THE PRESIDENT? Thank you very much. Is there other direct examination of this witness?
MR. LAFOLLETTE: If your Honor please, I think Dr. Schilf stated that he was interrogating on behalf of all defendants.
THE PRESIDENT: You may cross examine.
CROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. LAFOLLETTE:
Q Mr. Fritsche, do you think you can give fair estimate to the Tribunal of the number of times that you called the defendant Klemm for the purpose of asking him to intercede on behalf of people who had received death sentences?
AAs to sentences, I remember only one ---- the one I mentioned. In two other cases where I tried to intervene in death sentences, I did not turn to Klemm.
Q On these occasions did you talk to the defendant Klemm over the telephone; or, did you go to see him personally; did you remember?
A Only over the telephone. After the time when we studied together, I first saw Klemm again here in Nuernberg.
Q So that you either called or wrote him.
A If I remember correctly -- as far as I can remember, I only called him over the telephone.
Q On these occasions did he ever say to you that he couldn't do anything about this matter because it was a clear base? Did ever use the word "clear" to you? Just answer that please.
A I don't remember having heard the expression "clear case" -Glatter Fall, by Klemm. It is possible that he used that expression; I would have understood it, but I do not remember it. All I know is that in the case of the death sentence, and I have to go a little more into detail, where I received two dozen visits from the relatives of the person sentenced to death -- personal visits which lasted several hours because these people just stayed in my office and asked to be helped.
I can only emphasize that Klemm, in this case, expressed that the chances were very poor for the defendant, and that, nevertheless, he advised me as to how that clemency plea which was prepared by somebody else, could be submitted with some, though small chance of success.
Q So, that out of old friendship you called on him for help; and as an old friend, did he ever ask you to give him some private information as to the conduct of the war or to the progress of the war; he knew that you would know that?
A These are two questions. May I answer both of them?
Q Yes.
A The first one is whether as an old friend, he has done me a favor - I emphasized already that only in the course of the telephone conversations, and I do not even think it was the first telephone call, I was informed by him that we knew each other from our youth. The second question, whether in exchange he requested any information from me, that, I can not remember. At that time many people asked me for news. It is possible that Klemm also asked me, but that was not in connection with the assistance which Klemm granted my clients, if I may call them clients.
Q Well, do you not know the adage in Germany, that practice -- "If I scratch your back, you scratch mine", or do you not know that?
A Yes, that expression exists, but we speak of a crow in that case.
Q Now, do you know that the Poles who were in Germany wore a diamond insignia on their arms with the letter "P" on the inside of it?
AAn insignia with the letter "P", yes, that I knew.
Q Would that connote to you that a man was a free workers or a free citizen in Germany with that racial designation?
A I know that the designation of a Pole was frequently put under discussion at that time, and that many voices were heard who did not want to see such a discrimination; but it did not signify a defamation; in fact, it was rescinded later on.
Q Well, it did not signify that the man was free to go where he pleased without disclosing that he was a Pole, did it? Just answer that, yes or no, please?
A Now, you talked about what people in Germany generally knew. Let me ask you, what, in your opinion, a German judge who sentenced a Catholic priest for holding a funeral service over a Pole, thought and do you think that he thought the Pole was a free man, working pleasantly in Germany?
A I do not -
DR. SCHILF: May it please the Tribunal, I object to this question. The matter was not subject to direct examination.
MR. LA FOLLETTE: Your Honor, please, this witness testified that no one in Germany would know that there were slave laborers. I am entitled to question him as to what he thought, whether he would assume under the circumstances that these defendants had other information; whether that would change his point of view. That is the purpose of my question.
DR. KOESSL (Counsel for the Defendant Rothaug): May it please the Tribunal, I object to the question because the case was mir-represented.
THE PRESIDENT: Frankly, I confess, Mr. LaFollette, I did not quite understand your question. I was listening to it. Will you state it again please.
MR. LA FOLLETTE: All right.
Q Would you say that a German judge who sentenced a priest for holding a public funeral service for a Pole was of the opinion that that Pole was in Germany as a free and equal citizen?
THE PRESIDENT: The objection is sustained.
Q Would you say that an official of the German Ministry of Justice who had a case presented to him in which a German was sentenced for having contacts with a Pole in a village would or would not know that the Pole was a free man or not a free man in Germany?
DR. SCHIIF: May it please the Tribunal, I object because this is just a question based on an assumption.
THE PRESIDENT: I think it calls for a conclusion which the Tribunal can make for itself. The objection is sustained.
Q Mr. Fritsche, may be you can tell me was it or was it not a part of the policy of the German Propaganda Ministry to teach the philosophy that racially and by blood, the German people were a superior race?
DR. SCHILF: One moment, please; here again I must object; that was not subject of the direct examination.
THE PRESIDENT: The objection is overruled.
MR. LA FOLLETTE: You may answer.
A The answer is very brief, no; and, I can qualify that answer.
Q I would be interested if you would.
A It was not the task of the Propaganda Ministry to expound the theory of the master race which now plays such an important role. It is impossible that a number of Party propaganda agencies had that task. The propaganda machine of the State, however, did not have that mission; with primitive means of that kind, it did not work.
Q I ask you whether or not you considered it any part of the program and philosophy and belief of the Nationalist Socialist Party to extoll the superiority of the German people as a race?
A That was not an essential feature of the National Socialist fundamental ideology, but an essential feature of the basic program was to determine the differences of races which did not yet take into account the question of superiority or inferiority; and as a result therefrom, the demand to protect these racial characteristics, and, of course, it was clear that one developed the pride for these racial characteristics in the same manner as one would develop the pride for one's nation.
Q Now, you made yourself radio speeches in which you denounced the Jews and extolled the superiority of the German over the Jew, did you not; you, yourself?
A I do not believe I ever made such a statement.
Q You mean that you never made a speech on the radio that was anti-semitic; do you want to tell this Tribunal that now?
A No, no, that I do not want to say.
Q Then, I want to ask you during the time that the development of the superiority of certain characteristics of the German was being developed as a part of National Socialist thinking, did Josef Alstoetter ever come to you and object to that propaganda?
A Who is Altstoetter?
Q That is your answer. I asked you did he come to you. If you do not know him, of course, he did not come.
A No, I can not remember.
Q Did Wilhelm von Ammon ever come to you and ever objected to that propaganda?
A I do not know von Ammon.
Q Did Barnickel ever come to you and object?
A I do not know Barnickel.
Q Did Hermann Cuhorst ever come to you and object?
DR. BRIEGER: I object to that question; the matter was not the subject of the direct examination.
JUDGE BRAND: The objection is overruled, it is within the realm of cross-examination.
MR. LAFOLLETTE: You may answer.
Q: Did Hermann Cuhorst ever come to you and object?
A: No.
Q: Did Karl Engert ever come to you and object?
A: No.
Q: Did Guenter Joel ever come to you and object?
A: No.
Q: Did your old school-mate Herbert Klemm ever come to you and object?
A: No.
Q: Did Ernst Lautz ever come to you and object?
A: No; they probably had no cause to do so.
Q: Did Guenter Nebelung ever come to you and object?
A: No, he probably did not have any cause for that either.
Q: Did Rudolf Oeschey ever come to you and object?
A: Neither.
Q: Did Hans Petersen?
A: No, he did not, either.
Q: Oswald Rothaug of Nurnberg.
A: No.
Q: Kurt Rothenberger?
A: No.
Q: Franz Schlegelberger?
A: No.
Q: You spoke of press conferences, little press conferences after big press conferences, in which you said that unmonitored foreign information was made available. Did the information from foreign countries with reference to the progress of the war continue to be made available at these second press conferences to any member of an official Ministry of Germany who cared to come?
A: These information services from abroad were never mentioned in the subsequent conference. That was an oral conference where written material was hardly ever distributed but many of the participants of that subsequent conference, "Nachkonferenz" - that is to say, all journalists who took part in it, received that written material continuously.
Q: That was uncensored material?
A: Absolutely uncensored.
BY JUDGE BRAND:
Q: May I ask you... Was there any rule which prohibited members of the Ministry of Justice from attending those subsequent conferences, as far as you know?
A: It was not the question of prohibiting them to attend, but the question of invitation, and the representative of the Ministry of Justice was only invited when he announced that he had to tell us something.
BY MR. LAFOLLETTE:
Q: May I ask one further question. The fact that these conferences at which uncensored information was available to members of the German press was not a secret was it, Mr. Fritzsche?
A: That was a strict secret. That raw material could not be published without special permission. Those who received it had to keep it in a safe place and it was not to be used as a basis for any publication. It had been distributed for the own information of these journalists.
Q: Excuse me, I don't think I made myself clear. Was the fact that these conferences were held, a secret; not the material - but just the fact that they were held - was that a secret?
A: The fact that these conferences took place was not a secret, but I had tried time and again to prevent that any notes be taken during these conferences.
MR. LAFOLLETTE: I have no further questions.
BY JUDGE BRAND:
Q: I should like to ask you a very few questions, and as a preliminary let me explain that I am not inquiring concerning whether the workers were brought into the Reich involuntarily or voluntarily. Let us assume that they came voluntarily. There has been a little evidence in the case with reference to the function of the Labor Office in directing or controlling these foreign laborers, even assuming that they were voluntary. To what extent did the Labor Office control the place of work, the length of service and so on?
A: That I could not judge. I know that many agencies took care of the details of labor, first the German Labor Front, DAF, which was constituted similar to a union and was supposed to take care of the interests of the laborers, also of the foreign workers; for instance, broadcasts were requested from me, by the Labor Front for the foreign workers. Then, undoubtedly, the Party, that is to say, the Kreisleiter, was interested in labor conditions, especially in rural areas. Certainly, also the Labor Office of the State, which still existed at that time, as far as I know.
Q: The extent of the control over the foreign workers by the Labor Office, you do not feel fully informed upon?
A: No, no; that I could not tell.
Q: You spoke in your testimony of the element of freedom with which the foreign workers, for instance from France, were able to go about the country.
Did you mean by that to say that if a worker voluntarily came to the Reich and was employed there that he was free to quit his job and go back to his own country?
A: That I do not believe, but what I meant to say was that he was not imprisoned but he could walk in the street freely; and in Berlin one saw at times more foreigners than Germans.
Q: Then the fact that one voluntarily came to the the Reich as a laborer, if he did come voluntarily, did not imply that he could voluntarily quit his work and leave? The right to voluntarily enter did not include the right to voluntarily leave the country, did it?
A: Only after he served the contract which he had made.
Q: Was the contract made by his government?
A: No. There were two possibilities. I met some Dutch and Belgian laborers who had made contracts on their own. I met French workers who had made a contract with their own government to work in Germany for that and that time.
Q: You referred to agreements between France and the German Reich with reference to the employment of labor.
A: Yes.
Q: What government of France was the agreement made with?
A: That government of France which at that time was recognized as the only one by Germany the government of Petain.
Q: Then during the period of the worker's contract?
wither his own or that made for him, he was bound to his work, was he not?
A: Yes, he was not free in his decisions.
JUDGE BRAND: That is all I wanted. Thank you.
MR. LAFOLLETTE: Your Honor, please, when I left the prodium, my colleague handed me some material, when I said I finished. I would like to ask two questions, if I may.
Q: Do you remember receiving from a fireman in Nurnberg, named Weil, two pamphlers, one on the 22nd of December 1939 and the second on the 25th of January 1940, which ridiculed your radio remarks, and do you know that this man Weil was sentenced to death thereafter, and that you were the only person to whom he sent the pamphlets?
A: I remember that I received such pamphlets. They were less of a political, that of a personally diffamating character and had a strongly parnographic content. I heard later that the man had been sentenced to death, but not for the pamphlet he sent me but, if I remember correctly, for reasons of an espionage matter which had occurred in Luxembourg.
Q: Did you turn this pamphlet and this information over to the Gestapo?
A: Yes. That is the only pamphlet which I ever turned over to the Gestapo. It was so full of personal hatred that I turned it over and asked for an investigation, and, if possible, identification of the person who sent it to me.
Q: That was personal hatred, addressed to you?
A: I don't believe that it was just personal hatred against me, but that it was a rather general action. He did not know me personally. He had said, for instance, that at a Party rally in Nurnberg I had committed indecent things - and I have never attended a Nurnberg Party rally.
JUDGE BRAND: The time has arrived for our noon recess. We will recess until one-thirty this afternoon.
(The Tribunal recessed until 1330 hours)
Court No. III, Case No. 3.
AFTERNOON SESSION (The Tribunal reconvened at 1330 hours, 15 July 1947).
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed.
MR. LA FOLLETTE: Thank you.
HANS FRITZSCHE (Resumed) CROSS-EXAMINATION (Continued) BY MR. LA FOLLETTE:
Q Mr. Fritzsche, you said just before noon that the letter which you received from Weil, the pamphlet, constituted sabotage and was pornographic. I want to hand you the indictment in this case and ask you to read the charges of the indictment which describe the pamphlet so that the Court may determine what there is in this pamphlet that is pornographic.
Will you please begin with Roman numeral two?
A It is stated here in the Indictment--which I am seeing here today for the first time--under Roman numeral two, that the accused, on 22 December 1939 and on 23 January-
Q Just a moment; go a little slower, please, we must interpret.
A --and on 25 January 1940, sent to Ministerial Counsellor Fritzsche in the Reich Ministry of Propaganda, in Berlin, pamphlets with malicious atrocity statements, which he allegedly compiled with the support of persons of the same mentality, who have not been discovered. By these two malicious pamphlets he wished to express his antipathy for the National Socialist Reich and his dissatisfaction with existing conditions. His accomplices were a man whose name was supposed to be Manhardt, and another man whose name was supposed to be Wilfing. The accused says that he met those two accomplices by accident, as also being persons of Marxist opinions. As opponents of National Socialism, they had agreed to take steps against the State.
For the production of the larger pamphlet, of December 1939, and which consisted of a short accompanying letter and a pamphlet with Court No. III, Case No. 3.pictures from illustrated papers pasted in it, the accused also used pictures cut out of the journal "Deutsche Polizei" (The German Police). Furthermore, pictures were cut out of "Der Stuermer". The various pictures which he had cut out were put together and were supplied with malicious captions.
In that way the accused produced an account according to which German soldiers committed atrocities during the Polish campaign. Those atrocities which had been committed by the Poles and which had been published in the German press with pictures, appear in the malicious pamphlet by pretending, on the part of the accused, that these actions had been committed by the "bloodthirsty soldiery of the Fuehrer". Pictures of the Fuehrer addressing the Old Guard are supposed to have contained the text, "Adolf Hitler, the bloodthirsty man, the mouthpiece of the murderers", and "the Fuehrer and his bandits."
The picture of an orang-utan with helmet, which the enemy had used in propaganda against Germany during the war, appears in this malicious pamphlet with the caption, "Hitler's great grandfather." Adolf Hitler's antecedents are described as feeble-minded, lunatics, drunkards, criminals, and as weaklings. Under the caption "Chaotic Conditions in Germany", it is asserted in a despicable manner that Germans suffer hunger and are crying out for bread. The substituted text contains the question: "Does Goering, with his shape of a pig, also eat only the meat of mussels?"
At another place, pictures appear which show the Fuehrer in the company of leading personalities of the State, the Party, and the Armed Forces, and a text has been chosen such as, for example: "Providence has preserved the beasts for us", and "The two chief scoundrels will only live for a little while longer." "Look at the grimaces of the two pigs."
Q Excuse me, I think perhaps it would be expeditious if I permit you to read that indictment yourself and then read to the court anything that you consider to be pornographic, as you have stated before noon, you found in this pamphlet.
Court No. III, Case No. 3.
A While I was reading slowly, I have already glanced at the other pages, and I find that a pamphlet is mentioned here which I do not know, and those pamphlets which I actually received are not mentioned. No word is said here about pornographic matters.
Q You don't know, I assume, that in the clemency plea the defendant alleged, through his counsel, that you were the only person to whom he sent a pamphlet? I mean, if you don't know, you don't.
A No; not only do I not know, but I also think that it is quite out of the question that that assertion should be correct because it is contrary to several things to which I am able to testify about.
Q Were these matters related to your turning this pamphlet over to the Gestapo? You know that this man was executed.
That is in Exhibit No. 238, Your Honors.
A No, no, a connection between the pamphlets which this man sent to me and the death sentence which was passed on him later was expressly denied to me.
Q Do you know how the Gestapo learned of this, other than by your report?
A I received a notification about it.
Q You had a trial and were convicted before the Spruchkammer; is that right, Mr. Fritzsche?
A Yes.
Q What was the sentence?
A The sentence of the first instance, which does not yet have legal validity, was nine years in a Labor Camp.
Q In the trial before the Spruchkammer, did you report or testify that you had turned this pamphlet that you received from Weil over to the Gestapo?
A I do not know whether this case was mentioned at all there.
MR. LA FOLLETTE: That is all.
THE PRESIDENT: Re-direct examination by Dr. Schilf.
Court No. III, Case No. 3.
RE-DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHILF:
Q Herr Fritzsche, I would like to follow up the last point which Mr. La Follette put to you. Those pamphlets which you received, were they also sent to other persons, as far as you know?
A. Yes, they were. During the first few months of the war I regularly every two weeks received one pamphlet from Nuremberg. The sender, who remained anonymous, accused me of all sorts of things, things which were altogether absurd and which therefore from the outset were clearly recognizable as impossible, because they referred to the fact that I had been present at a Reich party rally, and I had never attended a Reich party rally. Those pamphlets became longer until one day I received a pamphlet which, according to my estimate, consisted of 10 pages in which there appeared pornographic drawings of figures with my photograph for a head. They were photographs which had been cut out of magazines. I was indignant about those pamphlets. I received, otherwise, large numbers of pamphlets. I estimate that during the first year of the war I received 30,000; 1,000 of which, at least, were against me. Thus, I was used to find expressions of strong opposition among my mail, but I was not used to seeing that type of personal attack. When I had received the extensive last mentioned pamphlet, I remember I called on Dr. Goebbels after I had first asked him to receive me, and then I showed him these things. I told him with indignation that I would allow myself to be attacked in a political manner; that was what I was there for; but I would not allow myself to be abused in a personal way. Dr. Goebbels looked at me for a long time and said, "You beginner." He then advised me to hand over the letters to the criminal police and to ask them to try to identify the sender. I did so and I added a request to the Criminal Police to the effect that if this man were to be identified I would like to be confronted with him and be able to argue with him in person. Only a few days later I was told by an official whose name I no longer remember that, accidentally, at the moment when he found those letters addressed to me on his desk, he had spotted the same handwriting on other anonymous letters addressed to other persons. For a considerable time I heard nothing more. If I remember rightly, I made several inquiries and spoke to the official concerned who told me that probably the sender was a mental case because the thing was so absurd.
A long time later I heard that the man -- I could not remember his name, for the first time today I saw the name Wild or Wilde in this document -- that the man had been arrested in connected with an espionage affair in Luxembourg and that he had been brought before a court. I made inquiries at once as to whether I could see the man and speak to him. I wanted him to enlighten me about those matters which he had sent to me at the time. I was refused my request. I never heard anything more about his further fate, and today I have seen the indictment for the first time. In this indictment against him two pamphlets sent to me are mentioned. Those pamphlets which are purely political content.
THE PRESIDENT: Just a minute. Apparently the attempt of the Prosecution went to nothing more than cross examination to credit and the Tribunal feels that there has been sufficient explanation in the absence of any contradiction of the witness to the testimony.
BY DR. SCHILF:
Q. I now would like to ask you about an entirely different point. You have heard that the President asked you whether the socalled Eastern workers, in particular the Poles, during the war here in Germany, were allowed to leave their place of work or not. Herr Fritsche, do you remember that already at the beginning of the war, and that in reference to German citizens a law was promulgated according to which every worker who intended to leave his place of work required a special permit from the authorities?
A. I did know that, and I also knew that similar laws existed in almost countries of the world during the war.
Q. I now come to my last question, Herr Fritsche. Mr. LaFollette asked you whether you received from any of the defendants here objections to propaganda doctrines. Mr. LaFollette left out of the defendants. That was Dr. Mettgenberg. Can you tell us something about that? Did Dr. Mettgenberg object?
A. Dr. Mettgenberg did not do so, either.
Q. Were you competent at all to answer objections to a propaganda doctrine on the part of the Minister?
A. I was not competent to answer objections to a propaganda doctrine of the Minister. However, very frequently objections were made to me against propaganda doctrines which I myself publicized, for I was in the eyes of the public only responsible for those things which I personally said over the radio.
DR. SCHILF: May it please the Court, I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness may be excused.
MR. LA FOLLETTE: If your Honor please, I ask that the indictment and clemency plea in this case be marked for identification Prosecution's Exhibit 533 and that we be given an opportunity to prepare them as a document.
THE PRESIDENT: The exhibit may be marked for identification Exhibit 533.
MR. LA FOLLETTE: I now offer the exhibit into evidence, subject to to right to prepare it in documentary form.
THE PRESIDENT: The exhibit will be received as part of the crossexamination. 533. Call your next witness. Dr. Schilf, has the witness Altmeyer been called here before? Has he testified before?
DR. SCHILF: No, Your Honor. Your Honor, may I say this, I am only going to cross examine the witness on the subject of Exhibit 441, that is NG 1307, Document Book 1, Supplement.
THE PRESIDENT: You propose cross examination only, as we understand it. However, if the witness is produced in Court as you propose to do, following the procedure which we have before had, I assume that any defense counsel who desires to make him their witness would be privileged to do so at this time.
MR. LA FOLLETTE: Yes.
DR. SCHILF: Your Honor, may I say something else? I am going to put to the witness Altmeyer, above all, Exhibit 252. That is the extensive list consisting of 142 pages, which contain the death sentences which were submitted for decision about the clemency plea to the Minister or to Klemm, the Undersecretary.
