The rule that one's sources for lustration must be quoted, in **** case this rule is fulfilled, as far as the pictures are concerned. So much for the appearance of this publication. You asked me about the effect. All I can say is that it is extremely clumsy propoganda. It has every symptom of most unfair propoganda too. On the first page, on the title page, the most primitive method is uded, typical of a certain type of efforts which wish to make things contempible. The method used is to show unshaven faces of men. That is a method which one has observed wants to make nice sympathetic faces of criminals. I always thought the method below comtempt and I, in my own shere and as far as my influence reached, always told people rot to use that primitive method. I should like to add one thing.
Q. Please do.
A. Moreover, the whole just a position of the pictures has bee exaggerated in so primitive a manner that any civilized person with any thought at all would no longer fell enlightened, but disgusted by it.
Q, You told us that this publication from the point of view of printing evern was not in accordance with the rules which asked for the editor's name to be given, You also said that its contents were not up to the level which you yourself expected from you own progogandistic efforts. Do you find this publication a typically amteurish one?
A. The term, extreme "amateurism", seems to me a bit strong in this case, but there is certainly a certain amount of amateurism there. I would agree with that.
Q. You said that you knew of similar publications. If you glance at what the publication says, you will find that essentially it deals with photographs from the Eastern Territories. Was the was these protographs are mounted, contrasted with one another, known to you from Soviet propoganda at that time?
A. The method of mounting pictures and photographs was invented, as far as I am able to judge, in Germany after 1918 and at that time it was used in internal propoganda very frequently.
At that time it was introduced, as far as I can recall by the extreme parties of the **** *** later on was also equally strongly taken over and borrowed by the extreme parties of the Right. In the war I saw quite a bit of Soviet propagana literature which also worked with the method of these mounted photographs, which were to give as frastic a contrast as possible.
Q. This publication is called "The Subman". Can you perhaps from your memory tell us something about how that term was coined? I seem to remember that when we listened to foreign broadcasts illegally at the time we were struck that the Russians had used the term, "The Soviet Man," perhaps as a matter of caricature or by distorting something in the political sphere of counter propagands, could one deduce from that the term "Subman", was a particular weapon in the Eastern propagana?
A. How that term, "Subman," was coined I am not in a position to give a statement under oath here. I did not know at what time this ugly term emerged in the political battle. It is entirely possible that it grew in the fight against other collective terminology, such as you mentioned just now. All I know is that some people who made speeches in Germany made extremely generous use, without any scruples, of the term, "Subman."
THE PRESIDENT: You might refer to Himmler when you say that.
THE WITNESS: I don't think--I do not recall that Himmler used that term particularly frequently, but I do recall a number of smaller speakers of the Party who made this term into a term of common daily use. In Hitler's speaches also this term would be used, but relatively infrequently. Speeches of Himmler, I do not know very many. I only recall two which I have road. He did not speak very often.
THE PRESIDENT: But he did use the term at least once or twice?
THE WITNESS: Himmler?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
THE WITNESS: Yes, certainly.
Q. Did you in any of the positions you have mentioned **** ** prsssion wer you, in fact, in a position to gian am impression of what kind of propagana was most accessible to the German people? What did you mean be skiffful propaganda? did you mean these extremely obvious and exaggerated things, or was your propaganda carried out a higher level?
A. It was always my observation that the German people would react to this exaggerated way in an entirely negative manner. With these exagerations and distortions you would address yourself only to a very small circle of people who were fanatical anyway and who in these exaggerated thing would see a confirmation of their views. Propaganda is not to be addressed to these who already share the view, but it is to reach those who are of a different opinion and for that purpose a book of this sort is not a good idea.
Q. In the dock here you see men who all of them belonged to the WVHA or were connected with it in some function or other. Did you in your propaganda work observe the activities of that office or of one of the defendants?
A. First, I do not recall ever having seen any of these defendants in this dock, except, of course, here in Nurnberg in the prison. Any propagana work on the part of the WVHA did not come to my knowledge while I was in any position.
Q. did you receive any information from the WVHA?
A. I never received any information or news from that office.
Q. Did the office take part in the press conferences? Did it send a representative? Perhaps you can tell us briefly about press conferences.
A. The press conferences were meeting of the representatives of all Ger newspapers which once a day, and, in the war, twice a day, were held in Berlin and the representative of the Government took part and later on also representatives of the Party. I do not remember having seen a re presentative of the WVHA at any of the press conference, but a representative of the RSHA was present and also quite a few representatives ** SD, the latter, at first anomenously and unknown to us, but alter on I insisted on their turning up in uniform in order to be indentified as such.
Q. Did you in your propaganda work have anything to do in any kind of a way with the concentration camps? Did you contact them and did you hear about them? Did you contact them and did you hear about them? Perhaps you might hear in mind that we are talking about a long period of time. The first concentration camps were established in 1933 and lasted until 1945.
4. I am aware of that. Yes, of course, I had knowledge that concentration camps had been established, and, needless to say, I and any other German journalist had to deal frequently with questions about concentration camps. Your question is so large that I would have to answer you at some lenght.
Q. I think this would be well worth our while.
A. The fact that concentration camps existed was officially announced and explained in 1933, as a temporary emergency measure was taken because of the political situation on the home fromt, a situation where we had a strong party on the Right facing an extremely strong Party on the Left, whereas the middle was weak.
In 1933 there were immediately rumors about mistreatment. When I investigated these rumors I met a journalist who had been committed to a concentration camp and whom I asked about his experiences. He did not want to talk, at first, but later on he said, making me promise first that I would not use his name, that he had seen how people had been beaten and how people had their fingers squeesed in doors. That had happened in the old concentration camp of Oranienburg in Berlinerstrasse. That piece of information, without giving the journalist's name -- I believe his name was Stolzenberg -- I passed on in a letter to the Reich Minister of the interior, to the Prussian Prime Minister and to Dr. Goebbels. I thereupon, after a very brief lapse of time, was rung up on the telephone by high civil servants of the Ministry of the Interior and the Prussian Prime Minister's Office, who told me that to is matter was going to be investigated; it was not the first one. Dr. Goebbels also interested himself in this matter and asked to be given more details. Shortly afterwards, the public relations man of the State Police Chief, Diehls, the press chief's name was Luctzow, and he described to me how these conditions had become possible -- that these camps had been improvised from one day to the next and that the Guard personnel were not the old policemen or trained personnel of that type, but men of the SA, quite simply men who had time to do this work, men who were not in a position, and among those there were extremely nasty types. Luetzow described to me that a number of penal cases had been opened, including one for murder against the man in charge of one of these improvised concentration camps. He assured me that Diehls in his position would do everything to terminiate this state of affairs. He visited me again a few weeks later and told me that these things had been done away with and that the concentration camps would be confined to a minimum and that from among about 20,000 inmates only about 2,000 were still in custody. This, I think happened in the winter from 1933 to 1934. After that the problem of the concentration camps which had excited the German public mind receded be the background fora number of years.
Descriptions came in from abroad spread by refugees who had told of their experiences in concentration camps. Every single one of these descriptions which I got hold of I passed on for investigation to the Chief of the RSHA of his public relations officer or the Ministry of the Interior or later on to the RSHA.
Q. May I just interrupt you. Did you pass anything on to the WVHA in that respect, or only to the RSHA?
A. At that time only to the RSHA.
Q. Pray continue.
A. The problem of concentration camps became extremely topical early in the war when a large number of new arrests were made. Thereupon I asked the man then in charge of the Gestapo, Heydrich, to address the home and foreign journalists. I told him that his lecture would be without any point unless he had been prepared to answer questions in an open discussion put to him by foreign journalists. we had to negotiate for some considerable time about this and finally Heydrich made up his mind to do it. He gave a talk to the German and foreign journalists and he answered their questions. He described the concentration camps in factual and adequate manner. He asserted Mat the conditions there were correct and the most important point, and the point which impressed foreign journalists most, was his statement that the number of those arrested at the beginning of the war and committed to concentration camps was not any bigger than the figure of inmates of prisons prior to 1933. He also said that a large number of the concentration camp inmates were not political prisoners, but criminal ones. In the course of the war there was extremely active propaganda from foreign countries about atrocities in concentration camps. I had all these reports collected and had them investigated with such means as I had in my competence and in a very credible manner I was always assured at that time that there was not one gram of truth in all these reports.
Q. Just a moment please. Who told you this? To whom did you talk, do you remember?
A. Regierungsrat Koerber worked on this propagana; who it was in the RSHA. that he contacted I don't know. When I myself rang somebody up I talked to people like Mueller or Ohlendorf or people like that. I don't recall any other names at the moment. Of course, it was evidently desirable to obtain information over and above these things. I therefore made efforts to hear something from the circle of those who were concerned with the management of concentration camps. I wanted, as it were, uncensored news from them. I contacted the SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Radtke who worked in Himmler's office in the SS Main Office, SS Hauptamt. I asked him when I heard, for example, that he had made a trap through various concentration camps, to give me his impressions. This must have occurred early in 1942. He described to me that the accommodations in the camps were defenitely good; food was adequate; and that the state of health was entirely satisfactory. It was only in one camp, he said, and I know today that this was Mauthausen, that he saw extremely heavy work done in a quarry, in a stone quarry these were the essentials of his report. I myself endeavored not to go to a concentration camp, -- when you visit prison you never see the truth. I endeavored to contact concentration camp inmates when I saw them in the street or at some site of work an ask them questions. I did this in dozens of cases. I consistently heard without exception the complaint that their custody was unjustified; as far as food and billets were concerned, I did not hear any complaints. Mistreatment I was told nothing about, but always the fact that they had been deprived of their freedom was complained of and strong protests were made.
A new element appeared in the whole problem of concentration camps at the moment when the foreign reports about atrocities in concentration camps were no longer of a general nature but became quite suddenly most detailed and specific. Such detailed news about atrocities in concentration camps came from abroad to Germany for the first time in 1944. At that time the Russians asserted that there were gas chambers for the purpose of killing human beings. Other details also were given.
Q Just a moment, it's not gas chambers but gas wagons or vans.
A It was alleged that these gas wagons had been found in Charkov. At that moment I, and probably many others, were no longer satisfied with the simple denials. We attempted rather to go to the bottom of this. In this connection I talked to a number of persons, one of whom, as I know today, was a member of the WVHA. I did not know that at the time. This was Obergruppenfuehrer Gluecks. He also gave me extremedetailed information, thereby attempting to make me believe that this Russian news was invented. I saw Gluecks for a second time in connection with the question of whether or not it was true that inmates were killed in concentration camps as the enemy approached. In the most solemn manner he assured me that this was not so; and he gave me examples of evacuations of concentration camps when the enemy approached. He also told me that orders had been issued to have the inmates of the camps, especially the criminal ones, kept together and surrendered to the enemy in a close unit. Gluecks is the only member of the WVHA with whom I had any contacts.
Q Witness, you gave us the impression which you formed after your investigations and information received about concentration camps. Is that the picture which you passed on as you worked on your propaganda work?
A Of course I passed on the picture which I had formed. This was the basis of all that which I included in my descriptions about conditions in Germany.
Q While you were in Nurnberg, during you experiences in *** I.M.T. and in the later trials, you probably have changed your mind; the picture must now look somewhat different and deviate from the one you just now have given us. Looking back, you must reproach yourself for not having seen through things more clearly earlier? Or what is your explanation for the fact that you did not do so and that you could not form the Correct picture as we know today?
A The question of whether I should reproach myself because I believed these things has been on my mind for many months and almost years. The result which I have reached is that at that time I did not have any possibility of finding the truth behind the truth. I must apologize if I give the reason quite openly. The final reason is that I saw in the reports which I was in a position to recognize as false that I saw no reason to believe the remainder of the news which I was not in a position to check up on with my own eyes.
May I be quite clear? May I give an example? A certain foreign broadcasting station passed on the information that there were food riots in Dortmund. All I had to do was to telephone Dortmund to learn that no such trouble had occurred there! that there had been no unrest. In order to give you a particularly grotesque example, a foreign station reported that Berliners had been starving to such an extent that they had shot down the sea-gulls over the Spree so that there were no more seagulls in Berlin. With my own eyes I saw, of course, that this was wrong. Another example: It was reported that 10,000 Czechs had been arrested at the beginning of the war, these including the Lord Mayor of Prague. I sent a large number of journalists to Prague, who interviewed the Lord Mayor. He had not been arrested. These were reports the incorrectness of which I could check up on immediately; and therefore it was only too comprehensible that the things which I could not check up on from my own observation I did not believe either.
Furthermore, it is my conviction that the atrocious conditions which have become the topic of these trials today occurred only at a later period of time. They occurred, that is--and this is what is so important--at a period of time when the German people were living the burden of air-raids and the various other hardships of war-time conditions so that they could not be bothered with problems which did not touch upon their daily life.
In that period of time when the worst things occurred in the concentration camps, people were interested only in what was confined to their own daily needs.
Q When you received your information about concentration camps, did you hear anything particular about foreigners in concentration camps; or, from what you heard, were you of the opinion that on the whole the concentration camps were an instrument to keep law and order at home?
A When I was a Russian prisoner-of-war, it was an extreme surprise to hear for the first time that foreigners and prisonersof-war had also been in concentration camps. I did not know that up to that moment.
DR. HAENSEL: Thank you very much. I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Are there questions by other defense counsel or by the prosecution?
CROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. ROBBINS:
Q Witness, you were immediately under Dr. Goebbels, were you not? You were his immediate subordinate?
A I was not his immediate subordinate. Between him and myself there were several agencies, later on one or two.
Q You were under Goebbels in his capacity as the Reich Minister for Propaganda?
A Yes.
Q At the same time he was the Reich Propaganda Director of the Nazi Party, was he not?
A Yes, indeed.
Q. He was also the Gauleiter of Berlin?
A Yes.
Q So you are familiar with the propaganda that Dr. Goebbels put out?
A I had sufficient time to observe it; but I cannot say that I know every single detail of what he published in the proganda line.
Q You say that this magazine that has been printed by the Nordland Publishing Company is worse than anything that Dr. Goebbels put out?
A I wouldn't say that. I would say something else. It is entirely possible that Dr. Goebbels somewhere or other would use equally obvious methods in his propaganda as does this publication; but his real line was much more subtle, and he would not use methods of that sort.
Q Fritsche, you have pointed out several irregularities in the printing of this magazine. You don't come to the conclusion from those irregularities, do you, that the magazine was never published and approved by the SS?
A I am quite sure that this pamphlet, as I'd like to call it. was published and certainly circulated. All I am saying is that it was not published in accordance with the regulations which were in force at the time. No one else but the SS could have afforded to publish a pamphlet like that without giving the name of the responsible person.
Q Did you see any other propaganda that was put out by the SS?
A Of course, I saw some I don't remember at this point definite ones.
Q Did you see any propaganda put out by the SS that is similar to the magazine that you have in your hand?
A The tendency of this magazine is to contain very much typical SS propaganda, only they didn't usually go so far.
Q Isn't it true, Fritsche, that the terms "uebermensch" and "untermensch," that is, "super-human" and "sub-human," were first made popular by Nietzsche?
A The expression "super-man" without a doubt. The term "sub-man" I do not recall have come across in Nietzsche.
Q You would say, wouldn't you, that this magazine follows the general theories of Nietzsche in contrasting the super-man with the sub-human?
A No, I think this is a simplification which I don't think is quite proper.
Q You told us, I believe, that you knew that political prisoners were in the concentration camps?
A What I said was that I did not -- Oh, I'm sorry, political. I thought you meant foreigners. I knew that political prisoners were in concentration camps, yes.
Q Did you think that all of the political prisoners had been given a trial?
A That is a question which at a very early period of time I tried to clear up. I always went back to it. Diehls, was the first man responsible for the State Police, stated expressly that he had create laws which made it impossible for people to be committed to concentration camps without interrogation or trial for a period over and above a certain specified period of a few days. Later on I recall that the most important question put to Heydrich at the press conference which I have mentioned was the one: "Is it possible for people to vanish in concentration camps?" His answer was that he had created a machine whereby the files of every political prisoner, every single one, would be reviewed every three months and a new decision arrived at as to whether he was to remain in custody or not.
Q I still don't have an answer to my question. Did you believe that all of the political inmates in the concentration camps, or even a big part of them, had been given some sort of judicial hearing?
A No.
Q. Did you know anyone yourself who had been in a concentration camp?
A. Quite a few, yes.
Q. Did you know of anyone who had vanished in a concentration camp?
A. I knew a number of men who had been in a concentration camp; and I talked to them afterwards.
Q. Did you know of anyone who disappeared in a concentration camp and was never heard of again?
A. No.
Q. You knew, did you not, that the Jews were disappearing from the streets; they were vanishing from sight in the cities?
A. I know that.
Q. You knew that the mortality rate of the Jews in so-called ghettoes was abnormally high?
A. No, I did not know that.
Q. You don't recall that you gave that testimony to the I.M.T.?
A. It is entirely possible that I gave this information in the framework of along description. If I recall all of this to my mind, I must give you a description of at least four or five sentences. I was in a position to observe the vanishing of Jews.
Q. Excuse me, that could be observed by anyone who lived in any large city, couldn't it?
A. Of course, anyone.
Q. To where were you told that the Jews were being taken?
A. Into special areas, into districts which had been thrown open to the Jews. In the Government General I heard of Theresienstadt. Theresienstadt was not described to me as a concentration camp but as a city which was thrown open to the Jews. Those special areas which were located in the then Government General were also not concentration camps but areas of the size of provinces. I obtained information about them as well.
One of my former colleagues told me. This man was Ob******** srat Kuehl, who was asort of district councillor in Bialla-Podlaska. He described to me how he made every effort to have those Jews who came to him from the Reich accommodated and given some work.
Q. I should like to ask you just one or two additional questions. You heard, didn't you, about the order, which applied to the German troops as they were advancing through Russia, that the Jewish intelligentsia was to be killed?
A. I did not quite get the beginning of the sentence.
Q. You heard about the order that was given to the troops as they were going through Russia, that it would be permissible to kill the Jews and particularly the so-called Jewish intelligentsia? Witness, I want to shorten this examination as much as possible; and if you will just give me a very brief answer, if you can, and answer the question with or no.
A. I cannot answer that question with yes or no.
Q. Well, give me a very brief answer, will you?
A. I cannot answer the question yes or no for one reason, which must be known to you, Mr. Prosecutor. I know one order that Jewish and Ukrainian intelligentsia must be killed. I have given detailed statements about this order; but you put this order in connection with the phrase about its being issued to German soldiers. That is not the case.
Q. To whom was it issued then?
A. An SS officer in the Ukraine of a medium rank who lost his nerve when he received the order fell ill and wrote to me from the institution to which he was sent. He knew me only by name and asked me to take care of these frightful problems and settle them. When I received that letter -- it must have been in February or March of 1942 -I called up Heydrich, asked him for an interview, went and saw him, and asked him most excidedly whether it was the purpose of the SS to kill Jewish and Ukrainian intellectuals. He showed every symptom of indignation and wanted to know how I had heard this.
I did not give the name o* *** man who wrote the letter. I merely described the conditions.
His reply was roughly this: He, Heydrich, had put small SS units at the disposals of Ministers, Governor Generals, and Reich Commissioners. Some abuses had been committed with these guards. Gauleiter Koch had used the SS unit put at his disposal in a very particular manner.
Q. What do you mean by "in a very particular manner"?
A. In order to carry out such killings. Heydrich said that he would investigate these things at once and that I would hear from him again. This conversation took place on Friday afternoon. On Saturday afternoon I received a telephone call from Heydrich from his headquarters. He told me that Gauleiter Koch had confirmed issuing an order of that sort to the SS unit. Koch asserted that Hitler had given him the order. Heydrich said that Hitler could not have been consulted yet but that he would keep me posted. On Monday, two lays later, Heydrich called me again and asked if I would please come to see him. He had returned to Berlin. I looked him up in Prinz-Albrechtstrasse. He then described to me in detail that Hitler had strongly denied having issued an order of that sort to Koch, an order, that is, that Jewish and Ukrainian intellectuals should be killed. Koch had been told that the whole thing was a misunderstanding. The words concerned were "elliminate and exterminate."
Q. Whether or not Hitler issued the order, it was confirmed to you that Koch had used the SS for exterminating Jews? That's what Heydrich told you; is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. Then did you also hear of an order that was issued to the SS that the captured Soviet Commissars were to be shot?
A. I have heard of an order that Commissars should be shot once they were captured. It was not addressed to the SS, however, but to the Wehrmacht.
Q. Do you know whether that order was carried out or not?
A. I can't give you any information about that because on the day when I heard of the existence of this order, which was in May of 1942. I made every effort to have this order rescinded; and it was rescinded. Simultaneously I was told that although the order had been given, it had not been carried out.
Q. Do you remember that you testified at the IMT that you did not know whether it had been carried out?
A. Very possibly in my memory I confused it with a statement which Paulus made here. Paulus about whose Army I heard of the order. Paulus in the IMT trial emphasized that this order had never been carried out by his unit.
Q. I believe that you testified at the IMT trial that if you had known about the policy of the Reich to exterminate Jews, that you would not have continued to work in your position for a single hour. I should like to know just what you would have done had you found out a bout the order. Excuse me, first let me ask you this. You do know from the evidence that you heard there in the IMT that there was such a policy of the extermination of the Jews, do you not?
A. I know that from the evidence in the IMT.
Q. And you also know that many of the atrocities which you specified yourself at the time didn't occur, actually did occur; that the inmates were fed inadequately; that they were mistreated and killed. Do you know that?
A. I know that today, yes.
Q. And you knew as early as 1941 or '42 that the Action Reinhardt took place?
A. D do not know what Action Reinhardt is?
Q. You did not hear about that in the IMT?
A. I don't recall the Reinhardt Action - I don't know. No, I don't remember it.
Q. Do you remember hearing in the IMT, and do you know today that thousands of Jews were killed in the Warsaw actions, in the Ghettos?
A. Yes.
Q. And do you know that in 1941, 1942 and 1943 Hoess was killing millions of Jews there at Auschwitz from higher orders?
A. I myself listened to his statement.
Q. Now will you tell me, witness, what steps you would have taken had you known about these things. You say you would not have worked an additional hour. Just what would you have done?
A. I have deliberated on that question for years, and all I can say in reply is I would not have sat down at my desk, in order to make a conspiracy for years from which nothing arose later, I would have taken a gun and would have shot the can down who had given the order.
Q. And would you have resigned from your own position?
A. Please?
Q. You would have resigned from your own position if you could not have stopped the program?
A. I said before I would have done something much more drastic.
Q. I am asking you, if your steps had not stepped the program, you would have stayed in your position?
A. No.
Q. Would you have found some way to have been relieved of your work, is that correct?
A. Undoubtedly.
MR. ROBBINS: I have no further questions.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Herr Fritsche, I would like to ask you a question. I was interested in your statement that pamphlets similar to the one placed before you were distributed and circulated among the German people; that they even became popular; if they became popular, then it must be assumed that they were well liked, and, if they were well liked, then we must assume that the German people approved this ghastly contrast between the unfortunate people and the more fortunate people. Now I don't understand, and I would be happy if you could enlighten me of what happened to the German mentality that it could observe so unfair comparison and not be filled with revulsion, or more than that, perhaps have sympathy for the so called sub-human beings rather than antipathy?
THE WITNESS: May I answer your question at some length?
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Well, at some length?
THE WITNESS: I shall choose about five or six sentences, five or six sentences.
THE PRESIDENT: We will recess.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.
(recess)
EXAMINATION BY JUDGE MUSMANNO:
Q Have you thought out the answer?
A Yes, I have Your Honor. I requested that I might put down my answer in more detail because the question touches the psychological core of the German problem.
First of all, I want to look at the technical aspect.
Q Let me say, Herr Fritsche, that I am tremendously interested in the answer that you will give me, and, as much as I would like to listen to a very learned treatsie, which I am sure you could give us, please don't make it too long.
A I shall give it to you in a few sentences. First of all, I want to touch on the technical subject. I believe that the assumption prevails that this literature was sold and that it was bought by many people. However, I do not thick this was the case, believe that, since there is no price stated on this booklet, this pamphlet was printed in a very large number and that it was given away.
The question of why the German people tolerated things of that nature, I can only answer by saying that in 1918 or 1919 something of that sort could not have happened in Germany. It became possible only after a certain opposition group started to fight a radical battle. That is an important sign of National Socialism-that it would admit its own brutality. However, at the same time, it would state that this brutality was necessary in order to overcome the brutality of the opponents.
Even in the street fighting and the wild political meetings which took place, riots occurred. Prior to 1933, Communists and National Socialists we e rejected in equally the same manner because of their radical methods. Then however, National Socialism was not brutal in its characteristics, but only in the methods and the means which it employed.
I do not know whether I have expressed myself clearly.