterward Reich Director for Elections from 30 January 1933 to 20 August 1943. He was chief of the service for the annexation of Austria by Germany and for the incorporation of the Sudetenland, Memel, Danzig, the Eastern Territories, Eupen-Malmedy, and Moresnet. He was also Director of the Central Office for the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia, the Government General, Lower Styria, Upper Carinthia, Norway, Alsace, Lorraine, and all the other occupied countries. He was Protector of Bohemia and Moravia for over a year. He had been Reich Minister of the Interior ever since the assumption of power and a member of the Defense Council. When he was elected to the Reichstag in 1924, he proposed anti-Jewish laws. Strictly obedient, on several occasions he gave expression to the political theories of the Party. In particular he declared:

“In National Socialist Germany, leadership is in the hands of an organized community, that is, the National Socialist Party; and as the latter represents the will of the nation, the policy adopted by it, in harmony with the vital interests of the nation, is at the same time the policy adopted by the country” (Document Number 3258-PS).

He it was who appointed Himmler. He was responsible for the anti-Jewish legislation and ordered sterilization for the descendants of colored soldiers. Furthermore, he gave orders that the incurably insane should be put to death.

Streicher entered the Party almost as soon as it was formed. He indulged in unbridled propaganda against the Jews, both in his speeches and in his writings and incited the German people to persecute and to exterminate them. He was made Gauleiter. He does not dissociate himself from anything that has been done. He stated:

“When one has known the profound depths of the Führer’s character as I have done, and when I later learned from his testament that he deliberately gave the order to execute the Jews, well, I declare that this man had a right to do so.”

Funk entered the Party in 1931 and was decorated with the Golden Party Badge. He was Chief of the Reich Press and Secretary of State for Propaganda; eventually he succeeded Schacht in the Ministry of Economics in 1937. He became Plenipotentiary for Economy and President of the Reichsbank in 1941. In 1932 he acted as middleman between the Führer and certain leaders of German industry. He attended the meeting of industrialists organized by Göring on 20 February 1933 to obtain the political and financial support of industry for the realization of the Nazi program. He stated on 4 May 1946:

“As State Secretary for Propaganda I have a formal responsibility. I have, of course, favored propaganda, as did all those who found themselves in positions of importance in Germany, for propaganda filled and permeated the nation’s intellectual life.”

He asked that the Jews be excluded from important positions and issued decrees to that effect. He received from the SS deposits of gold and valuables from the victims of mass exterminations. He built up Germany’s economy and signed the Secret Law of 4 September 1938.

Dönitz was Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy. He succeeded Hitler with Seyss-Inquart as Foreign Minister. He was a recipient of the Golden Party Badge. His adherence to the criminal policy of the system is indisputable. He said, among other things (Document Number D-640): “The officer is the representative of the State. This talk about nonpolitical officers is sheer nonsense.”

He recommended the use of labor from the extermination camps in order, he said, to increase output by 100 percent. He proclaimed unrestricted submarine warfare and ordered his sailors “to be hard,” and not to effect any further rescues. He approved and extolled massacres of Communists.

Raeder was Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy before Dönitz. He was present at the conferences at which Hitler revealed his plans, notes of which were taken at the time. He put the Navy at the service of the Nazi regime. He conducted clandestine rearmament activities and contributed to the preparation of aggression against Poland and Norway. His contempt for international law is well known. It will suffice to refer to the memorandum of 15 October 1939, Document Number UK-65.

Schirach became a member of the Party at the age of 18. He joined in 1925, was Leader of the Hitler Youth from 1931 to 1940 and Gauleiter of Vienna up to the capitulation. He was one of the essential parts of the Nazi machine. He admits that as Gauleiter of Vienna he united in himself the powers of the State, the city, and the Party. He moulded the youth of Germany according to the ideology of the Party; and he has claimed responsibility for the consequences resulting from this exclusive formation. He allowed Himmler to recruit the SS from among the Hitler Youth.

From 1943 onward, as he himself admits, he was aware of the treatment inflicted on the Jews. Long before that date, however, he had taken a very definite stand as to this question and had been active in conducting anti-Semitic propaganda.

Sauckel joined the Party in 1925. Gauleiter of Thuringia, Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor and honorary Obergruppenführer of the SS, he held a highly enviable position in the State and Party machine. A fiery propagandist, he delivered more than five hundred speeches, in all of which he expounded the Nazi ideology. He approved the principle of extermination. He said:

“With regard to the extermination of asocial elements, Dr. Goebbels is of the opinion ... the method of extermination by work is the best” (Document Number 682-PS).

He also stated:

“The Führer has ... said that we must revise our habitual conception about the migration of peoples.... It is the Führer’s wish that a hundred years from now, 250 million people speaking the German language be settled in Europe” (Document Number 025-PS).

He personally played an active part in preparing the way for the exterminations. On 28 May 1946, he made here the following statement on the subject: “Best results in production can only be obtained by judicious use of manpower.”

He forced over 2 million Frenchmen to collaborate in the war effort with their labor—to say nothing of millions of people of other nationalities. They were recruited by force with the help of the Police, the SS, and the Armed Forces (Document Number S-827):

“I have”—he said—“given special authority to a few intelligent men, with a view to procuring labor. They are working under the direction of the Reichsführer SS and Police. I have armed and trained a certain number of them, and I must make application to the Ministry of Armaments for the necessary supplies for these men ...” (R-124).

Through this declaration, the insinuation of counsel for Defendant Speer to the effect that the French Government had voluntarily given their assent to sending forced labor to Germany, is reduced to nought.

Alfred Jodl was Chief of the Operations Staff of the OKW. He enjoyed the absolute confidence of the Führer in the same degree as Keitel (Document Number 3798-PS). He took part in drafting the various plans for aggression. Encouraged to serve Hitler by the presence of such conservatives as Neurath, Papen, and Schacht at Hitler’s side, he transmitted on 22 March 1943 the decree ordering the expulsion of Jews from Denmark and their internment in Germany. He was also responsible for the execution of Hitler’s order of 18 October 1942 for the annihilation of Commandos (Document Number 530-PS).

He took part in the discussions on the measures to be taken against airmen who were forced down. He signed the proclamation published by the High Command of the Armed Forces relative to the struggle against guerrilla troops—a proclamation containing regulations which outraged the laws of humanity.

Von Papen paved the way for Hitler’s accession to power. The formation of his Cabinet on 30 May 1932 was contrary to the normal parliamentary procedure. On 2 June he ordered the dissolution of the Reichstag, thereby giving free rein to Hitler’s terrorism. With respect to an interview with Hitler in June 1932 he said: “I have agreed to Hitler’s demands, the right of the SS and SA to wear uniform.”

At the same time Papen for his part was under no illusions as to the consequences of the Hitlerian agitation which he had himself instigated. But he preferred Hitler to democracy. After the elections of 30 July he endeavored to induce Hindenburg to accept Hitler and in the month of November he succeeded. He allowed Nazi functionaries to usurp the public services. Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe reminded us of Von Papen’s vindication of National Socialism in Essen in November 1933. Papen expressed himself very definitely on the racial problem (speech at Gleiwitz in 1934).

“Certainly no objection can be made to racial research and racial hygiene with the aim of preserving as far as possible the national characteristics of the people and awakening the spirit of national community.”

We know what these measures were.

Papen served the Party and State administration until the capitulation. Neither the murder nor the imprisonment of his collaborators, of which the State and the Party were guilty, interrupted his activities.

Seyss-Inquart joined the National Socialist Party on 13 March 1938. He occupied various positions within the inner circle of the Party and in the State services, was finally made Assistant Governor of Poland and later Reich Commissar for the Netherlands. He declared—I quote: “I cling with unchanging tenacity to the aims in which I believe: Greater Germany and the Führer.” (Excerpt from a letter of Seyss-Inquart to Göring on 14 July 1939; Document Number 2219-PS).

“We hold the task of a generation, that is to say of the vital force of a people, to be the creation and the security of Lebensraum for the cultural and economic life of that nation.”

(Speech of Seyss-Inquart of 23 January 1939; Document Number 3640-PS.)

“As the task of a whole generation, the entire Vistula region, and not only the territories now gained in the East, must be settled by Germans ... the Slovakia of today, the Hungary of today, the Romania of today, must be reorganized. I believe that the time has come for that.... I believe that soon the whole of this territory will be under the sole administration of Germany.”

(Letter of Seyss-Inquart to Bormann of 20 July 1940; Document Number 3645-PS.)

Seyss-Inquart endeavored to realize the main political object of the Party: Conquest of space at all costs. He used all his available resources for the annexation of Austria, of which he was a native (He admitted that he had worked for 20 years to bring about the Anschluss). His collusion with Konrad Henlein for the reincorporation of the Sudeten territory in Germany has been proved. In Holland he gave orders for the execution of hostages and forged political and economic links between that country and the Reich. He is further responsible for the systematic pillage inflicted on Holland, for the deportation of the population and for the introduction of measures which led to famine.

Speer joined the Party in 1933. He was appointed personal architect to Hitler, and in this capacity he came into very close contact with the Führer. Chief of the Todt Organization from February 1942, Armaments Chief for the Four Year Plan from March 1942, Minister for Armaments from September 1943, he was one of the high-ranking officials in both the State and the Party. Speer utilized more than a million men in the Todt Organization and more than fifty thousand deported Frenchmen in the Ruhr territory alone in 1943. He is responsible for the ill-treatment of foreign workers in German factories, particularly in the Krupp plants. He employed more than 400,000 war prisoners in the armament industry. His delegates were authorized by the OKW to enter the camps and to select skilled workmen. He exploited the manpower of the concentration camps, affecting a total of more than 32,000 men, as he has himself admitted. He visited Mauthausen and shares the responsibility for the deportation of Jews to special labor camps, where they were exterminated, as well as the deportation of 100,000 Hungarian Jews to aircraft factories.

Von Neurath, Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1932, remained in this office when the Nazis seized power in 1933. He continued to occupy this post until 1939 and both he and his departments were gradually absorbed by the growing State and Party machine. As he was a member of the Government from the outset, he cannot have been ignorant of the political ideology of the Movement. If he claims to have been shocked when he learned in 1937 that Hitler was planning aggression, he nevertheless remained in office and made no attempt to dissuade Hitler. On the contrary, it was he who by his approval encouraged Hitler to reoccupy the left bank of the Rhine—the first stage in the wars of aggression for the conquest of living space. He remained Minister of the Reich until the end. A conservative himself, his presence encouraged conservative elements in Germany to co-operate with Hitler. Mainspring of the Party and State machine, Von Neurath is closely connected with this machine in the crimes of extermination of which he was fully aware and which he himself decreed.

On 31 August 1940 Von Neurath transmitted to Dr. Lammers two memoranda, one drawn up by himself and the other by his Minister of State Frank, both advocating the total Germanization of Bohemia and Moravia and the elimination of the Czech intelligentsia. One of these reports contains the following lines:

“With regard to the future organization of Bohemia and Moravia, all considerations should be based on the goal set for this territory, from the state political and national political angle. From the state political angle there can be only one goal: Complete incorporation into the Greater German Reich. From the national political angle: Settling these territories completely with Germans. A brief survey of the actual position as it presents itself from observations and experience gained since the annexation with regard to the state political and national political angle, indicates the path to be followed in order to reach the clearly defined and unequivocal goal. If things present themselves in such fashion then a decision must be taken on the fate of the Czech people so that the end in view may be achieved, which is to incorporate the country and populate it with Germans as quickly and as completely as possible” (Document Number 3859-PS).

Fritzsche served the Party before it came to power, but he did not actually become a member of it until 1933 and then he quickly became a remarkably efficient propagandist. In the course of the war he became the head of the radio service. Expounding the doctrine of the regime, he agitated for the massacre of Jews.

By means of repeated addresses he furthermore endeavored to imprint in the German mind the idea that its very life was imperiled by the Jews and democracy, and that it must yield itself unreservedly to the men of destiny who governed it.

Schacht’s position is peculiar in itself. I shall deal with his case at greater length. He claims to be a victim of the system and is surprised to find himself here cheek by jowl with Kaltenbrunner, his jailer. Schacht told us that the ideals of the Party did not appeal to him. Nonetheless, former Minister Severing stated at the session of 21 May 1946, that in 1931 he had learned from a communication of the Berlin police that Schacht had taken part in discussions with the Nazi chiefs. He added that Schacht’s relations with plutocracy and militarism struck him as highly compromising, and that he would not have cared to be a member of the same Cabinet. We know that Schacht had established relations with Hitler in 1930, bringing to him the advantages of his repute in Germany and abroad. National Socialism derived considerable benefit from this.

At the National Front rally at Harzburg in October 1931, Schacht took his seat next to Hitler, Hugenberg, and Seldte. He had already attempted to draw Hitler into the Brüning Government. He was responsible for procuring funds for the decisive elections of March 1933 (USA-874, Document Number EC-440) at a meeting between Göring and the leading industrialists, on which occasion Hitler delivered a speech. After the seizure of power, Schacht played an outstanding role within the machinery of Party and State. He became President of the Reichsbank and Minister of Economics. On 19 January 1939 he left the Reichsbank, but he became a Minister of State and held that post until 21 January 1943. Clever, subtle, and capable of disguising his real thoughts behind a mask of irony or insolence, he never committed himself completely. It has, however, been proved that he persistently demanded increased living space for Germany. When he tried to mislead his questioners by speaking of colonial claims and it was pointed out that, considering world conditions, the possession of colonies could in no way assist Germany in solving her domestic problems, he failed to reply. He knew how to threaten the democracies and even resorted to a form of extortion through fear. When speaking of a Party success during a visit to America, he said:

“I gave the greatest possible warning saying that: If you foreigners do not change your policy toward Germany, there will in a very short time be many more members and adherents of Hitler’s Party.”

He also said: “It is perfectly clear: We ask for territory in order to feed our people.”

What part did he play in the development of the criminal policy? As soon as he was established in the Reichsbank, a vast program for financing public works was launched. All of these works—new railroads, motor highways, et cetera—were of strategic importance. Moreover, a large proportion of the credits was secretly used for purely military purposes.

From 1935 onward, rearmament was speeded up under the vigorous impulse of the new financial measures which he devised. The academic and upright economist of tradition turned into a sharper in order to realize the great aims of the Party. By means of accommodation drafts—mefo drafts—the rearmament was financed. Drawn on a drawee who provided no cover, a company created to serve this express purpose, the blank drafts were endorsed by a second and similar company.

When the first draft was drawn, the drawer added extension drafts so calculated that the last fell due in January or March 1942. When we look back, the full significance of the date chosen becomes evident. The year 1942 was the date fixed by Schacht for the full extent of his fraudulent enterprise, in the hope that by that time the war would have solved the problem for him. The original draft was discounted by the Reichsbank. Bills were not subject to fiscal taxes so as to prevent any evaluation of the amount in circulation by means of a control in the yield of the taxes. Operations were conducted with the utmost secrecy. Even as early as 1935, all available Reichsmark credits were utilized by the Reichsbank for these armament drafts. At the end of 1938 there were 6 billion marks in mefo drafts in the assets of the Reichsbank and 6 billion marks worth to discount, of which 3 billion worth were short-dated. When the drafts fell due, Schacht could not but be aware that there were only three possible solutions:

1) Consolidation of the debt by foreign loans, which would not be extended to Nazi Germany, already armed to excess.

2) An inflation comparable to that of 1923, which would mean the end of the regime.

3) War.

The scope of the rearmament operations financed by Schacht up to 31 December 1938 is revealed by calculations made by M. Gerthoffer of our delegation (we attach his report hereto). Let us not forget that Hitler, in his letter to Schacht, dated 19 January 1939, wrote: “Your name will be connected above all and for all time with the first period of national rearmament” (EC-397). We may take note of that—from April 1935 to 31 December 1938, there were spent 345,415 million francs on the rearming of Germany. During the same period France spent only 35,964 million francs. Such a discrepancy shows quite clearly what Schacht’s aim was. This was Schacht’s doing and his alone. On the battlefields of France in 1940 we find again the same ratio of 10 German armored divisions to 1 French division.

Schacht’s retirement from the Reichsbank and the Ministry of Economics can in no way speak in his favor. Difficulties arose between Göring and himself in regard to the realization of the Four Year Plan. Schacht would not admit Göring as his superior. He resigned from the Ministry of Economics on 26 November 1937, but remained president of the Reichsbank and Minister without Portfolio. On 7 January 1939 he handed Hitler a memorandum pointing out that the volume of the mefo drafts in circulation through his own fault was threatening the stability of the currency. Technically speaking, his position at the Reichsbank had become untenable. His retirement, therefore, was due to questions of economic organization and not to political reasons. In any case, he retained the functions of Minister without Portfolio, and did not give up this post until January 1943, at the time of the Stalingrad defeat, when both the Party-State machine and the Reich were beginning to break down. Obviously he no longer served any useful purpose, but it is equally obvious that he might again have done so at some later date, in the capacity of negotiator of a peace compromise.

Are his further political troubles due to the intrigue by Hitler’s advisers which we can now well imagine, or were they due to Machiavellism on his part, or to sheer bad fortune? What is the significance of the part played by this ill-starred man who succeeded in gathering round him all of the great financiers and industrials with pan-Germanic leanings, who helped Hitler to power, whose presence inspired confidence in Nazi Germany, whose financial wizardry provided Germany with the most powerful war machine of the age, and who did all this to enable the Party-State machine to hurl itself forward to the conquest of living space? This man was among those mainly responsible for the criminal activities of the Party-State machine. His financial genius was that of the Nazi State; and there is no doubt of his participation in its crimes. It is of fundamental importance. The measure of his guilt is full, his responsibility complete.

As for the last of Hitler’s confidants, Bormann, we know that he was responsible for the mass extermination of the Jews. There is no need to say more.

I have now reached the end of my demonstration of the guilt of each individual defendant. Not that the subject is exhausted, but the time allowed by the Tribunal for each representative of the Prosecution to address the Court only permits us to sketch the outline of a presentation which deserves more systematic treatment. A multiplicity of examples could be found to illustrate our presentation. All the facts submitted during the last 9 months by all four delegations fit of their own accord into our plan; and this in itself is sufficient to prove that our logic is unimpeachable and that our conclusions are in strict accordance with the truth.

We consider, therefore, that proof has been furnished that all these men have been parties to the crimes of the German State, that all these men were in fact united in pursuit of the same political aim and that all of them have in one way or another participated in the greatest crime of all, genocide, the extermination of the races or people at whose expense they intended to conquer the living space they held necessary for the so-called Germanic race.

We have all heard the objections raised by the Counsel for the Defense. It is Dr. Seidl who stated them most forcibly (Page 25 of his speech for Frank).

“The law in force”—he said—“is based on the fundamental principle that international law deals solely with the sovereign state and not with the isolated individual.”

In conclusion he denies the right to sentence these men. First let us say that not one of the defendants was an “isolated individual” of whom Dr. Seidl speaks. We think that we have demonstrated their co-operation and solidarity, strengthened by the Party system beyond the usual intercourse between the ministers and principal administrators of any democratic country.

We may observe in addition that it seems intolerable to every sensitive human being that men who put their intelligence and their good will at the disposition of the state entity in order to make use of the power and the material resources of this entity to slaughter, as they have done, millions of human beings in the execution of a criminal policy long since determined, should be assured of immunity. The principle of state sovereignty which might protect these men is only a mask. This mask removed, the man’s responsibility reappears. Dr. Seidl knows that as well as we do. But he says, “such is the international law in force.” What respect on his part for the law in force, but how surprising in his mouth the words which follow! A few moments later, examining the Hague Conventions of 1907, which, we must remember, have not been denounced by any of the signatories, not even by Germany, he complacently points out that they were inspired by the experiences made during the wars of the nineteenth century and are no longer valid in the twentieth. Modern wars were no longer subject to the restrictions of the Hague Conventions. He states further:

“Under these circumstances one cannot make use of the prescriptions of the Hague Convention with regard to land warfare—even if interpreted in the widest sense and adapted in a suitable manner as a basis for the criminal responsibility of the individual.”

Dr. Seidl therefore considers international law as static when he believes that this will enable him to draw favorable conclusions therefrom; but when this law condemns his client, it must be considered as still in process of evolution.

Dialectics of this kind, which make use of paralogism, are specious. Dr. Seidl is well versed in the art of sophism, but he convinces no one. The immunity of the chiefs of state and their associates was hardly conceivable when it was allowed to be subject to the rules and restrictions of custom, convention, and international law. This immunity became intolerable from the moment that they freed themselves from every rule, and pressure from the universal conscience gave rise to new developments in international custom in order to oppose it. I have already shown this at the end of my statement last February; I shall not revert to that point. It should suffice to add that the Charter of 7 August 1945, taking in consideration the work of the various war crimes commissions from 1940 up to the capitulation, upheld the conclusions drawn by a Frenchman, M. de Lapradelle, at the War Guilt Commission 1919. The defendants are arraigned before you on account of the acts they committed on behalf of the German State and if it is necessary that law should reinforce the authority of custom, then the Statute of London, drawn up on the basis of common law in course of formation, still justifies our study of the defendants’ responsibility with regard to the crimes of the German State. In fact, Article 6 of the Statute deals only with crimes committed on account of the state.

The impression we draw from the final pleadings is that most of the defense counsels put all their hopes in a concise juridical or pseudojuridical process of reasoning. Many questions were debated. Are there just and unjust wars, defensive wars and wars of aggression, is there a world-wide juridical conscience? Are there unequivocal criteria of aggression? This is what worries the Defense; and not the question of the extent to which those who have collaborated in the work of extermination should be punished.

When the defense counsels speak of “law in force” they do so for the purpose of denying this Tribunal the right to condemn, and Dr. Jahrreiss denied all authority to the law “such as it should be conceived” in the light of morality and progress (Page 3). All of them forget that the law in force is not only the law of the past, the only one to which they themselves appeal, but that the law in force is also that which the judges invoke in a concrete manner from the bench. All of them forget that jurisprudence is subject to the laws of evolution. Where no written law exists one can only speak of the former tendencies and ascertain whether they are still valid and can be invoked. But let us stop here. We would ourselves confuse the issue.

The unique fact of this Trial, the fact that stands out above all others, is that of the methodical, systematic extermination of all those who occupied the living space coveted by Germany.

Other crimes have certainly been committed, but only as means to an end. We are tempted to describe them as secondary and accessory to the main crime, so overwhelming is the atrocity of the latter.

We must realize the full magnitude of these atrocious crimes and appreciate the danger to humanity which is constituted by such a precedent, in order to exact adequate punishment.

Atrocity of the State-Committed Crime.

We have already shown that the crime committed by these men is not a simple crime. The common criminal knows his victim; he sees him with his own eyes. He himself strikes and knows the effect of his blow. Even if he is only an accomplice he is never sufficiently dissociated, morally and psychologically speaking, from the chief perpetrator, not to share to a certain extent his apprehensions and reactions when the blow is delivered and the victim falls.

Genocide, murder, or any other crime becomes anonymous when it is committed by the State. Nobody bears the chief responsibility. Everybody shares it—those who by their presence maintain and support the administration, those who conceived the crime and those who ordained it, as well as he who issued the order. As for the executioner, he says to himself, “Befehl ist Befehl,” “An order is an order,” and carries out his hangman’s task.

Those who make the decision do so without shuddering. It is possible that they have no accurate and concrete picture in their minds of the consequences of their orders. The stupefaction of some of the accused immediately after the showing of the film about the camps is understandable in the light of this reflection. As for those who promote the execution of the crime by their general co-operation in the work of Party and State, they feel that they are passive spectators of a scene which does not concern them. They have, in any case, no punishment to fear. In the German sphere the State and the Party are strong, and determined to remain so for a thousand years. They have destroyed justice. In the international sphere, the prevailing code insures—or, at least, is believed to insure—immunity. Moreover there is no permanent international jurisdiction capable of opposing the gangster states. The possibility of a military defeat is not taken into consideration, since the precautions taken are apparently so thorough. It is a remarkable fact that, allowance made for the delay necessary for the installation of gas chambers, the peak of the murders coincides with the period in which the State and regime believe in certain victory, or have not yet taken seriously the omens of defeat. It is really the perfect anonymous crime imagined by the French moralist when he propounded the case of the mandarin as a test of moral conscience. And all the conditions favor the absence of a reaction. The facts have demonstrated that none of those men have experienced the decisive revulsion in those circumstances.

Most of them did feel that they had played a part in the tragedy. They have, I think, been more intent on relieving their consciences than on attempting to deceive their judges by shelving guilt onto their neighbors. Few of them have had the courage to acknowledge, as did Schirach and Frank, that they were component parts of the whole system, and as such could not evade responsibility. The others deny it at the risk of letting the guilt fall upon the German people who were incapable of throwing off the yoke of their evil masters. They attempt, in the exposition of their case, to minimize their responsibility in the hope of conjuring it away, but since Severing’s statement and those made previously by the mayor of Oranienburg and the mayor of Buchenwald and confirmed by Frank, are true, namely, that there were rumors all over Germany that people died in these camps, as everybody now knows, do they expect to make us believe that they alone were in ignorance thereof?

The less guilty among them, if one can establish different categories of “major criminals,” did not dare to object, but their criminal cowardice had such appalling consequences that they cannot possibly justify any lessening of the penalty.

As we now see, crime committed by the state in a regime in which state and party are one, and in which popular control is prevented by the absence of freedom of thought, freedom of expression and free elections, is, from the point of view of the criminal, the easiest to commit. Moreover, technical progress all over the world has harnessed almost every natural force in the service of mankind. His capacity to work evil has been considerably increased thereby. Moral restraint has at the same time been relaxed by the pursuit of materialistic gratification which is also the corrupt fruit of material progress not controlled by intellect.

Generally speaking, crime seems to be on the increase in every state, in spite of highly improved methods of repression. In the international scheme of things, the process is similar. The only difference is that it is on a larger scale, because as yet there is no international means of repression. The industrial revolution and the development of natural sciences have multiplied the virtual power of states. If the state keeps in its own hands natural wealth and its exploitation, accentuates its grip on credit by monetary operations, increase in taxation, the levying of additional loans, whether voluntary or forced, if it binds its people even more firmly to it by developing public welfare institutions, and influences their mental life by means of radio propaganda, employing with this end in view eloquent propagandists capable of arousing the blind passions of the mob within men most peacefully disposed and most widely scattered—if this state at the same time takes away from its opponents every possibility of expressing their views, prevents any control by the people and every form even of private criticism, it becomes an absolute ruler possessed of tremendous means of action for better or worse. Every criminal technique is within its reach and it can make unrestrained use of it unless, Gentlemen, you introduce the element of sanctions in international law. It must be possible henceforth to put an end to the criminal activities of a gangster state through the power of a superstate organization directed by a legal institution of the same kind, otherwise the freedom of nations is doomed. The weapons of revolt fell from their hands as soon as states—and states alone—could possess methods of destruction against which the courage of individual citizens was unavailing. Operated by a small number of men devoted to the criminal regime, those arms which are the property of the state can drown in blood the slightest attempts at resistance, and although revolt against tyranny is still the most sacred of duties, such revolt is now hopeless. This is the danger, and Germany succumbed to it. It is true that every favorable condition was present at the same time. Under the impulse of the industrial revolution which from 1850 onward was more violent in this country than in any other, social standards have changed enormously; and at the same time the population itself has changed from rural and agricultural to urban and industrial. This has resulted in a lowering of its mental level which has brought with it disastrous consequences, since the bourgeoisie had received no political education under the Empire.

Deliberately kept at a distance from public affairs by their former rulers, the German masses, with regard to the industrialist upper class and proletariat, were interested only in the economic development of the Reich, and, with regard to the middle class, only in the Army and the future Reich. When, after the first World War, the Germans had to endure the disappointment of defeat; when to shabby and commonplace surroundings were added all the rancor and resentment described by the Defendant Göring at the beginning of his testimony, in addition to the bitter consciousness of social and material downfall; when youth in particular strove to make its hopes a concrete reality, Pan-Germanism awoke, was disseminated and brought down to the level of the mob and then came within reach of all the discontented elements. At the same time, the old antithesis between vital force and intellectualism, culture and civilization, healthy eagerness and decadent lassitude, the cult of life and the cult of intellect was brought to life and given definite shape for the use of simple and puerile minds in the form of the dynamic antithesis between the Nordic Aryan and the Semitic Jew. With the help of appropriate education this biological materialism was easily imposed. The ground had long been prepared. The German is particularly attracted by inculcated doctrine because it alone can supply the lack of personal, independent discipline which is characteristic of him on the intellectual and moral plane. He loves anything that can be recited as a universally acknowledged creed, a stereotyped phrase suitable for use on all occasions. For this reason, young Germans learned for their Abitur examination the six races admitted by Guenther just as they learned grammar, and no more dreamed of doubting the former than they doubted the latter. And when the German mentality accused nations as much alive and as strongly attached to their land, their traditions, and their flexible and varied human culture, as England and France, of being content to possess only a puny and artificial intellectual life, when it accused them with the crime against life—and Dr. Stahmer echoed this—the German mind created for itself, by reason of the coarse and facile creed which it claimed to impose upon all alike, an intellectualism differing from ours in its danger and its artificiality. The result of these so-called ethics of life was a practice and a doctrine of pure opportunism—collective or social, pseudoscientific, biological, materialistic—which resulted in the sterilization, the physiological observations made in the camps, and 12 million dead. The reflection of the old French philosopher comes irresistibly to our minds when we are confronted with this result: “Science without conscience is but ruin of the soul.” A neo-Machiavellism, an example of which was afforded us by Göring in his statement, took root.

I read lately somewhere in a final pleading that right in itself does not exist, and that efforts to establish a dividing line between right and wrong are guided by historical and national standards (Dr. Nelte). Hitler had already said: “Right is what is profitable to the nation” and, according to his defense counsel, Frank paraphrased this statement as follows: “What is profitable for the people is right. Collective interests take precedence over individual interests.” On reading this, I thought of the answer which would have been given by the absolutist, Bossuet, who knew how to determine human standards. The Defense Counsel compared French absolutism with Nazism. Here is my answer:

“Politics sacrifice the individual to the common good, and this is right to a certain extent; it is good that one man should die for the people. By that, Caiaphas understood that an innocent person could be sentenced to the supreme penalty for the sake of the common good, which is never allowed, for, on the contrary, innocent blood cries for vengeance against those who shed it.”

We know what consequences the Nazi precepts could produce. The witness Roser reported the words of this young German soldier who, after describing a massacre in a ghetto, concluded: “Ah, my dear friend, it was horrible, but ... an order is an order.” The Tribunal will find Kramer’s terrible words at the end of Document Number F-655, which is in one of the document books submitted by the French Delegation. Before he was made commandant of the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, Kramer commanded the Natzweiler Camp in Alsace, where he himself asphyxiated 80 persons by gas. This has been proved. In answer to the question: “What would you have done if they had not all been dead?” he said:

“I should again have tried to asphyxiate them by letting a second dose of gas into the room. I did not feel any emotion while carrying out these acts, for I had received orders to execute the 80 internees in the way I told you. After all I have been trained in that way.”

What a terrible charge against the system! Before becoming a murderer by order, this man had been a bookkeeper in Augsburg. How many peaceful bookkeepers so trained are still in Germany today? And now “innocent blood cries for vengeance.”

Conclusion:

You know the crime! You know why and by what means it was perpetrated! This heinous and unprecedented crime is that of the National Socialist Party-State, but the defendants in their capacity as chiefs of the National Socialist Party and high State officials have all accepted major responsibility in the conception and perpetration of this crime. Their participation in the crime of the Party-State is their own personal fault and brings with it no claim whatsoever to immunity! Proof has now been brought against them!

They must be punished; you know also the dangers to which the world is exposed by their crime and the misery and misfortune it has brought to mankind. You must hit hard without pity. It is enough that the verdict be just! To be sure, there are degrees in their guilt. Does it follow that there must be degrees in the penalties themselves, when those whom we consider the least guilty merit the death penalty! Tomorrow, this International Trial over and the principal war criminals sentenced, we shall go back to our own countries where we may have to prosecute before our own tribunals those who merely carried out the orders of the National Socialist State, who only played the part of hangman.

How could we demand the death penalty for another Kramer, or another Hoess, or for the camp commandants who have on their conscience the deaths of millions of human creatures whom they killed by order, if we hesitated today to demand the supreme penalty for those who were the driving force of the criminal State which gave the orders.

The fate of these men lies entirely with your conscience! It is now out of our hands, our task is finished. Now, it is for you in the silence of your deliberations to heed the voice of innocent blood crying for justice.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn.

[The Tribunal recessed until 1400 hours.]

Afternoon Session

THE PRESIDENT: I call on the chief prosecutor for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

GEN. RUDENKO: Your Lordship, Your Honors.

We are summing up the results of the legal proceedings against the major German war criminals. In the course of 9 months all the aspects of the case and all the evidence presented to the Tribunal by the Prosecution and by the Defense have been subjected to a careful and detailed scrutiny. Not a single deed of which the defendants have been accused has been left without verification, not a single significant circumstance has been overlooked during the investigation of the present case.

For the first time in the history of mankind criminals against humanity are being held responsible for their crimes before an international criminal tribunal; for the first time nations are trying those who have soaked large areas of the earth with blood, who have annihilated millions of innocent people, destroyed cultural treasures, instituted a systematic massacre and torture, exterminated old people, women, and children, and who in their mad desire for world domination have hurled the universe into an abyss of unprecedented misery.

This Trial, to be sure, is the first of its kind in legal history. A tribunal is sitting in judgment, a tribunal created by the peace-loving free countries, who represent the desire of mankind for progress and to prevent the recurrence of calamities suffered, determined not to permit a gang of criminals to carry out with impunity their preparations for the enslavement of nations and the extermination of peoples in the realization of their fanatic plans. Mankind has called the criminals to account and we, the prosecutors, on behalf of all mankind, are the accusers at this Trial.

And how pitiful are the efforts to dispute the right of mankind to judge its enemies, how vain the efforts to deprive nations of the right to punish those who made enslavement and genocide their aim, and who for many years strove to realize this criminal aim by criminal methods. The present Trial is being so conducted that the defendants, who are accused of the most heinous crimes, are given every possibility to defend themselves and are offered all the necessary legal guarantees. In their own country the defendants who stood at the helm of the Government destroyed all legal forms of justice, and discarded all the principles of legal procedure accepted by civilized mankind. But they themselves are being tried by an international court with legal guarantees to assure all the rights of defense.

We are now summing up the results of the legal proceedings, we are drawing conclusions from the evidence examined before the Court, we are considering all the data upon which the accusation is based. We now ask: Were the charges levied against the defendants proved before the Court, has their guilt been established? There is only one answer to this question: The legal proceedings fully confirm the charges.

We charge the defendants only with those facts which have been fully established and proved beyond all doubt in the course of the proceedings in which monstrous crimes have been proved, crimes which were prepared over a period of many years by a band of bragging criminals who had seized power in Germany, and who perpetrated these crimes over a period of many years, without regard for the principles of law or the most elementary standards of human morality. These crimes have been proved, the defendants’ testimony and the arguments of the Defense have been powerless to refute the charges—they cannot be refuted because it is impossible to refute the truth, and truth is the enduring result of this Trial, the consequence of our long and stubborn efforts. The accusation has been proved in every detail. It has been proved that there existed a Common Plan or Conspiracy in which the defendants participated for the preparation of aggressive wars, in violation of international law and for the enslavement and extermination of peoples. There can be no doubt as to the existence of such a plan just as there is no doubt about the leading part played in it by the defendants. This point of the accusation is confirmed by all the data introduced during the legal proceedings by irrefutable documents, and by the testimonies of witnesses and of the defendants themselves.

All the activities of the defendants were directed toward the preparation and the launching of aggressive wars. All their so-called “ideological work” consisted in the cultivation of bestial instincts, in the installation of the absurd idea of racial superiority in the conscience of the German people, and in the practical realization of their plans for the extermination and enslavement of peoples of “inferior” races, who were supposed only to serve for fertilizing the growth of the “master race.” Their “ideological work” consisted in a call to murder, to plunder, to the destruction of culture, and to the extermination of human beings.

The defendants prepared these crimes a long time in advance and then committed them by attacking other countries, seizing foreign territories and exterminating the population. When was this plan or conspiracy conceived? Of course, it is scarcely possible to give an exact date, day and hour on which the defendants conspired to commit their crimes. We cannot and shall not establish our conclusions and assertions on guesses and suppositions. But it must be considered as established beyond any possible doubt that from the moment when the fascists seized power in Germany they embarked on their criminal aims and utilized this power for the preparation of aggressive war. All the activity of the defendants was directed toward the preparation of Germany for war. The rearmament and reconversion of economy for war purposes is an irrefutable fact—it has been proved by documents and admitted by the defendants themselves.

We may ask, what was this war for which the defendants began to prepare immediately after the seizure of power? Could this possibly be a defensive war? But then nobody intended attacking Germany; nobody had any idea of the kind, and—in my opinion—such an idea could not even have existed. Since Germany was not preparing for a defensive war and inasmuch as the very fact that she did prepare for war has been established—it is evident that she was preparing for a war of aggression. That is the logic of the facts and such are the facts themselves. Germany initiated and waged this very war which she had been preparing, and in 1937-39 occurred precisely that for what she had been preparing since 1933. Hence the conclusion: The plan or the conspiracy existed at least since 1933, that is, from the moment when the fascists seized power and used it for their criminal purposes. These are the facts which are confirmed by the words of the defendants themselves uttered at a time when they did not expect that they would ever be defendants. It is enough to mention the speeches of Schacht, Krupp and others in which they describe how the fascist Government was preparing for war and how all fields of political and economic life were subjected to this one purpose.

I consider as fully proved the charges against the defendants to the effect that in 1933, when the Hitlerites seized power in Germany, they created a plan or conspiracy for the perpetration of crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The legal proceedings have unequivocally proved the crimes against peace committed by the defendants, which consisted in planning, preparing, initiating and waging aggressive wars, in violation of international treaties, agreements and assurances. Here the facts speak for themselves—wars which involved innumerable victims and destruction, wars whose aggressive nature has been undoubtedly established. The guilt of the defendants in the perpetration of crimes against peace has therefore been fully proved.

The charge of perpetrating war crimes, in waging war by methods contrary to all laws and customs of war, has also been fully proved. Neither the defendants themselves, nor their defense counsel could raise any objections to the very fact of their having committed these crimes.

All that they could say to this was that the defendants themselves had not committed these atrocities, as for instance the extermination of people in “murder vans” and concentration camps; they had not destroyed the Jews with their own hands, and some of them had not even known about such particular facts. But that such facts really did exist the defendants themselves do not deny. The defendants admit these facts. A fruitless method of defense!

Certainly, the defendants occupying high leading posts in Hitler’s Germany were in no need of personally shooting, hanging, smothering, freezing live people to death by way of an experiment, and so on. Their subordinates did that according to their instructions, their henchmen did the dirty work, so to speak, while the defendants only had to give orders which were obeyed without a murmur. Therefore, the attempts of the defendants to deny their connection with these henchmen, to detach themselves from them, were hopeless.

This connection is evident and indisputable. If the commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Hoess, extracted the gold teeth of the dead, we may say that the Reich Minister, Walter Funk, opened special vaults in the cellars of the Reichsbank in which to keep these gold teeth. If Kaltenbrunner’s subordinates exterminated people in “murder vans,” the vans themselves were built at the works of Sauer, Daimler and Benz, who again were the subordinates of the Defendant Speer. If the prisoners of war were destroyed by professional henchmen of the Death’s-Head unit and by the camp guards, the orders to exterminate were signed by Keitel, Generalfeldmarschall of the German Armed Forces. That is to say, it is the defendants who gave the sign for extermination, issued the orders to create a special murder technique, and explained the ideological reasons for the right of the master races to exterminate “inferior races.” It was they who calmly and ruthlessly watched the tortured victims and, as Hans Frank, delivered solemn speeches about “one more step forward” taken by German fascism toward ridding “the living space” of “the inferior races.”

The defendants are responsible for every murder, for every drop of innocent blood shed by Hitler’s hangmen, for between them and the direct perpetrators of the crimes, murders, tortures, there is a difference only in rank and scope of action. Those are the direct hangmen, and these are the principal hangmen, hangmen of a higher rank. They are far more dangerous than those they trained, in the spirit of hatred toward humanity and cruelty, and whom they now repudiate in order to save themselves.

The criminality of the defendants in the perpetration of war crimes has been fully proved in the sense that they initiated a system of exterminating prisoners of war, peaceful inhabitants, women, old men, and children. It is their fault that wherever the German soldier stepped there lay the heaps of murdered and tortured people, ruins and places left barren by fire, devastated towns and villages and the land desecrated and soaked in blood.

The crimes committed against humanity have been completely proved. We cannot omit the crimes committed by the defendants in Germany during their domination: The extermination of all those who in any way expressed their discontent with the Nazi regime, the slave labor and the extermination of human beings in concentration camps, mass extermination of Jews, and the same slave labor and extermination of people in the occupied territories—all this has been proved and the charges are irrefutable. What means of defense have the counsels used, what kind of proofs and arguments could they give to refute the charges?

The arguments of the defendants may be divided into two main groups. First, a number of witnesses summoned by the Defense Counsel. These witnesses were to extenuate the guilt of the defendants by their evidence, to play down the part taken by them in committing the crimes, and to rehabilitate them by all possible means.

These witnesses themselves were, in most cases, defendants in other trials. How can we discuss the objectivity and authenticity of the evidence given by such witnesses of the Defense, if the innocence of the Defendant Funk should be confirmed by his deputy and accomplice, a member of the SS since 1931, Hayler, bearing the rank of SS Gruppenführer; if the criminal Rainer, member of the fascist Party since 1930, and Gauleiter of Salzburg and then of Kärnten, was summoned to give evidence on behalf of Seyss-Inquart.

Those so-called “witnesses”—such as for instance Bühler—the right-hand man of the Defendant Frank and accomplice in all his crimes, or Bohle, one of the principal leaders of the Hitlerite espionage and counterespionage activities and chief of the Auslands-Organisation of the fascist party, came here in order to commit perjury to try to protect their former “bosses” and to save their own lives.

And yet most of the “witnesses” for the Defense in the course of the interrogation became witnesses for the Prosecution. They were convicted by the “mute witnesses”—documents, mostly of German origin; they themselves were forced to expose those whom they intended to protect.

Another type of the means used by the Defense is legal arguments and considerations.

a) Some legal aspects of the Trial.

The accusation in the present Trial is based on an enormous quantity of irrefutable facts and is firmly established on the principles of law and justice. Therefore, in the opening speeches for the Prosecution, so much attention has already been paid to the legal justification of the responsibility of the defendants.

In the speeches of the Defense a number of legal questions was again raised:

a) On the importance of the principle Nullum crimen sine lege;

b) on the importance of the order;

c) on the responsibility of the state and individuals;

d) on the concept of conspiracy.

I therefore consider it necessary to return again to some legal questions in order to answer the attempts of the Defense to confuse clear and simple statements and to change the legal argumentation into a kind of “smoke screen” in an effort to conceal from the Tribunal the gruesome reality of the fascist crimes.

a) Principle Nullum crimen sine lege.

The Defense attempted to deny the accusation by proving that at the time the defendants were perpetrating the offenses with which they were charged, the latter had not been foreseen by existing laws, and that therefore the defendants cannot bear criminal responsibility for them.

I could simply pass over the principle Nullum crimen sine lege, as the Charter of the International Military Tribunal, which is an immutable law and is unconditionally to be carried out, provides that this Tribunal “shall have the power to try and punish all persons, who acting in the interest of European Axis countries, whether as individuals or as members of organization or group,” committed any of the crimes enumerated in Article 6 of the Charter.

Therefore, from the legal point of view, sentence can be pronounced and carried out without requiring that the deeds which incriminate the defendants be foreseen by the criminal law at the time of their perpetration. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the deeds of the defendants, at the time when they were being committed, were actual criminal acts from the standpoint of the then existing criminal law.

The principles of criminal law contained in the Charter of the International Military Tribunal are the expression of the principles contained in a number of international, agreements, enumerated in my opening statement of 8 February 1946 and in the criminal law of all civilized countries. The law of all civilized countries provides criminal responsibility for murder, torture, violence, plunder, et cetera. The fact that those crimes have been initiated by the defendants on a scale surpassing all human imagination and bear the marks of unheard-of sadistic cruelty does not, of course, exclude but rather increases the responsibility of the defendants. If the defendants had committed the crimes on the territory and against the citizens of any one country, then in accordance with the declaration of the heads of the Governments of the U.S.S.R., of Great Britain and the United States of America, published on 2 November 1943, and in full agreement with the universally accepted principles of criminal law, they would be tried in that country and according to that country’s laws.

This declaration set forth that “the German officers, soldiers, and members of the Nazi Party who were responsible for the afore-mentioned cruelties, murders and executions, or who voluntarily took part in them, would be deported to the countries where those gruesome crimes had been committed, in order to be tried and punished according to the law of those liberated countries and free governments which would be established there.”

Nevertheless, the defendants are war criminals “whose offenses have no particular geographical location” (Article 1 of the Agreement of the Four Powers of 8 August 1945) and, therefore, the International Military Tribunal, acting in accordance with the Charter, is competent to try their crimes. The counsel for the Defendant Hess took the liberty to affirm that, “there can be no doubt that the Crimes against Peace, as they are stated in Article 6, Paragraph 2a, of the Charter, do not exist.”

There is no need here to refer to the international agreements as I have already mentioned them in my opening statement on 8 February 1946, in which aggressive war was declared an international crime. Therefore the attempts of the defendants and their counsels to hide behind the principle Nullum crimen sine lege have failed. They are charged with deeds which civilized humanity had long ago recognized as criminal.

b) Execution of an order.

Some of the defendants, in their depositions before the Tribunal, attempted to present themselves as pitiful dwarfs, blind and obedient executors of another’s will—the will of Hitler.

In his search for a legal basis for this assertion, counsel for the defense, Jahrreiss, spoke at great length about the importance of Hitler’s orders. In the opinion of the counsel Jahrreiss, an order of Hitler’s “was something quite different” from the order of any other leader, that a Hitler order was an act “legally immutable.” Therefore, Professor Jahrreiss questions whether, whatever the Charter may mean by the orders which it rejects as a factor excluding criminal responsibility, it would, be possible to adopt the same attitude toward an order of Hitler’s. He asks: Could such an order be looked upon as an “order” within the meaning of the Charter?

The right to interpret law is the irrefutable right of every lawyer, including the counsels for the Defense. Nevertheless, it is quite incomprehensible what logical or other methods have led him to assert that the provisions of the Charter, specially drafted for the trial of major war criminals of fascist Germany, did not factually imply the very conditions themselves of the activities of these criminals. What orders then issued by whom and in what country are meant by the Charter of the Tribunal?

On, the contrary it is indisputable that the authors of the Charter were fully aware of the specific conditions existing in Hitlerite Germany, were thoroughly familiar—from the material of the Kharkov and other trials—with the attempts of the defendants to hide behind Hitler’s orders, and it is for this very reason that they made a special proviso to the effect that the execution of an obviously criminal order does not exonerate one from criminal responsibility.

c) Responsibility of countries and individuals.

We think that the very authors of this attempt to conceal a large group of ministers, Gauleiter, and military commanders behind Hitler’s back doubted to a certain extent the efficacy of a similar defensive maneuver since a new line of defense was introduced to support the maneuver in question.

“If the German Reich launched an attack in spite of a still-existent nonaggression pact”—said counsel Jahrreiss—“then Germany committed an international offense and must answer for it according to the principles of international law—the Reich alone, but not the individual person...”

We cannot help noticing that the above point of view is not exactly a brand new one: Even before the beginning of the official Defense at this Trial, certain unofficial advocates of war criminals propagated a version to the effect that it was the German Government and the German nation who were to bear responsibility for the criminal aggression and war crimes and not individual persons. When one who is subject to international law, that is the state, violates its principles, certain consequences of an international character are entailed, but in no case does it entail the criminal responsibility of the state. Any action on the part of the state in the sphere of international relations is committed by individual persons, by officials, and by the agents of that state. In carrying out such acts, these individuals may be guilty of the most varied offenses in violation of either the common or the criminal law. In the latter case, that is, when their individual criminal responsibility is involved, they have to bear this legal responsibility before the court, in conformity with the laws of their own country, as well as—if such is the case—in conformity with the laws and before the courts of a foreign state.

In the present case, not only did the Hitlerite State violate the principles of international law, as a result of which measures were taken against the states; but also some particular individuals, in committing those acts, have personally committed criminal offenses for which they bear the criminal responsibility in accordance with the Charter before the International Military Tribunal.

d) Concerning the concept of conspiracy.

The Defense Counsel is unanimous in trying, although in different forms and versions, to contest the charges of criminal conspiracy directed against the defendants. Extracting from various sources one-sided and tendentiously selected definitions of conspiracy, the Defense Counsel have endeavored to prove that Göring, Hess, Ribbentrop, and others cannot be considered as participants in the conspiracy. I should like to quote here several arguments proving the lack of basis for the statements of the Defense.

Conspiracy implies the existence of a criminal society created for and working toward the achievement of a common criminal purpose. Such a society undeniably existed. It stands to reason that in this case the threads and levers uniting the members of this conspiratory criminal society are extremely complicated, since the conspirators had seized the government of the state.

In any criminal society and particularly in a highly complicated society like this, individual participants commit criminal acts included in the general plan of the conspiracy but they can practically remain unknown to a number of the members of this society. Nevertheless, as these crimes result from a single criminal plan, common to the entire society, the participants who have not personally committed these separate criminal actions and were not practically informed of them, still bear the responsibility for them.

In this particular case the existence of the conspiracy is not precluded by the circumstance that, for instance, Schirach could be unaware of some of the measures of the slave trader Sauckel, or the “pogrom maker” Streicher; neither is the existence of the conspiracy precluded by the differences of opinion among individual participants in the conspiracy concerning particular questions, the intrigues of Göring against Bormann, et cetera. Such dissensions may occur in any gang of robbers and thieves, but the gang does not cease to exist on this account.

In nearly every society there exists a certain hierarchy among its members. Very often the head of a criminal gang usurps unlimited power over the other members, even the right of life and death, but it never occurred to any lawyer in the world to deny the existence of a criminal society merely because its participants were not equal among themselves and one of them had power over the others.

It is, at any rate, strange to deny the existence of the conspiracy in the present case because of the fact that enormous personal power was vested in the hands of the leader Hitler. In the same way the existence of the conspiracy does not preclude but, per contra, implies a definite distribution of the parts played by the participants of the criminal group in pursuance of the common criminal aim: One directs all the criminal activities, the other is in charge of questions of ideological training, the third prepares the army, the fourth organizes the war industry, the fifth carries on diplomatic preparations, et cetera. Therefore, the fascist conspiracy does not cease to be a conspiracy, but is one which presents special danger, since the entire machinery of the government and enormous resources of men and material are in the hands of the conspirators. In the hands of the international criminals, in the hands of Göring, Keitel, and the other defendants countless people became instruments of most grievous crimes. This is the reason why specific features which distinguish the conspirators of fascist Germany from any other gang only lend it a specially dangerous character without changing in any way the legal nature of the conspiracy. This completes the analysis of the legal arguments of the Defense, which were examined in detail by my honorable colleagues. As you have seen, Your Honors, the arguments of the Defense were found to be inconsistent and incapable of rebutting the charges. I shall now consider the question concerning the guilt of the individual defendants.

Göring.

In Hitlerite Germany the Defendant Göring was next in importance to Hitler himself, he stood next in the line of succession. He assumed enormous powers, and seized the most responsible posts. He was the president of the Ministerial Council for Defense of the Reich, he was the dictator of German economy—the Delegate for the Four Year Plan—and the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force. The main point was that he utilized this extensive field and dedicated all his forces to the organization and perpetration of the crimes set out in the Indictment.

As we already know, the aim of this conspiracy consisted first of all in the conquest of Europe and then in the world supremacy of Hitlerite Germany, regardless of any methods, however criminal and inhuman. To realize this aim, the way had to be cleared since Hitler had already declared in February 1933 at a conference with prominent German industrialists that the parliamentary system must be destroyed.

Göring undertook this task. He began energetically to exterminate the political opponents of fascism, and for this purpose carried out mass arrests of members of political parties unfavorable to Nazism. He organized concentration camps where he interned, without trial, all those who disagreed with fascism. He created the Gestapo which, from the day of its birth, established a regime of bloody terror. He demanded of all the officials, in the camps, and of the Gestapo to stop at nothing—and savage punishments of human beings, tortures and massacres became under his guidance fundamental procedures. It is he, Göring, who declared: “Every bullet fired from the pistol of a policeman is my bullet, and if anyone calls it murder, this means that I have committed murder ...” (From Göring’s book, Aufbau einer Nation, published by him in 1934). Thus he cleared the way for fascism and paved the path for the unhampered progress and the realization of the fascist conspiracy. Göring was tireless in his efforts to annihilate everybody and everything which hampered this conspiracy. And Hitler praised him for this. For example, on 13 July 1934 he declared to the Reichstag that Göring, “... with his iron fist smashed the attack against the National Socialist State before this attack could become effective.”

All these terroristic activities of Göring were calculated to clear the way for the realization of the fundamental idea of the fascist conspiracy, that is, the conquest of Europe and, later, to achieve world supremacy of Hitlerite Germany. The legal proceedings have established Göring’s guilt in the planning and preparation of all aggressive wars by Hitlerite Germany.

Numerous documents have been presented to the Tribunal, testifying to the active part played by Göring in launching aggressive wars. I shall remind you of Göring’s declaration in 1935 at a meeting of Air Force officers. At that conference he declared that it was his intention “to create an air force which shall strike the enemy an avenging blow. Even before the attack, the enemy must feel that his cause is lost”; and this intention, as we know, he realized by preparing for war from day to day.

At the conference of the leaders of the German air industry on 8 July 1938 Göring hinted that war was near, and that if Germany emerged victorious from this war she would be the most powerful state in the world, dominating the world markets, and she would become a wealthy nation. “But one must risk, one must stake all.” Such was the slogan which Göring coined on that occasion.

On 14 October 1938, not long before he presented demands to Czechoslovakia, Göring declared that he had begun to carry out a gigantic program in comparison with which all previous undertakings were insignificant.

“In the shortest possible time, the Air Force must be increased fivefold; the Navy must be rearmed at a much greater speed, and the Army has to procure more speedily large numbers of weapons of attack, especially heavy artillery and heavy tanks. This must be accompanied by the production of war materials and particularly explosives.”

The active participation of Göring in the preparation for aggression against the U.S.S.R. has been established beyond all possible doubt. The Tribunal will find proof of Göring’s active participation as far back as November 1940 in the development of a plan for the attack against the U.S.S.R., contained in the record of the conference of 29 April 1941 on the organisation of the economic staff “Oldenburg” and in the minutes of the conference held on 23 February 1941 at the house of General Thomas, as well as in the testimony of Göring himself during the session of 21 March 1946.

It was Göring who, together with Rosenberg, Keitel and Bormann, at the conference with Hitler on 16 July 1941, gave concrete form to the plans for the dismemberment of the Soviet Union, the enslavement of her population and the despoliation of her riches. The plan to “... raze Leningrad to the ground and hand it over to the Finns” was conceived with his participation. It was he who recommended the hangman, Koch, for the post of Reich Commissioner for the Ukraine, as the “personality with the greatest initiative and the best training.” Therefore, it can be considered that Göring’s guilt in the planning and preparation of aggressive wars by Hitlerite Germany has been fully established, and for this he must bear responsibility.

My colleagues have already invited the attention of the Tribunal to the criminal treatment of prisoners of war. I shall just remind the Tribunal of the testimony given by the witness Maurice Lampe during the afternoon session of 25 January 1946 concerning the execution of Soviet, British, French, and other officers in Camp Mauthausen, in the extermination camps of Auschwitz and Maidanek; of the notes issued by the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the U.S.S.R., Molotov, dated 25 November 1941 and 27 April 1942, presented to the Court in connection with the monstrous ill-treatment inflicted by the German military authorities on Soviet prisoners of war, for which Göring is personally greatly responsible. I would also remind you of the depositions of the witness Halder, on 31 October 1945, describing a conference held at Hitler’s headquarters, on the nonapplication of the Hague Convention with respect to the treatment of Russian prisoners of war, and of the order issued from Hitler’s headquarters on 12 May 1941 on the treatment of captured Russian commanding officers and political workers.

All these crimes, established beyond any doubt before the Court, need not be further clarified, since the Defense in their pleas were unable to advance any arguments in rebuttal.

In the “12 Commandments for the Behavior of the Germans in the East” of 1 June 1941, the sixth commandment reads as follows:

“You must clearly understand that you for centuries to come are the representatives of Greater Germany and the standard bearers of National Socialism in the new Europe. You must, therefore, coolly carry out the most ruthless and the most cruel measures which will be demanded of you by the necessities of the State.”

The beginning of the systematic persecution and extermination of the Jewish population is connected with the name of Göring. It was he who signed the odious Nuremberg Laws, the decrees for the expropriation of Jewish property, for the imposition on the Jews of a penalty of one billion, and other decrees; such activities were in full keeping with the whole of Göring’s savage world outlook.

At the Trial Göring denied that he was an adherent of the racial theory, while in 1935 he made a speech before the Reichstag in defense of the Nuremberg racial instigators. On that occasion he loudly declared: “God has created races. He did not will equality and for this reason we reject energetically every attempt to pervert the idea of race purity ...”

Numerous documents presented to the Court by the Prosecution expose the criminal actions of Göring in respect to other nations. Göring’s order issued on 19 October 1939 clearly demonstrated the attitude of the defendant toward the Polish people and the Polish State. In an order relating to the economic policy in the East, issued on 23 May 1941 just before the attack on the U.S.S.R., Göring wrote as follows on the attitude toward the Russians:

“Germany is not interested in maintaining productivity in this territory. She will supply only the troops stationed there ... The population in those regions, and especially the urban population, is doomed to starvation. It will be necessary to deport this population to Siberia.”

In his capacity of Delegate for the Four Year Plan Göring is responsible for the plunder and spoliation of state property and personal property of the citizens, carried out by the Nazis in the occupied territories of the U.S.S.R., in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, and other countries. It was precisely Göring who headed the activities of the Nazi conspirators directed toward the economic plunder of the occupied territories of the U.S.S.R.

A conference in connection with the elaboration of economic measures according to Case Barbarossa was held on 29 April 1941 prior to the treacherous attack against the U.S.S.R. As a result of this conference there was created a special economic staff “Oldenburg” which was subordinated to Göring. The creation of special economic inspectorates and units in the largest centers of the U.S.S.R. was planned; they were to handle important tasks for the exploitation and plunder of Soviet industry and agriculture.

The file of a district agricultural leader contained instructions to agricultural officials who were given full freedom in the choice of methods for the achievement of their criminal purposes. The demand for ruthless treatment of the Soviet peoples, the Russians, the Ukrainians and the Byelorussians, was expressly put forward. The report of the U.S.S.R. Extraordinary State Commission on the crimes committed by the Hitlerites in Kiev, in the region of Stalino and other places, states that these criminal plans of the Defendant Göring and his accomplices were for the greater part realized.

To secure the necessary manpower for the German war industry and agriculture, and at the same time for the purpose of the physical extermination and economic weakening of the enslaved peoples, the Defendant Göring and his accomplices in the Nazi conspiracy exploited the foreign workers as slaves. The exploitation of forced labor had been planned by the Nazis even before the war. It is sufficient to remind you of the conference at Hitler’s headquarters which took place on 23 May 1939 and in which the Defendant Göring also participated. At the conference of 7 November 1941 and in his order issued on 10 January 1942 Göring demanded of all the departments subordinated to him the necessary manpower for the German industries at the expense of the population of the occupied Soviet territories.

On 6 August 1942 Göring held a conference with the Reich Commissioners for the occupied territories and the representatives of the High Command. Addressing himself to the participants in this conference, Göring said:

“You are being sent there not to work for the well-being of the peoples entrusted to you, but for the purpose of extracting everything available.... You must be like bloodhounds, wherever there is still something left.... I intend to plunder and to do it efficiently....”

These intentions were carried out. Göring plundered, the Reich Ministers and Reich Commissioners for the occupied territories plundered, the representatives of the High Command, from the generals to the ordinary soldiers, also plundered. Such were the activities of Defendant Göring.

There is not a single measure executed by the fascist party, not a single step taken by the Hitlerite Government in which Göring did not participate. He participated actively in all the crimes of the fascist gang and for all his deeds he must be duly punished.

Hess.

The Defendant Rudolf Hess occupied a leading position among the Nazi conspirators from the very beginnings of the fascist state.

It was Hess who had been the leader of the fascist organization of the University of Munich. It was he who had participated in the Munich Putsch. It was he who, together with Hitler, had worked at the fascist bible Mein Kampf, assuming the duties of Hitler’s private secretary. It was he who had been president of the Central Political Commission of the fascist party, and it was he who had carried into effect the bestial policy of the fascist cutthroats as Deputy of the Führer after the seizure of power. It was precisely Hess to whom, according to Hitler’s decree of 21 April 1933, “full rights were granted to take decisions on Hitler’s behalf in all questions concerning the leadership of the Party.”

Immediately afterward Hess continued to seize one new post after the other in Hitler’s Government. As from 1 December 1933 he was Reich Minister without Portfolio “to insure close collaboration of the Party and the SA with the civil authorities”; on 4 February 1938 he was appointed member of the Secret Council; on 30 August 1939, member of the Reich Defense Council; and on 1 September 1939 Hitler declared Hess his successor after Göring. Hess was also appointed Obergruppenführer SS and SA.

By a decree of 27 July 1934 Hitler compelled the leaders of all the departments and ministries in Germany to present all drafts of laws to Hess for preliminary approval. Hess had to select and allocate the leading staff of the fascist cadres. This is proved by Hitler’s decree of 24 September 1935 and by other documents submitted to the Tribunal by the Prosecution.

Special note should be taken of the active part played by Hess in planning and carrying out aggressive wars. All the aggressive actions of Hitler’s Germany had been planned and prepared with the direct assistance of Hess and the Party machinery of the Nazis subordinated to him. Already on 12 October 1936, in his speeches in Bavaria, Hess appealed to the Germans:

“... at times to use a little less fat, a little less pork, fewer eggs.... We know”—said Hess—“that the foreign currency that is saved in this way goes for armaments. And the slogan of the day is: ‘Cannons instead of butter.’”

Hess spoke about this on the eve of his flight to England on 1 May 1941, speaking at the Messerschmitt factory where he made an appeal for the continuation of the aggressive war.

Together with Hitler, Göring, and other leaders of the Nazi conspiracy, Hess signed the decrees concerning the annexation of the territories seized by the Germans.

The man-hating Nuremberg Laws, for the publishing of which this defendant is also responsible, contain a special proviso authorizing Frick and Hess to issue the necessary decrees for carrying these laws into effect. Hess signed the law on the “Protection of Race and Honor,” the decree of 14 September 1935, depriving the Jews of their right to vote and of their right to employment in government offices; and also the decree of 20 May 1938 extending the Nuremberg Laws to Austria. The question of the part played by Hess in organizing a network for espionage and terroristic units abroad, as well as in creating the SD (Security Service) and in the recruitment of SS units, has been sufficiently elucidated at this Trial.

The very position occupied by Hess in the fascist party and Hitler’s Government shows the active and leading participation of the defendant in the preparation and realization of the common criminal plan of the fascist conspirators, and consequently the enormous share of his guilt and responsibility for the crimes against peace, for the war crimes and the crimes against humanity.

Your Honors, in order to evaluate more correctly the importance of the criminal activity of the Defendant Hess as one of the most notorious leaders of the Nazi Party and Hitler’s Government, I shall remind you of the article in the newspaper Nationalzeitung of 24 April 1941, dedicated to Hess.

“Many years ago—it was before the beginning of this war—Rudolf Hess was called the ‘Conscience of the Party.’ It is not difficult to answer the question why this honorable name was given to the Führer’s Deputy. There is not an event in our public life that is not connected with the name of the Deputy Führer. He is so versatile and original in his work and in his sphere of activity, that they cannot be described in a few words ... many measures carried out by the Government, especially in the field of war economy and in the Party, which at their publication are so readily welcomed by the public because they answer to a high degree the real feeling of the people, originate in the personal initiative of the Deputy of the Führer.”

Hess refused to offer explanations to the Tribunal. His counsel, Seidl, declared with false pathos that Hess considered the present Tribunal incompetent to judge the German war criminals, and immediately afterward, without a pause, he presented proofs in his defense. Hess even tried to declare himself insane to avoid punishment deserved. But when he was convinced that such a maneuver would not help him, he was forced to tell the Tribunal that he had simulated loss of memory, that it had been a trick on his part, and he had to admit that he bore full responsibility for all that he had done and signed together with the others.

Thus, this clumsy attempt of Hess to avoid responsibility was fully exposed at the Trial and he should suffer the full extent of his punishment for his participation in the Common Plan or Conspiracy for committing crimes against peace, war crimes and the most grievous crimes against the world and humanity, crimes perpetrated by him together with the other defendants.

Bormann.

The name of Martin Bormann is closely connected with the creation of Hitler’s regime. He was one of those who committed the most outrageous crimes, directed at the annihilation of many hundreds of thousands. Together with the Defendant Rosenberg, Bormann carried on with cruel perseverance a propaganda of racial theories together with the persecutions of the Jews. He issued numerous instructions aiming at discrimination against the Jews in Hitler’s Germany, which discrimination later on had such fatal effects and resulted in the annihilation of millions of Jews. By this activity he won Hitler’s confidence. He was “authorized to represent the Party in the sphere of government activities” (Verordnungen und Befehle der Parteikanzlei, Volume II, Page 228) and did so. Thus, as chief of the Party Chancellery, he directly participated in the annihilation of Jews, Gypsies, Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, and Czechoslovaks.

Under his leadership the NSDAP became a police organization, closely co-operating with the German Secret Police and the SS. Bormann not only knew of all the aggressive plans of Hitler’s Government but he also took an active part in their realization. He made full use of the entire Party machinery of the NSDAP to realize the aggressive plans of Hitler’s Government, and he appointed the Party Gauleiter Reich Defense Commissioners in the regions where they operated.

The NSDAP Party machinery and Bormann personally participated actively in all measures taken by the German military and civil authorities for the inhuman exploitation of prisoners of war. This is proved by the numerous instructions and directives issued by Bormann. The evidence of the Prosecution and the legal proceedings have now established the extent of mass annihilation resulting from the savage ill-treatment of the prisoners of war.

The Party machinery and the Defendant Bormann personally participated directly in the measures adopted by Hitler’s Government in connection with the deportation of the peoples of the occupied territories for slave labor. The secret deportation of Ukrainian girls to Germany for enforced Germanization was carried out with Bormann’s approval. By Hitler’s order of 18 October 1944, Bormann and Himmler were entrusted with the leadership of the Volkssturm, consisting of all men from 16 to 60 years of age, capable of carrying arms. On the eve of the collapse of Hitler’s Germany, Bormann headed the Werewolf underground organization for diversion and subversive activities behind the Allied lines. Bormann participated directly in the plunder of historical and cultural treasures and works of art in the occupied territories. In 1943 he made suggestions for the intensification of the economic plunder in the occupied territories.

Such are the crimes of the Defendant Bormann, Hitler’s closest collaborator, sharing the full responsibility for the numerous crimes of Hitler’s Government and the Nazi Party.

Ribbentrop.

Joachim von Ribbentrop was not only one of the principal instigators and leaders of the foreign policy of Hitlerite Germany, but he was also one of the most active participants in the criminal conspiracy. Having officially entered the Nazi Party in 1932, the defendant, however, contributed actively to the seizure of power by the Nazis long before this actually occurred, and he rapidly became the official adviser of the Party, inasmuch as he was the “collaborator of the Führer on matters of foreign policy.”

Ribbentrop’s promotion is indissolubly connected with the development of the activities of the Nazi conspirators, activities directed against the interests of peace. In his testimony Ribbentrop declared: “He (Hitler) knew that I was his loyal collaborator.” That is why on 4 February 1938 Hitler appointed the convinced and faithful Nazi, Ribbentrop, as official leader of foreign policy, a post which was one of the most important forces in the realization of the entire Nazi conspiracy.

Ribbentrop, however, did not limit his activities to the scope of foreign policy. As member of the Hitlerite Government, the Reich Defense Council, and the Secret Council, he participated in the solution of all the innumerable problems connected with the preparation of aggressive wars. That is why he, Ribbentrop, although he was Minister for Foreign Affairs, participated in the solution and realization of problems only faintly relevant to foreign policy, such as the exploitation of manpower in wartime, the organization of the concentration camps, and so forth. In this connection it should be noted that Ribbentrop signed a special, far-reaching agreement with Himmler on the organization of joint intelligence service.

Ribbentrop became Reich Foreign Minister exactly at the beginning of the realization of the plans of aggression, which counted on the submission of Europe to Germany. This coincidence is no accident. Ribbentrop was considered, not without reason, as the most qualified person for the realization of this criminal conspiracy. He was preferred even to such an expert on international provocation as Rosenberg, which induced the latter to lodge an official complaint, not without reason. And Hitler was not mistaken in his choice, for Ribbentrop fully justified his confidence.

As early as 12 February 1938, a week after his appointment, Ribbentrop together with Hitler and the Defendant Papen, who for a long time before this date had been directing the diversionist activities of the Nazi agents in Austria, participated in a conference at the Obersalzberg. At this meeting he addressed an ultimatum, punctuated by threats, to the Austrian Federal Chancellor Schuschnigg and the latter’s Foreign Minister, Schmidt, demanding their agreement to the sacrifice of Austria’s independence and this object was attained.

As Minister, Ribbentrop was present at the conference of 28 May 1938, during which a decision was made for the execution of Case Green—the plan for aggression against Czechoslovakia. In conformity with the Nazi tactics of weakening their future victim from inside, Ribbentrop constantly kept a close contact with and gave material assistance first to the German Sudeten Party, and then to the Slovak National Socialists, with the object of attaining an internal split and fratricidal war in Czechoslovakia.

Having seized Czechoslovakia, the Nazi conspirators, and Ribbentrop among them, began to prepare for the next aggressive act, which had already been outlined by them in their criminal plan against peace—the attack on Poland.

Being forced by reason of the recently realized annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia to temporarily conceal Germany’s further intentions, Ribbentrop personally and through his agents and his diplomats endeavored to allay the vigilance of the European states by hypocritical declarations to the effect that Germany had no further territorial demands.

On 26 January 1939, in Warsaw, the Foreign Minister of fascist Germany, Ribbentrop, declared:

“... that the consolidation of friendly relations between Germany and Poland on the basis of our agreement constituted the most important factor of Germany’s foreign policy.”

A very short time elapsed and Poland experienced the full value of these assurances of Ribbentrop.

I will not dwell here on the perfidious part played by the Defendant Ribbentrop in the German aggression against Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg, for my colleagues have already dealt with this matter convincingly enough. The Defendant Ribbentrop personally and actively participated in carrying out the aggression against Yugoslavia and Greece.

Reverting to his favorite method of giving false guarantees in order to conceal future aggressions, Defendant Ribbentrop assured Yugoslavia, on 20 April 1938, that after the Anschluss Germany’s frontiers with Yugoslavia were considered both “final and unalterable.”

At the same time manifold preparations for aggression were carried out with the assistance of the Defendant Ribbentrop. On 12 and 13 August 1939, at the conferences held by Hitler and Ribbentrop with Ciano on the Obersalzberg, an agreement was reached concerning the liquidation of the neutrals one by one.

With the direct and immediate assistance of the Defendant Ribbentrop, the Nazi conspirators planned, prepared, and executed the treacherous attack on the U.S.S.R. of 22 June 1941.

The Defendant Ribbentrop himself admitted in the courtroom, that at the end of August and the beginning of September 1940, that is, at the time when the work on Case Barbarossa was being carried out—as is evident from the depositions of General Warlimont, General Müller and Field Marshal Paulus—the Defendant Keitel was discussing with him the question of attacking the U.S.S.R. The activities of the defendant, and the Ministry directed by him, played a primary part in the organization of war against the U.S.S.R. with the participation of Finland, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria.

After the beginning of the aggression of Germany against the Soviet Union, the Defendant Ribbentrop continued to apply his efforts to lure new accomplices to the side of Germany. Thus in a telegram to the German Ambassador in Tokio on 10 June 1941 he said:

“I beg you to try all the means at your disposal to influence Matsuoka in order to force Japan to enter into war with Russia as soon as possible. The sooner, the better. The aim, of course, should be that Japan and Germany shake hands on the Siberian railway before winter comes ...”

As has been established at the Trial, Ribbentrop, together with the other defendants, was preparing a policy of extermination and plunder, planned by the Hitlerites and then carried out in the temporarily occupied territories of the Soviet Union. The Defendant Rosenberg, who was elaborating the plans for the exploitation of the occupied territories in eastern Europe, held a conference on this question with the OKW, the Ministry of Economics, the Ministry of the Interior, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In his “Report on Preparatory Work on the Eastern European Questions” he wrote: “As a result of negotiations with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the latter appointed Consul General Bräutigam as their representative to Rosenberg.”

It is therefore indisputable that Ribbentrop not only knew about the preparations for the military attack on the U.S.S.R., but that he, together with the other conspirators, had planned beforehand the colonization of the territory of the Soviet Union and the enslavement of the Soviet citizens.

The defendant was compelled to admit that he had known of the notes issued by the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs V. M. Molotov concerning the atrocities of the Hitlerites in the temporarily occupied territories of the Soviet Union. He, as well as the other conspirators, had also known the other declarations of the chiefs of the Allied Governments concerning the responsibility imposed upon the Nazi Government for the perpetration of the monstrous atrocities by the Hitlerites in the occupied countries.

Ribbentrop, as the witness for the Defense, Steengracht, former Secretary of State at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs has confirmed, had been one of the initial organizers and was to be appointed honorary member of the International Anti-Jewish Congress which the Germans hoped to convene in July 1944, in Kraków.

Ribbentrop himself admitted at the Trial that he had negotiated with the governments of European countries concerning the banishment of the Jews.

According to the record of Ribbentrop’s conversation with Horthy: “The Minister of Foreign Affairs declared to Horthy that the Jews should either be exterminated or sent to concentration camps. There can be no other decision.”

This statement amply confirms the fact that Ribbentrop was aware of the existence of the concentration camps although he tried hard to prove the reverse here. Ribbentrop lent his support to other Nazi leaders and above all to the Defendant Sauckel in deporting the population of the occupied countries for forced labor in Germany. Moreover, the Defendant Ribbentrop when carrying out the common plan of conspiracy which included the destruction of the national culture of the peoples of the occupied territories, took a most active part in plundering cultural treasures which are the common property of all nations.

To carry out this task, a “Special Service Battalion” had been created on Ribbentrop’s instructions at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which, during the entire war, followed the advance units, requisitioned, and deported to Germany all kinds of cultural treasures from the occupied territories in the East, in accordance with Ribbentrop’s directions.

Thus the Defendant Ribbentrop had participated in the seizure of power by the Nazis, playing a leading role in planning, preparing, and waging aggressive and predatory wars; together with the other conspirators he participated, in pursuance of the fascist plans, in the leadership, committing most grievous crimes against the nations whose territories had been temporarily occupied by the Hitlerite invaders.

The military group.

Several of the defendants in the dock at this Trial of the major war criminals may be said to form a military group. Excluding Göring—who is quite a peculiar figure, uniting in his person the politician, administrator, and soldier—there remain Keitel, Jodl, Dönitz and Raeder. In the course of these proceedings not only have all the Counts of the Indictment against them been sustained, but even more incriminating evidence has been brought to light.

The documentary evidence, the testimony of witnesses, including those called by the Defense, helped tip the scales in favor of the Prosecution.

The Defense Counsel tried to convince the Tribunal that their clients were the pawns of destiny, involved in this sinister tragedy in spite of themselves.

The defendants—Keitel, Jodl, Dönitz, and Raeder endeavor to appear in the role of noble-minded simpletons. To do the Defense justice, they did the best they could to help them in this attempt.

We have heard a great deal about the honor of the soldier—of military discipline, fidelity to duty and oaths of allegiance—and the consequent obligation to fulfill Hitler’s orders, even those which in their hearts aroused both doubt and direct protest. Such a presentation of their position completely distorts the actual state of affairs. Before passing to the question of the guilt of Keitel, Jodl, Dönitz, and Raeder, I consider it necessary to ask the following four questions:

1) Did these defendants know that Hitlerite Germany, in violation of her international obligations, had prepared a series of aggressive and predatory wars?

2) Did they take an active part in the planning, preparing, launching and waging of these wars?

3) Are they guilty of cynically trampling on the laws and customs of warfare?

4) Are they responsible for the atrocities and for the extermination of the peaceful population, for the sinking of passenger and hospital ships, for the towns and villages destroyed by the military machine of the Hitlerite Reich?

It seems to me that after this investigation which has so carefully gone into all the details of this case it would be impossible, unless we remain blind to the facts, to give any but an affirmative answer to these questions.

The evidence submitted to the Tribunal has fully proved that the military group of criminals is guilty of the most appalling crimes and that they have actively participated in the planning and execution of the common criminal conspiracy.

The very fact that these crimes were committed by men in uniform not only does not mitigate their responsibility, it seems to me, but on the contrary, merely serves to heighten it.

How can they attempt to whitewash themselves by referring to the “duty of a soldier,” “the honor of an officer,” and the “obligation of fulfilling orders”? Since when has “the duty of a soldier” and “the honor of an officer” been compatible with shooting prisoners without trial or exterminating women, children, and old people?

The only true and correct explanation of the amazing fact that these generals and admirals did commit what, in effect, were ignoble crimes, lies in the fact that they were actually generals and admirals of Hitler’s making. These are men of a special brand. They are fascists in military uniform bound in body and soul to the Nazi regime. This is the only reason why Hitler gathered these men around him and collaborated with them for so long a period of time. This is the only way to explain why they collaborated with Hitler in perpetrating crimes unprecedented in history. They fitted together and understood one another to perfection.

Keitel.

It is only natural that, when speaking of the military group, I begin with Defendant Keitel. Keitel held the leading post in Hitler’s military machine from the very first years of its conception. Keitel’s counsel admits that “the decree”—of 4 February 1938—“gave Keitel the marvelous title: ‘Chief of the High Command of the Armed Forces.’” Further he goes on to say:

“... the factual significance of Keitel’s activities ... was immense ... It was an extremely ungrateful job and its miserly remuneration was a brilliant position in the immediate proximity to the head of the State.”

In the light of all subsequent events it may be taken for granted that the primary stage of all the future wars of aggression included everything connected with the secret rearmament of Germany after the Versailles Treaty.

It is difficult to minimize the significance of all that was done at the time by the then Colonel Keitel in the committee of experts which painstakingly and consecutively sought and found means of circumventing and even violating the treaty.

It was none other than Keitel in particular who gave instructions to the effect that in Geneva it was possible to say what one pleased, but care must be taken not to leave anything behind on paper. This cynical statement fully tallies with the role played by Keitel in the subsequent preparation and waging of aggressive wars. During the negotiations between Hitler and Schuschnigg, Keitel in person was the living reminder of Germany’s preparedness to resort to arms. Keitel issued orders for troops to cross into Czechoslovakia at the time when President Hacha was so treacherously called to Berlin “for continuing negotiations.” It was the OKW, and none other, which was fully prepared through the Department of the Abwehr to provoke an incident with Czechoslovakia in order to justify the invasion by the German hordes, ready to fall upon Czechoslovakia. In his strictly confidential memorandum Keitel demanded that Hess and Himmler advise the OKW in advance of all measures taken by Party organizations or Police which were not included in Case Green.

The declarations alleging that after the seizure of Czechoslovakia Germany had no more territorial aspirations in Europe were downright lies. This seizure was but a link in the chain of aggressive wars.

I wish to emphasize the leading role of the OKW in the preparation and carrying out of aggression. The directive regarding the waging of war and the invasion of Poland is known to us as Keitel’s and Hitler’s directive of 10 May 1939. It was forwarded to the High Command of the Air Force, Navy, and Army. How is it possible, after this, to maintain that the OKW was not the driving power behind all the branches of the Armed Forces of the fascist Reich?

If we once more peruse the documents pertaining to German aggression against Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Yugoslavia, and Greece, we will again come across the name of Keitel. He appears either as a participant in the most important events, or as the author of secret orders addressed to Raeder, Göring and the General Staff. We find the initials of Keitel and Jodl entered in their own hand on the secret directive signed by Hitler regarding “Operation Marita.”

Much has been said here of Case Barbarossa and its authors. At present it is important to stress that this document took shape in the innermost depths of the OKW, and on its initiative, and that the methods planned prior to a treacherous attack on the U.S.S.R. were likewise the work of the OKW. The significance of a military specialist’s visa on a document is clear to everybody.

Some of the defendants in their untruthfulness attempted to portray the attack on the U.S.S.R. as a preventive war. This contention is to such a degree unconvincing and contradictory to the irrefutable evidence presented in court—German documents—that I see no need for wasting the Tribunal’s time.

Keitel’s counsel stated that his defense is based on the point of view that Keitel “is fighting not for his head but to save his face.” I should like to help the Tribunal to unveil Keitel’s true face. For this I should have to remind you of a number of Keitel’s directives which may well lay claim to being among the foremost of all the infamous documents pointing to the barbarity of the German military clique, to its baseness and foul and unlimited contempt for every concept of the rules and customs of warfare.

Let us consider the documents dealing with the shooting of political officers. Keitel, the soldier, as he likes to call himself, ignoring his oath, shamelessly lied to the representatives of the American Prosecution at the preliminary investigation by avowing that, to begin with, this order was in the nature of a reprisal and that the political officers were separated from the other prisoners of war at the request of the prisoners of war themselves. At the Trial he was unmasked. Exhibit Number USSR-351, Document Number 884-PS proved that this directive had been issued before the war had broken out. We also submitted a document under Document Number USSR-62, the text of a letter from German prisoners of war. This document makes it clear that even before the attack on the U.S.S.R. the armies in the field had been instructed absolutely to exterminate Soviet women in military service as well as political officers.

And what can be said of the following statement, appalling in its boundless cynicism: “... human life in the countries concerned is not of value at all ... a terrifying influence can only be achieved by unheard-of brutality.” And what can we say of the directive of 13 May 1941 introducing courts-martial in the “Barbarossa” region? And of the order of 16 October 1941 calling for the execution of 80 to 100 Communists for each German killed? What could Keitel say about the document known as “Nacht und Nebel”?

These are documents stained in blood. No one can compute how many thousands of prisoners of war, soldiers and officers of the Red Army, had been killed and tortured to death in the camps of fascist Germany. You remember how on 21 January 1946 at the afternoon session the witness Lampe testified that for Himmler’s amusement the shooting of 50 Soviet officers was organized in Mauthausen Camp. You remember the witness Blaha testifying that in the spring of 1944, 94 Soviet senior military officers were tortured and then killed for refusing to impart military information. I should like to mention the testimony of the SS man, Paul Waldmann, regarding the slaughter of 840 Russian prisoners of war. You remember the testimony of the witness Kivelisha regarding the endless chain of scoffing and suffering to which all Russians captured by the Germans were subjected?

It is impossible to overlook Keitel’s directive calling for the branding of Soviet prisoners of war. One cannot forget the Keitel directive of 16 December 1942. It is entitled “Measures to be adopted against bands.” Under the word “bands” Defendant Keitel understood any resistance movement and demanded that his troops revert to harshest methods, stopping at nothing, even with regard to women and children.

The Soviet Prosecution submitted Le Court’s testimony as Document Number USSR-162. Le Court states that he shot and burned Soviet citizens and razed their houses. He alone had shot over 1,200 persons and for this achievement was prematurely promoted to the rank of Obergefreiter and awarded the medal for service in the East. He acted in accordance with Keitel’s directives.

The directive of Keitel’s instituting courts-martial in the “Barbarossa” region freed such persons of all responsibility for their crimes. Keitel’s hands are stained with the blood of the victims of Le Court and his kind. It was in carrying out Keitel’s directive to the effect that “life in the eastern regions was of no value at all,” that the soldiers and officers of Hitlerite Germany committed their atrocities.

Document Number USSR-51, submitted by the Prosecution, shows how, on 28 August 1941, attacking German troops drove a group of women, children, and old men in front of their combat units. In the village of Kolpino the fascists forced the peasants to dig trenches and build bridges for them. Then they shot all the peasants.

In Yugoslavia the mass shooting of hostages was a daily practice of the Armed Forces and military administration. In a secret report of 15 February 1940, addressed to Göring, the OKW justifies the practice of seizing hostages.

I wish to conclude with Exhibit Number USSR-356, Document Number EC-338, which Your Honors will, of course, remember. In this document Admiral Canaris informs Keitel of the club law prevalent in the prisoner-of-war camps, of the hunger, and of the mass shootings of Soviet prisoners of war. Even that hardened fascist spy, Canaris, fearing eventual responsibility, could not ignore a cruelty which cried to High Heaven and a flagrant violation of all accepted laws and customs of warfare.

You will remember Keitel’s note on this report: “I approve and support these measures.”

On 7 April 1946 in the course of the cross-examination, I put the following question to Keitel:

“You, Defendant Keitel, called a Field Marshal, repeatedly referred to yourself as a soldier before this Tribunal, and you, by your bloodthirsty resolution of September 1941 approved and sanctioned the murder, in cold blood, of thousands of unarmed captured soldiers. Do you confirm this?”

Keitel was forced to admit this fact.

This resolution alone unveils the true, the authentic face of Field Marshal Keitel. The highly involved arguments of the defense cannot absolve him of his responsibility for the bloodshed and for the innumerable human lives cut short by the fascist military clique acting on orders and directives signed by Keitel’s hand.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will recess now.

[A recess was taken.]

GENERAL RUDENKO: Jodl.

The Defendant Alfred Jodl shares equal responsibility with Defendant Keitel as his assistant and as Hitler’s closest military adviser. Everything connected with the preparation and execution of the aggressive plans of Hitlerite Germany is inseparably linked to the name of Jodl, as well as to Keitel’s. There is no need to repeat all the aggressive acts of Hitler’s Germany which had been individually planned and executed with the direct connivance of Defendant Jodl. They are already facts of common knowledge.

As the representative of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, I should like to emphasize once again that the criminal plan for the perfidious attack on the Soviet Union, coded by the Hitler clique under the name of the ill-fated conqueror, Friedrich Barbarossa, is signed not only by Hitler and Keitel, but by Jodl as well. But this is more than a mere signature.

As far back as the summer of 1940, in Reichenhall, Jodl held the first conference with his staff officers at which the question of a possible attack by Hitler Germany on Soviet Russia was discussed. It was the Defendant Jodl alone who, even before the attack against the U.S.S.R., issued his well-known “Instructions on the Use of Propaganda in the ‘Barbarossa’ Region.” In these instructions it is definitely stated that “propaganda directed at the partition of the Soviet Union should not, as yet, be carried out.”

Thus, Defendant Jodl knew beforehand of the actual aims of Germany’s attack on the U.S.S.R. and knew of the predatory, violent nature of a war which called for the dismemberment of the Soviet Union. It was Jodl who participated in the preparation and organization of a provocative incident staged on the Czechoslovak border intended to justify the aggressive act of Hitler’s Germany against this peace-loving nation. It was Jodl who signed the directive of 28 September 1938 regarding the order in which the so-called Henlein Corps was to be used should Case Green be realized. How full of derision are the words of the Defendant Jodl about the “honor of the soldier” when we read his order for the destruction of Leningrad, Moscow, and other cities of the Soviet Union. It was this selfsame Jodl who with inimitable cynicism declared at a conference with Hitler on 1 December 1941 that German troops could with impunity “hang by the feet and quarter” the Soviet patriots.

As Hitler’s closest military adviser, who had personally participated in the preparation and execution of all the bloodthirsty and aggressive plans of Hitlerite Germany, Defendant Jodl has been justly included in the ranks of the major German war criminals.

Dönitz and Raeder.

My British colleague has proved the guilt of Defendants Karl Dönitz and Erich Raeder so convincingly and thoroughly that I see no need to dwell particularly on these Grossadmiral of Hitlerite Germany, who have stained their admirals’ uniforms by such infamous crimes.

In the course of his cross-examination Dönitz told the Soviet prosecutor that he was unaware of the reasons for which Hitler had appointed him as his successor. I do not believe that Dönitz was quite sincere in making this statement. One has only to refer to the transcripts of the sessions of 8 May in order to understand without any confession on his part why he became Hitler’s successor when the Hitlerite Reich collapsed to the ground. The important point is not the fact that an admiral was needed at a moment like this, but the fact that in the opinion of Hitler, who so soon was to fade from the picture, only the Nazi Grossadmiral Dönitz could do anything to save the sinking ship.

Under Hitler Dönitz commanded the submarine arm of the German Reich. We know the role which the German U-boats played in this war. In this connection it is worth emphasizing that Dönitz prided himself on being the author of the so-called “wolf-pack tactics.” The people of the Soviet have not forgotten how Dönitz’ submarines, in the Baltic and Black Seas, sank both hospital ships and steamers evacuating peaceful citizens—women and children.

The last head of the Hitlerite Government should also be one of the first to pay the penalty for all those crimes which have led to the trial of the major war criminals before the International Military Tribunal.

The name of Raeder is linked to the impious directive for the destruction of Leningrad. At the Trial Raeder tried to act the part of an “honest soldier.” But the mere fact that it was he, together with Hitler and Keitel, who conspired to “wipe Leningrad off the face of the earth” and to exterminate more than 3 million of the population of that great city, whose very name is indissolubly connected with the development of the culture and history of mankind, makes Raeder one of the major war criminals.

Raeder participated in drafting all the most important plans of aggression of German fascism. This participant in the criminal fascist conspiracy must, therefore, bear the punishment meted out to his associates.

Kaltenbrunner.

The Defendant Ernst Kaltenbrunner was considered by Himmler as the most deserving successor to that hangman, Heydrich, executed by Czech patriots. On 30 January 1943, he was appointed head of the Reich Security Main Office and chief of the SD.

Numerous documents and especially directives signed by Kaltenbrunner for the mass deportation of people to the concentration camps, the testimonies of his subordinates, including the depositions of Walter Schellenberg, former chief of foreign intelligence (Amt VI), and of Otto Ohlendorf, chief of the security within Germany (Amt III or SD), fully convict Kaltenbrunner of the most heinous crimes.

At the session of 12 April 1946, in the course of Kaltenbrunner’s examination, the testimonies of Johann Kandutor, ex-prisoner of Mauthausen, were read into the record. In his depositions Kandutor described as follows the manner in which Kaltenbrunner passed his time on one of his visits to the camp:

“Laughing, Kaltenbrunner entered the gas chamber; then the prisoners were led from the barracks to execution and all three methods of execution were demonstrated—hanging, shooting in the neck, and gassing.”

I shall not dwell upon the numerous proofs available, since they have been sufficiently clarified before the Tribunal. There is only one point of the accusation against Kaltenbrunner on which I consider it necessary to dwell.

Together with the other RSHA organizations, Kaltenbrunner took over from Heydrich five Einsatzgruppen. The citizens of the Soviet Union well remember these cruel organizations of German fascism, headed by Kaltenbrunner. Einsatzgruppe A reached the approaches to Leningrad. It created the “Fort of Death Number 9” near Kaunas and the secret center for the mass extermination of human beings in Panarai; it carried out executions by shooting in the woods of Salaspilsk and Bikerneksk near Riga; it erected gallows in the parks of Pushkino one of Leningrad’s suburbs.

Einsatzgruppe B settled down in the vicinity of Smolensk. It burned alive the peasants of Byelorussia; it shot down the victims of the awful Pinsk action; it drowned thousands of Byelorussian women and children in the Masurian Lakes; it operated with “murder vans” in Minsk; it liquidated the ghetto in the Verchnye Sadka district of Smolensk.

Einsatzgruppe C was billeted in Kiev. This group carried out the mass action in Babij Jar near Kiev, an execution unmatched in cruelty, when 100,000 Soviet citizens perished on a single day.

Einsatzgruppe D operated in the southern regions of the temporarily occupied territories of the Soviet Union. This group was the first to experiment with the “murder vans” on Soviet citizens in the district of Stavropol and in Krasnodar.

And when Kaltenbrunner’s fate will be decided, all the victims asphyxiated in the “murder vans” near Stavropol, buried alive in the graves near Kiev and Riga, burnt alive in the Byelorussian villages, must never be forgotten. All these innocent victims are on his unclean conscience.

Successor to a hangman, and himself a hangman, Kaltenbrunner carried out the most revolting function in the common criminal plan of the Hitlerite clique.

Rosenberg.

I shall now summarize the evidence relevant to the guilt and responsibility of the Defendant Rosenberg.

In spite of Rosenberg’s efforts to minimize both his role and his importance, in spite of his efforts to juggle with historical facts and events, he cannot deny that he was the official ideologist of the Nazi Party; that already a quarter of a century ago, he had laid the “theoretical” foundations of the fascist Hitlerite State, which during this whole period morally corrupted millions of Germans, preparing them “ideologically” for the monstrous crimes committed by the Hitlerites—crimes unprecedented in history, and which are the subject of this Trial.

When, at the Trial, Rosenberg was asked: “Were you not one of Hitler’s closest collaborators?” he did not even speak—he shouted in reply: “That is not true, I never was.” But however hard Rosenberg tried to deny his “Führer,” he has not succeeded in washing away the stigma of being “one of the oldest and the most faithful of Hitler’s comrades-in-arms.” For 25 years Rosenberg, first acting as Hitler’s collaborator and afterward under his direction, worked out and assisted in the realization of the fantastic plan for world supremacy, having chosen, for the justification of this criminal plan, the misanthropic theory of racism.

The fact that Rosenberg utilized for his purposes garbled science and borrowed theories from Karl Lueger and Paul Lagarde, Count Gobineau, Oswald Spengler, and Arthur Moeller cannot affect the question of Rosenberg’s guilt and responsibility. The important fact is that Rosenberg, having assembled all these “scientific excreta,” raised the racial theories to a degree of racial fanaticism and educated in this spirit the members of the Nazi Party and the youth of Germany. And when the representatives of the “master race” elaborated and committed acts of aggression, when the German occupation troops enslaved and exterminated nations and peoples, when the factories of death were created at Maidanek and Auschwitz, Treblinka and Chelmno, Rosenberg’s share in all these crimes was not insignificant. All this was the outcome of the fascist racial ideology, the essence of which consists in the idea that the “Aryan, North Germanic” race is a “master race,” and that all other races and nations belong to “lower strata.”

Rosenberg’s counsel said: “The Tribunal must judge crimes and not theories.” In Rosenberg’s case such an argument is clearly unconvincing. For Rosenberg not only confessed the fascist racial theory, but knowingly propagated it and instilled it into the conscience of the German people, this very theory which became a direct menace to the existence of the democratic European states. The person who carries microbes must be isolated, but the person who willingly disseminates microbes must be tried.

Rosenberg’s criminal activities were not limited to the ideological preparation for aggression and to the propagation of man-hating theories. His activities had many facets. The criminal activities of the foreign policy department of the NSDAP have already been sufficiently elucidated at this Trial; this department, which for many years was subordinated to the Defendant Rosenberg, was in charge of a network of semilegal Nazi agencies abroad. The influence of this organization on the measures of foreign policy undertaken by Hitlerite Germany and in the initiation of aggressive wars was very great indeed.

One of the documents submitted by Neurath’s counsel and accepted by the Tribunal reads as follows:

“There existed at one time in Berlin three sorts of ministries for foreign affairs: Herr Rosenberg’s Ministry, Herr Von Ribbentrop’s Ministry, and the official ministry on Wilhelmstrasse.”

And finally, Rosenberg’s letter to Hitler of 6 February 1938 stressed his real influence on the foreign policy of Hitlerite Germany and his “merits” in this field, when he applied for membership in the Secret Cabinet Council.

I see no need for giving an analysis of all Rosenberg’s criminal activities and I only intend to dwell briefly on his activities as “Führer’s plenipotentiary” and later as Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories. In these functions Rosenberg most clearly showed himself as a participant in the criminal conspiracy.

Rosenberg declares that he was against war with the U.S.S.R. and that he learned from Hitler about the preparations for an attack against the U.S.S.R. only when all the orders to military channels had already been issued, that he never really had any influence on the foreign policy of Hitlerite Germany. I affirm, Your Honors, that all these declarations of Rosenberg are false.

It is a well-known fact that the plan for a German crusade against Soviet Russia was actually the starting point of the National Socialist foreign policy, as set out in the 1921 New Year publication of the Völkischer Beobachter, and that the author of this policy was Alfred Rosenberg. It was Rosenberg who, inspired by Ludendorff and Rechberg, propagated—together with Hitler—a foreign policy directed toward the creation of an anti-Semitic, anti-Bolshevik, and anti-British continent of Europe.

Rosenberg’s speeches, setting out plans for the “exchange” of the Polish Corridor for the Ukraine, his “diplomatic” journeys into certain countries after the seizure of power by the fascists, his clumsy efforts to realize the foreign policy program of the fascists, were widely voiced in the press.

The documents submitted give a clear picture of Rosenberg’s feverish activities in April 1941 during the period immediately preceding the attack by Germany on the U.S.S.R., when he was nominated the Führer’s plenipotentiary for the central control of the questions connected with the eastern European territories.

On 7 April 1941, 2 weeks prior to his nomination, Rosenberg sent his proposals to Hitler for the division of the Soviet Union into Reich Commissariats and for the appointment of fascist governors for the occupied territories. Byelorussia and the Ukraine, Minsk and Kiev, Rostov and Tiflis, Leningrad and Moscow, were all enumerated in Rosenberg’s proposals. For the post of Reich Commissioner of Moscow, Rosenberg recommended the notorious Erich Koch.

We have heard about Rosenberg’s meetings with Brauchitsch and Raeder and of his conferences with Funk, General Thomas, State Secretary Backe and others, on the questions of economic exploitation of the eastern territories, and about his negotiations with Ribbentrop, the SA chief of staff, and the chief of the German Intelligence Service, Admiral Canaris. Already 6 weeks prior to the attack on the U.S.S.R. he drafted directives for all the Reich Commissioners of the eastern territories to be occupied, in which he provided for a “Reich Commissariat Russia” and a “Reich Commissariat Caucasus,” while the Byelorussian Republic was to form a part of the “Reich Commissariat Ostland.”

Rosenberg attempted to affirm that he did not share in the aggressive and predatory aims of the war against the U.S.S.R. and that on the contrary, in his capacity of Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, he even loaded with benefits the population of these territories. And this he dared to affirm, when the directive to the Reich Commissioner of the Baltic States and Byelorussia described his aims as follows:

“... the creation of a German protectorate for the purpose of subsequent inclusion of these regions in the Greater German Reich, by the Germanization of elements suitable from the racial point of view, by the colonization by representatives of the Germanic race, and by the extermination of all undesirable elements.”

And this is maintained after the following recommendations were made in another of Rosenberg’s directives on the subject of the civil administration in the Eastern Occupied Territories:

“The main and foremost task ... is the furtherance of the interests of the Reich. The regulations of the Hague Convention regarding land warfare are no more valid, since we can consider the U.S.S.R. defeated.... For this reason, all measures which the German administration may consider necessary or convenient are admissible.”

Rosenberg was too hasty in his assertion that the U.S.S.R. was defeated, he let the cat out of the bag and gave away his most secret plans. But this document is also an irrefutable proof, invalidating all the attempts of the defendant to cast the burden of responsibility for the monstrous crimes perpetrated by the German fascist oppressors throughout the occupied territories of the U.S.S.R. from his own shoulders to those of individual officials and policemen, to Koch and Himmler.

It was Rosenberg who permitted the repudiation of the Hague Convention and the utilization of all measures which might seem “convenient.” When Koch, for his “convenience,” exterminated the population of the entire Zuman district, he was merely acting in the spirit of this directive of Rosenberg’s.

Rosenberg described here his dissensions with Koch. He alleged that he followed a humanitarian policy and even imported agricultural machinery. Even if Rosenberg did indeed, from time to time, object to Koch’s actions, it was only because he was afraid of premature publicity, and because he was afraid that Koch’s unparalleled ill-treatment of the Ukrainian people would only strengthen the resistance movement. Rosenberg was influenced by fear and not by any humanitarian considerations. Rosenberg’s true policy is set out in numerous documents which have now become known to the public opinion of the world and which are in the files of the Tribunal.

In an official note for the Führer dated 16 March 1942, Rosenberg set out the aims of the German policy in the occupied territories of the U.S.S.R. and, primarily, in the Ukraine:

“... the utilization of minerals, the creation of a German colony in certain regions, no artificial intellectual development of the population, but its preservation as a source of manpower.”

In his report on the reorganization of the Caucasus Rosenberg wrote that:

“The problem of the Ostland consists in the transplanting of the Baltic nations to the soil of German culture and in the preparation for an adequate German strategic frontier. The task of the Ukraine is to secure necessary food supplies for Germany and Europe, and raw materials for the continent. The problem of the Caucasus is primarily a political problem and it will lead to the expansion of continental Europe, headed by Germany, from the isthmus of the Caucasus to the Near East.”

And finally, I would like to point out that it was Rosenberg who had made the following statement in a speech before the German Labor Front, on the policy adopted in the occupied U.S.S.R. territories: “It seems that if these peoples are left to themselves, arbitrary justice and tyranny will be the most suitable form of government.” The Defense affirm that Rosenberg and his Einsatzstab were not concerned with the plunder of cultural treasures, but with their preservation. This statement is also entirely false. Numerous documents read into the record at this Trial have proved that as early as April 1941, that is, more than 2 months prior to the attack on the U.S.S.R., Rosenberg was organizing special units and staffs and was elaborating plans for the removal of the cultural treasures of the Soviet Union.

On 16 October 1941 Rosenberg wrote to Hitler as follows:

“I have issued an order to the same Einsatzstab of my organization now to carry out in a more comprehensive manner in the Eastern Occupied Territories the work already accomplished in the West ... having the whole picture before our eyes, we can satisfy all the just wishes and demands of the agencies of the Greater German Reich. On this basis I would also be willing personally to guarantee that all the art treasures for Linz and other museums which can be utilized for your own plans, my Führer, were factually used for this purpose.”

On 17 October 1944 Rosenberg wrote to Lammers that for the transport of goods “listed” by his organization, it was necessary to use 1,418,000 railroad cars, while 427,000 further tons were shipped by water. In this same letter Rosenberg mentioned that among the confiscated goods removed to Germany, there were 9,000 cars with agricultural and other machinery. And after this he dares to speak about some machines which he has allegedly imported into the Ukraine!

And finally I shall speak about the ridiculous theory of the so-called Rosenberg’s “noble anti-Semitism.” It is absurd to argue with Rosenberg’s counsel who affirms that such a thing as a “noble anti-Semitism” really exists, and it is all the more absurd to argue with Rosenberg. In my statement to the Tribunal I threw some light on the fascist propaganda contained in the speech of the Defense. I would now like to recall to the Tribunal the text of two of Rosenberg’s documents:

In his directive of 29 April 1941 he wrote:

“The Jewish problem requires a general settlement; temporary measures are to be decided upon. (Compulsory labor for Jews, the creation of ghettos, et cetera).”

Even more cynical and frank is the statement made by Rosenberg in November 1942 when he, in his capacity of Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, addressed a conference of the German Labor Front:

“We must not be satisfied”—said Rosenberg—“with the deportation of Jews from one country to another and with the existence, here or there, of a large Jewish ghetto; no, our object must always remain the same. The Jewish problem in Europe and in Germany will be solved only when there are no more Jews left on the European continent.”

And all the operations “Cottbus” for the extermination of Jews in the Baltic towns, in the Ukraine and Byelorussia—all these were carried out in conformity with Rosenberg’s theories and with his agreement.

In 1937 Rosenberg received the German National Prize. Commenting on this event, the fascist press wrote as follows:

“Alfred Rosenberg has brilliantly succeeded with his books in building up the scientific and spiritual foundations and in consolidating and strengthening the philosophy of National Socialism.... Only future generations will be able fully to appreciate the profound influence of this man on the philosophical foundations of the National Socialist Reich.”

But the future has now become the present. And I am sure that the Tribunal will be able duly to appreciate not only the influence exercised by Rosenberg on the “philosophical foundations of the National Socialist Reich,” but also his active participation in all the crimes against peace and humanity perpetrated by the Hitlerites.

Frank.

A lawyer by training, the Defendant Hans Frank was one of those who liked to talk about the reception of the “ancient German” law for Germans, about “principles of justice” for the “select,” about the “right of the chosen people” to annihilate nations and countries.

In 1939 he was the man who for a long time past had been corrupting the German legal concept, to whom Hitler entrusted the fate of subjugated Poland. Frank arrived in Poland to realize practically his entire program for the enslavement and extermination of the people on the territory of a country with an age-old history and with its own culture of high standing.

I should like to remind the Tribunal of some of Frank’s views expressed during the first months of his stay in Poland, taken from his so-called “diary.” It is hardly worth while, to discuss with the counsel the probative value of this document. Frank himself declared to the Court that “this document was of historical importance” and to the question, “whether all his statements contained in the diary were true,” he replied “they fully correspond to what I know.”

On 19 January 1940 Frank declared with cynical frankness, at a conference of the departmental leaders:

“On 15 September 1939 I was entrusted with the task of governing the conquered Eastern Territories and received a special order to ruin this territory ruthlessly as a war territory and a war trophy, and to turn it into a heap of rubble from the viewpoint of the social, economic, cultural, and political structure.”

On 31 October 1939, in the presence of Goebbels, at a conference uniting the leading officials of the Government General, he declared: “A perfectly clear differentiation must be made between the German people—the master race—and the Poles.”

He then remembered that Polish culture which Frank, as counsel Dr. Seidl has said here, cared for so greatly. He stated:

“The Poles can be allowed only those possibilities for educating themselves which would prove the hopelessness of the destiny of their nation. Bad films alone or films demonstrating the might and greatness of the Germans can be taken into consideration for this purpose.”

One of Frank’s first instructions was the order to shoot hostages. Later on similar orders were to be counted by the hundreds and by the thousands until they finally culminated in the edition of the regulation dated 2 October 1943.

On 10 November 1939 Frank was informed that the day of Polish independence was approaching and that posters were to be hung up on certain houses to remind the Poles of their national holiday. The following entry then appeared in Frank’s diary:

“... the Governor General decreed that one inhabitant of the male sex is to be taken from every house on which an affixed poster of this kind is not removed and is to be shot. ...

“The Pole must feel that we do not intend building a constitutional state for him.”

The short extract we are quoting from the speech Frank made at the conference of the chiefs of departments of the Government General characterizes this Hitlerite “lawyer” far better than any lengthy excerpts taken from his full-dress speeches which we were obliged to listen to here.

Frank’s criminal activities in Poland were so very manifold that there is no possibility, in a short speech, to reconstruct to the Tribunal the innumerable proofs of his guilt which have been submitted in this courtroom and which are evidently still fresh in the memory of the judges.

But from Frank’s criminal activities in Poland we must isolate that predominant trait which is Frank’s criminal activity as the murderer of millions of people. Of course he looted; he was Göring’s plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan and he looted, so to say, “in the course of his duties.”

He sent over 2 million Poles to Germany for forced labor. The attempt of the defense to represent Frank as “the enemy of coercive methods of recruitment” can be based only on the assumption that nobody excepting counsel had studied Frank’s diaries. For Frank never can escape documents such as the minutes of the meeting of the departmental leaders, dated 12 April 1940, or the notes of Gauleiter Sauckel of 18 August 1942, or the transcript of the meeting with Bühler, Krüger, and others of 21 April 1940.

But he sent people to forced labor in order to wring them dry in the interests of the Reich before sending them to their doom. The regime, established by Hans Frank throughout Poland during all the stages of the temporary German domination in this country, was a regime for the inhuman destruction of millions of people by varied, but invariably criminal, methods.

It is not merely incidental that the German fascist assassins who annihilated 11,000 Polish prisoner-of-war officers in Katyn forest should refer to the regime which Frank instituted in Poland as an example for their own activities—as the Tribunal has been able to ascertain not so very long ago in this courtroom from the evidence presented by the former deputy mayor of Smolensk—Professor Bazilevsky.

I consider it to be particularly important, at this point, to emphasize the concept Frank had of the relations with the Polish population after the war:

“I insistently draw your attention”—said Frank—“to the fact that, should peace be concluded, nothing would change in this respect. This peace will signify that we, as a world power, will conduct more firmly than hitherto our general line of policy. This peace would signify that we will have to carry out colonization on a still far greater scale, but the principle will not have changed.”

This was stated in 1940 when Frank was contemplating the first mass murder of the Polish “intelligentsia,” the so-called “AB Action.”

In 1944, at the meeting of the agricultural leaders at Zakopane Frank said:

“If we win the war, then, as far as I care, we could make mincemeat of the Poles and Ukrainians and of all those who are idling around ... then come what may.”

It was not Frank’s fault that as far back as 1944, dreaming to make “mincemeat” of Poles and Ukrainians, he was compelled to add “if we win the war.” At this time he could not be so emphatic in his utterings as on 2 August 1943, when at the reception of the Party speakers in the Royal Palace of the Kraków Castle he spoke about the exterminated Polish Jews: “Here we started out with 3,500,000 Jews, now but a few workers’ companies remain of this number. All the others have—let us say—emigrated.”

Both Frank and his counsel attempted to prove that the defendant had known nothing about the happenings in the concentration camps of the Government General. However, in these secret reports addressed by Frank to Hitler, which counsel tried to utilize on Frank’s behalf, we may find a confirmation of the fact that Frank was well informed about what was occurring in the camps. It is said there: “The majority of the Polish intellectuals have not reacted to the news from Katyn and quote in answer similar atrocities in Auschwitz.”

Frank then quotes a highly characteristic passage describing the reaction of the Polish workers to the provocative communications of the Germans about Katyn: “There are concentration camps in Auschwitz and Maidanek where mass murder of the Poles was carried out on assembly lines.” And further:

“Today, unfortunately, Polish public opinion, and not the intellectuals alone, compares Katyn to the mass death rate in the German concentration camps, as well as to the shooting of men, women, and even of children and old people, during the infliction of collective punishment in the districts.”

After the secret report addressed to Hitler no other new course was adopted by Frank. On the contrary, Frank published his regulation of 2 October 1943 which the defendant himself termed as “dreadful” when questioned by his counsel. After this regulation had been carried into effect, many thousands of innocent people became the victims of this decision. The number of executions increased steadily till it amounted to 200 persons executed at one time in Warsaw.

The same happened in the streets of all the Polish towns where the so-called “police courts” carried out executions, as stated in the text of the regulation itself, immediately following the verdict. The people doomed to die were brought to the execution grounds, wearing paper clothing, their lips glued together with adhesive tape, or their mouths stuffed with plaster. After their imprisonment they seemed to have been drained of the last drop of blood. At the state conference held in Kraków on 16 December 1943, where Frank stated with satisfaction that the executions had had “favorable consequences,” another question was simultaneously discussed. In the records of this conference it is stated:

“One must perhaps also consider whether special places of execution should not be created for this, for it had been ascertained that the Polish population streamed to places of execution which were accessible to all, in order to put the blood-soaked earth into containers and take these to the church.”

The defense counsel tried to speak here about the interminable dissensions of Frank with the Police; he had allegedly disagreed with their action. Let us see what kind of dissensions these were.

The first special action carried out in Poland, namely, the AB Action—the extermination of several thousands of Polish intellectuals—had not been initiated by the Police, but by Frank himself. According to Hitler’s decree of 2 May 1942, the chief of Police was subordinated to the Governor General. When some dissensions between Frank and the chief of Police did arise, it was Krüger who had to leave his post of Police chief, whereas Frank remained Governor General of Poland. As for Obergruppenführer Koppe, who took over from Krüger, who else but Frank expressed his thanks to him on 16 December 1943 for shooting the hostages, his “gratitude for his fruitful work” and noted with satisfaction, “One of the greatest specialists is at the head of the Police in the Government General.” It is incomprehensible what dissensions with the Police counsel Seidl was talking about.

The defense even tried to represent Frank as “a kind of peaceful anti-Semite,” who, while entertaining a negative attitude toward the Jewish people, never initiated massacres of the Jews or even instigated them. It is incomprehensible in this case how the following words of Frank would be interpreted by the counsel: “The Jews are a race that should be exterminated. Wherever we catch even one, we shall do away with him.”

Or his declaration at the government session of 24 August 1942, when he said:

“The fact that we have condemned 1.2 million Jews to starvation may only be mentioned by the way. It stands to reason that if these Jews do not die of starvation, it will precipitate active measures against the Jews.”

The criminal activity of this hangman of the Polish nation led to the extermination of millions.

“You see how the state organs are working, you see that they do not shrink before anything and people by the dozen are put up against the wall.” This is the manner in which Frank himself, at a conference of the Standartenführer held on 18 March 1942, characterized the bloody regime of terror set up throughout Poland.

“I did not hesitate to declare that for one German killed, up to a hundred Poles would be shot”—these words were pronounced by Frank on 15 January 1944, at a meeting of the Political Leaders of the NSDAP. “Had I gone to the Führer and told him: ‘My Führer, I report that I have destroyed another 150,000 Poles,’ he would have said: ‘Fine, if it was necessary’”—Frank stated this on 18 March 1944 while making a speech at the Reichshof, that same Frank who now tries to convince the Tribunal that he had some “differences of opinion on matters of principle” with Hitler and Himmler.

Those declarations that Frank made during the first months of his stay in Poland constituted a genuine murder program, perpetrated by the defendant methodically, ruthlessly, and according to plan. Frank, of course, was fully aware of the fact that should war not lead to victory he would have to bear the full responsibility for the crimes committed in Poland, as well as for his participation in the fascist conspiracy. As far back as 1943 Frank spoke about this at a meeting with his accomplices. We must give credit where it is due: As a lawyer he was far more correct in his depiction and formulation of the concepts of a criminal conspiracy than certain lawyers at this Trial who, basing themselves on obsolete ideas, endeavor to dispute the foundation for a conspiracy put forward by the Prosecution. It was at this government meeting, held jointly with the Police on 25 January 1943, that the then Governor General declared to Himmler’s hyenas:

“... I should like to state one thing: We must not be squeamish when we learn that a total of 17,000 people have been shot. After all, these people who were shot are also war victims ... We must remember that all of us who are gathered together here figure on Mr. Roosevelt’s list of war criminals. I have the honor of being Number One. We have therefore become, so to speak, accomplices in the sense of world history. For this very reason we must get together, we must feel together, and it would be ridiculous if we were to let ourselves get involved in any squabbles over methods.”

This appeal to murder is very far from the “interminable quarrels with the Police” which Frank’s counsel has mentioned here.

The defendant made a mistake about one thing: He was incorrect in defining his place in the dock. But he was not mistaken about the fundamental facts: He took his place in the dock as a “criminal in the sense of world history.”

Frick.

The history of the development of the Nazi movement in Germany and the numerous crimes of the Hitlerites is indissolubly connected with the name of the Defendant Wilhelm Frick. As Minister of the Interior of the Hitlerite Government, Frick participated in the promulgation of numerous laws, decrees and other acts directed at the destruction of democracy in Germany, the persecution of the Church, the discrimination against the Jews, et cetera. In this capacity the Defendant Frick contributed actively to the creation in Germany of the Hitlerite totalitarian State.

Over a period of many years the German Secret State Police—Gestapo—which was to acquire a grim and ill-famed reputation was subordinated to the Defendant Frick. The directive concerning the extermination of old people and of the insane was issued in 1940 by none other than the Defendant Frick. In his function of Minister of the Interior in Hitlerite Germany, as testified by the witness Gisevius in this Court, Frick was fully cognizant of the vast system of concentration camps spread throughout the Reich, as well as of the existence in these camps of an inhuman regime.

The part played by the Defendant Frick in the preparation and realization of the Hitlerite Government’s aggressive plans was very considerable. He was a member of the Reich Defense Council as well as Plenipotentiary General for Administration. All the documents by which the Hitlerite conspirators legalized the incorporation by Germany of the territories seized were signed, among the other Hitlerite ringleaders, also by the Defendant Frick.

In his capacity of Protector of Bohemia and Moravia the Defendant Frick bears personal responsibility for all the crimes committed on that territory by the Hitlerites.

After the treacherous attack of Hitlerite Germany on the Soviet Union, the Defendant Frick’s Ministry of the Interior participated actively in creating the administration of the territories seized in the U.S.S.R. The administrative machinery of the German occupational authorities in the East was mainly staffed by officials of the Ministry of the Interior.

There is no need to dwell once again on the part played by this administrative machinery, which had been created with the most active co-operation of the Defendant Frick, for the extermination, enslavement and the other inhuman actions carried out against the civilian population of the occupied territories.

Frick bears full and direct responsibility for all these crimes, inasmuch as he was an active participant in the Nazi conspiracy.

Streicher.

Notwithstanding the fact that during the war years the Defendant Julius Streicher did not formally hold functions directly connected with the perpetration of murders and mass executions, it is hard to overestimate the crimes committed by this man. Together with Himmler, Kaltenbrunner, Pohl, and those who conceived, constructed and brought into action the gas chambers and gas wagons; together with those who personally committed mass actions, Streicher must bear responsibility for the monstrous crimes of German fascism. The incitement to national and racial dissension, the cultivation of perverted cruelty and the call to murder—all these not only represented the Party duties of this man for many years, they were also the source of his income.

And it is not by accident that in his greeting to Streicher of April 1937, which is already known to the Tribunal, Himmler expressed his high esteem for the merits of the Stürmer and of its editor-in-chief.

One can consider Streicher as the actual “spiritual father” of those who quartered the children of Treblinka. Had it not been for the Stürmer and its editor German fascism would not have been able to educate, at such short notice, those mass murder gangs who put into effect the criminal plans of Hitler and his thugs by murdering over 6 million European Jews. Over a period of many years Streicher spiritually corrupted the children and the youth of Germany. The detestable “children’s editions” of Der Stürmer have been submitted to the Tribunal.

And therefore, together with Baldur von Schirach, Streicher must bear responsibility for the selection of Jewish children from the Lvov ghetto for target practice by the morally perverted Hitlerjugend. It is not by accident that Von Schirach held Streicher’s “historical merits” in so high esteem.

The fanatical Nuremberg Laws were only the “beginning of the struggle” for this “Judophobe Number 1,” as he called himself, who was also the organizer of the first anti-Jewish pogroms. As the Tribunal will recall, after these laws were issued, Streicher called for the actual extermination of the Jews in Europe and wrote: “This problem will only be solved when world Jewry is exterminated.”

I will not dwell on the shameless and mendacious “ritual murder numbers” of Der Stürmer, intended to incite the SS men to the killing of millions of innocent persons and to justify any atrocity directed against the Jews. These proofs of Streicher’s guilt, which were inter alia submitted to the Tribunal, are indisputable and of common knowledge. In 1939 he anticipated Maidanek and Treblinka and wrote that “perhaps graves alone will testify to the previous existence of Jews in Europe.” In 1943, when the gas chambers of Treblinka and Auschwitz were already engulfing millions of victims, Der Stürmer published articles inciting to the liquidation of the “ghetto,” articles full of lies and malice; and finally Der Stürmer could state with sadistical satisfaction, that “the Jews of Europe have disappeared.”

Streicher lied all his life. He attempted to lie here in Court. I do not know whether he believed he would be able to deceive anybody by these lies, or whether he lied from habit or from fear. But it seems to me that it must be apparent, even to the defendant himself, that his last lie will not deceive anybody and will never bring him salvation.

Schacht.

In carrying out a vast and complicated task, the Defendant Hjalmar Schacht played a prominent part in the preparation and realization of the criminal plans of the Nazi conspirators. Schacht’s position, where his defense is concerned, is extremely simple.

If he is to be believed, purely patriotic motives attracted him to Hitlerism. He was against aggressive wars but in favor of rearmament for Germany in order to maintain peace. He was all for the return of Germany’s colonies in view of establishing economic stability in Europe. Having come to the conviction that the policy of the Nazi Government was directed toward excessive armament and thereby threatened with another world war, Schacht went over to the opposition. He sabotaged the measures taken by the Hitlerite Government and, as a result, he was persecuted as a participant in the plot against Hitler. Defendant Schacht now strives to depict the enthusiastic letters, full of expressions of loyalty, which he addressed to Hitler, as a method of camouflaging his true feeling of opposition toward the Hitlerite regime.

Actually, Schacht’s connection with the Nazi movement dates back to 1930. Schacht gravitated toward National Socialism, and both Hitler and Göring sought Schacht’s support. Indeed the latter, with his vast connections in Germany’s industrial and financial spheres, could, better than anyone else, render invaluable services to the Nazi movement. And this he did. As far back as 29 August 1932, in a letter addressed to Hitler, Schacht assured the latter of his loyalty.

These were not mere words, for more than anybody Defendant Schacht played a decisive part in Hitler’s advent to power. It was he, Schacht, who organized the demand formulated by the German industrialists for Hitler to be appointed Reich Chancellor. As early as 1932 he, Schacht, advised Von Papen, then Reich Chancellor of Germany, to hand over his post to Hitler. It was Schacht again who in 1933 on the eve of the Reichstag elections called a conference of industrialists who collected an election fund of several million marks for the Nazi Party.

Hitler’s closest follower, Goebbels, thus characterized the part played by Schacht and his importance in the creation of Nazi Germany. On 21 November 1932 he wrote down in his diary: “In a talk with Dr. Schacht I came to the conviction that he fully shares our point of view. He is one of the few who absolutely agrees with the position of the Führer.”

In his Leipzig spring fair speech on 4 March 1935 the Defendant Schacht himself defined his part in the Nazi State:

“I can assure you that all that I do and say is in full agreement with the Führer and that I will do and say nothing that would not be approved by the Führer. That is why it is with the Führer, and not with me, that all decisions rest in economic matters.”

As expected by Schacht, Hitler appreciated his merits at their full value. On his advent to power in 1933 Hitler first appointed Schacht to the post of president of the Reichsbank then to that of Reich Minister of Economics and finally to the post of Plenipotentiary for War Economy.

The Prosecution and the proceedings have clearly proved the extraordinary part played by Schacht in the preparation of Germany’s armaments and, consequently, in the launching of aggressive wars. The former War Minister, Von Blomberg, testified that in 1937 the plans of the Armed Forces were nearing completion and that Schacht was informed of these plans and of their financing.

Schacht was one of the most consistent supporters of the Nazi criminal plans. In a talk with the United States Ambassador Fuller on 23 September 1936 Schacht stated that: “Germany absolutely needs colonies. If it is possible, we shall acquire them by peaceful negotiations. If not we shall seize them.”

Speaking in Vienna in March 1938 Schacht declared:

“Thank God, this could not hinder the great German people in its forward march because Adolf Hitler unified German will and German thought. He strengthened it with reborn armed forces and in the end he gave an outer shape to the inner unity of Germany and Austria.”

Defendant Schacht was entrusted with extraordinary powers in the sphere of war economy.

Over a period of many years Schacht cumulated the functions of president of the Reichsbank, Minister of Economics and Plenipotentiary for War Economy. If only as a result of these important functions, the Defendant Schacht played an enormous and decisive part in the creation and resurrection of Nazi Germany’s war economy and Armed Forces. This part of the Defendant Schacht is clearly described in the numerous laudatory letters which he received from Hitler. The Defendant Schacht, and no other, was the creator of the adventurous method of issuing so-called mefo bills, by which 12 billion Reichsmark were allotted, apart from budget allocations, to Germany’s economy for purposes of rearmament. As mentioned before, the Defendant Schacht attempted, at various periods of his activities, to stress his alleged and ever-increasing dissension with the Nazi regime. In reality Schacht was playing a double game. On the one hand he shielded himself from the responsibility for the criminal policy of the Nazi Government by flirting with persons who actually did strive to overthrow this regime; on the other hand he remained loyal to the regime to all intents and purposes.

It was only in 1943, when the downfall of Nazi Germany became completely apparent to such a hard-boiled politician as Schacht, that he contacted more closely the circle of the opposition. However, true to himself, he took precautions for any event and did not actually do anything personally to overthrow the Nazi regime. That is why Hitler spared him.

This is the portrait of the Defendant Schacht, and this is the part he played in Hitler’s conspiracy and war crimes. It is the part of the creator of Nazi Germany’s war economy and of an instigator of the second World War launched by the criminal Nazi Government.

Funk.

Walter Funk became a Nazi long before his official admission in 1931 into the membership of the NSDAP, and he remained a Nazi to the end. His economic knowledge, his experience as a journalist, and his extensive connections with the leaders of the German industry, trade, and finance were placed by him at the service of the Hitlerite conspirators. An article published in the newspaper Das Reich on 13 August 1940, under the heading “Walter Funk—A Pioneer of National Socialist Economic Reasoning,” read as follows:

“Walter Funk remained true to his principles because he was, is, and always will be a true National Socialist, a champion devoting all his labors to the victory of the Führer’s ideals.”

The Führer’s ideals are only too well known. Funk devoted 15 years of his life to these “ideals.” Funk declared that he had nothing in common with the SS but it was he, Funk, who transformed the vaults of the Reichsbank into depositories for the treasures plundered by the SS men in the eastern and other occupied territories. Funk personally gave the orders, after his negotiations with Himmler, to take into the Reichsbank the gold teeth and plates, the spectacle frames and other valuables belonging to the victims tortured to death in numerous concentration camps.

The SS Gruppenführer Hayler was Funk’s deputy. Also under Funk’s direction operated Ohlendorf, the murderer, with the death of 90,000 persons on his conscience.

Funk, in supplement of Schacht’s measures, placed the whole of Germany’s economy at the service of Hitlerite plans for aggression and later on, the economy of the territories occupied by Germany.

As early as May 1939 Funk, together with his deputy, Landfried, elaborated plans for financing the war and the utilizing of all economic resources of Germany and of occupied Czechoslovakia. On 23 June 1939, Funk took part in the conference of the Reich Defense Council which adopted detailed plans for the placing of all national economy on a war footing.

Already at that time, Funk was not only informed of Germany’s impending attack on Poland, was not only co-operating in the realization of this aggressive plan, but was also economically preparing new war and the seizure of new territories. These were the “Führer’s great political aims” which were set out by Funk a few months later in his article entitled “Economic and financial mobilization.”

I shall mention one more document; on 25 August 1939, Funk wrote to Hitler:

“Generalfeldmarschall Göring told me that you, my Führer, yesterday evening approved the main points of the measures conceived by me for the financing of a war, stabilization of prices, fixation of wages, and the organization of an obligatory war contribution; this news made me profoundly happy.”

A long time before the treacherous attack of Germany against the U.S.S.R., Funk participated in the elaboration of plans for the spoliation of the riches of the Soviet Union. Funk attached his collaborators to Rosenberg’s Ministry and to that predatory organization Economic Staff East. Funk’s agents participated also in the plunder of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and other occupied countries. Funk was the president of the “Continental Oil Company,” created for the exploitation by the Germans of the crude oil wells in the Occupied Eastern Territories, and especially, the oil fields of Grozny and Baku.

Funk was in full agreement with the predatory aims of the war launched by Germany against the U.S.S.R. He made a speech on 17 December 1941 in Prague, to the effect that the East was the future German colony. Funk participated at the conference held on 6 August 1942 at Göring’s office for the discussion of the most effective measures for the economic plunder of the occupied territories of the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, France, Norway and other countries.

At this conference, as well as at the conference of the Central Planning Board, Funk participated in the drafting of plans for the deportation to slavery of millions of people from the occupied territories.

Such are the fundamental stages in the criminal activities of that Hitlerite conspirator, the Defendant Funk—Hitler’s personal adviser on economic questions since 1931, Reich Minister and Plenipotentiary for Economy, president of the Reichsbank and member of the Reich Defense Council—during the period of the preparation and the realization of the criminal plan, the conspiracy.

The guilt of Funk—this active participant of fascist conspiracy, for the crimes against individuals, for war crimes and crimes against humanity—has been fully proved and he must bear full responsibility for the evil deeds perpetrated by him.

Schirach.

Since 1931 and until the end of the war the Defendant Baldur von Schirach was at the head of the Nazi youth movement. After the publication on 1 December 1936 of a decree concerning the Hitler Youth, Von Schirach was, in his capacity as the Reich Youth Leader, directly subordinated to Hitler.

In his deposition before the Court the Defendant Schirach, in his efforts to evade the responsibility for the education of German youth in the spirit of National Socialist ideas, made frequent references to the fact that the Hitlerjugend was a youth organization independent of the Nazi Party and the Hitlerite Government. To defend himself, the Defendant Schirach considered it both possible and relevant to refer to the great Goethe whose words—“youth itself educates young people”—he quoted with open cynicism.

Goethe was, of course, right when he said that “youth itself educates young people.” But he meant the healthy, normal, joyful youth, and not youth morally corrupted with the obscurantism of the Hitlerites, so clearly described by Hitler’s words addressed to Rauschning:

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